More Than Softball: My Dad’s Legacy, My Parents’ Love, and the Coaches Who Shaped Us

What people have a hard time believing is that I never played softball for my dad. He was never my head coach. When Dad started coaching, I was already playing on a rec league team. I didn’t even start playing softball until fifth grade, and I didn’t want to leave my team. So, Dad coached my younger sister, Tab, who played for the “Stars,” while I played for the “Lassies.”

It all seems so long ago, but at the same time, it feels like yesterday.

Dad simply fell in love with coaching and the kids. Before long, he was deeply involved in the Shenandoah rec league. I can remember being out at the fields with five-gallon buckets, picking up rocks. Wow, were there a lot of rocks!

The old stadium in Shenandoah was where softball was played back then, and those fields were in rough shape. We spent evenings and weekends trying to make them better. Dad took the knowledge and skills he had gained working as a landscape manager at JMU and put them to work on those fields. There was plenty of rock removal, dirt moving, and sod laying during my years in rec league.

Some of my very best childhood memories were made there. Field 2 now has a sign bearing my dad’s name. I don’t think I will ever go to that field without picking up a rock, throwing it off the field, and thinking about my childhood with Dad. It may seem like such a small thing, but to me, it is one of the most special ways to remember him.

When I played rec ball, I was a pitcher, but back then, we played slow pitch, and yes, the softballs were white! Dad knew I wanted to pitch in high school, so he started studying and watching videos about fast-pitch softball. Then he would have me watch them with him, and we would go out and practice. And practice. And practice some more.

Somewhere along the way, Dad discovered a true passion for coaching pitchers, and he was damn good at it.

Even after my sister and I went on to high school, Dad continued coaching rec ball in Shenandoah. He just loved that league and those kids. Coaching was never something he did simply to fill his time. It was something he poured his heart into.

After I graduated, I started helping Dad coach. He had some of the very best players, and one special group always comes to mind. Brian Hendricks, affectionately known as “Big Daddy,” was part of that group and eventually became a coach alongside Dad.

Then Dad changed Shenandoah rec softball forever when he signed the charter that brought the league into the Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth League organization. That meant our softball teams would begin playing fast pitch. I can tell you without a doubt that this helped lay the groundwork for the success Page County High School softball would go on to experience.

Dad wasn’t just coaching a team. He was helping build a foundation for generations of players who would come after him.

The Pitching Coach Who Asked for Nothing in Return

Dad began giving pitching lessons for free in Shenandoah at an old building that had a batting cage inside. It was nothing fancy. It was beat-up, run-down, and absolutely freezing in the winter.

Every Sunday, Dad would spend the entire day down there. He kept a full schedule, and most of the time, he wouldn’t even leave to eat lunch. He missed some of our own family functions, or we learned to schedule around his Sundays because we knew how important those girls were to him.

He coached so many outstanding pitchers in that little building, including pitchers who went on to win state championships. He helped build them from the ground up.

Dad could be tough. Really tough. He expected those girls to work hard, listen, and give everything they had. But underneath that toughness was a man who loved them and wanted to see them succeed. His players trusted him, respected him, and loved him because they knew how much he believed in them.

You don’t see many coaches these days who will spend every Sunday giving individual pitching lessons for free, asking for nothing in return. But that was Dad. He took pride in his girls, and he loved watching them grow. Their success was his success.

He gave them his time, his knowledge, and his heart. And he never needed to be paid for any of it.

That was just who he was.

When Dad Became Bailee’s Pitching Coach :

When my own daughter, Bailee, started playing softball, she decided at just six years old that she wanted to be a pitcher. Dad, however, wasn’t ready to give her lessons yet. He told her she was too young.

When she was around seven, he finally started working with her a little at a time.

Whew! The fights that took place in that building were epic!

Dad loved that girl with a passion, but he also had incredibly high expectations for her. He wanted her to work hard, and at seven years old, that was something she hadn’t quite figured out yet. She and Dad could go head-to-head like nobody’s business.

Thank you, Amy !