Great Days: it was the Wednesday before graduation and my parents and sister were in town to witness the miracle of the awarding of my diploma. NU graduation has two parts — Friday with your college to receive your diploma and Saturday with the University to get inspired by some famous speaker. That night at dinner I said to my parents, “I have a conflict with Saturday’s event”. Spring of my senior year I coached Little League baseball. My favorite coaching age is 8-9 year olds — the coach is still the pitcher, the players are about a year from real tryouts and it’s an important year for building resilience and sportsmanship. Only two of the moms asked me out on a date (that’s another story). Every Saturday morning at 7:45am, my boy Mike drove me to the fields and then sat with the Moms in the stands, drinking his Big Gulp and talking smack about me to see what people would say. He had his sport, I had mine. Leading up to graduation I asked the parents if any could sub in for me on graduation day. I got a couple of “yesses”, but not one parent could get the ball over the plate. We tried. It was mostly Dads who came to the practice, and the eight pitch maximum per player averaged out to about 0.4 addressable pitches per up.
So I told my parents I needed to coach. Saturday rolled around, I pitched, my Dad coached first, my Mom kept score, my sister slept in and graduation became a day to remember.