By Cory Armstrong-Hoss / Herald Forum
“Rosie, look, I know you’re about to go up to bat. I’ve just got one favor to ask you.”
“What?” says Rosie, a 7-year-old slugger on our Lightening Bolts softball team.
“I know you’ve been hitting bombs. Just don’t break my windshield in the parking lot.”
Rosie swung a big bat. No matter how many times I made that joke, she always laughed.
I miss coaching.
I miss the Lightning Bolts, the Huskies and Giants, the Golden Dragons and Lemonheads. I miss the Flaming Dragons, Purple Seahawks, and Silver Stars. I miss the team names, chosen by my players, that sounded like equal parts goofy and mythical.
After soccer practices at Explorer Middle School, CeCe and her teammates would feed goats through a chain-link fence with torn-off ivy leaves. Then she’d climb into the truck, peel off her socks, shin guards and cleats, her sweaty feet stinking up the cab. I’d roll down the windows, turn on Taylor Swift and ask about her day.
For 13 years the back of my old Subaru Forester or, more recently, my beat-up 2006 Toyota Tacoma was filled with mesh bags of soccer balls or basketballs, or huge black Little League equipment bags and a tee or a spring-loaded pitching machine. A couple rogue water bottles — left by players at the last practice — rolled around in the back when I turned, knocking into a beat-up cardboard box filled with extra uniforms, photo forms or end-of-season medals.
Some moments made the whole season. Parents handed off a skeptical 7-year-old at the first practice. She’d never played on a team, never competed, never trusted a grown-up with a whistle. But then came name games, sharks-and-minnows dribbling drills, team cheers, and the slow thaw of suspicion. A month later, she scored her first goal. Her parents erupted on the sideline, and her teammates mobbed her. An athlete was born.
Like my Dad before me, I coached for my kids; and for that kid. The one on the bubble. The one who might not try again if I mess this up. That kid is one of the main reasons I put up goals in the rain and get up for early Saturday morning games. If I can turn her from wary to wild, from timid to free, I’ve done more than coach. I’ve helped her discover something that was already there, but needed a chance to come alive.
I don’t coach anymore. Not right now.
My kids have chosen sports that I never played or that exceeded my knowledge. I can’t teach the butterfly stroke, how to set a volleyball to an outside hitter, or proper finger placement for a curveball or a slider.
Toward the end, something hardened in me, during the rush to pick up CeCe, the sprint across Everett to practice, the set-up and take down. It wasn’t the parents who cared too much that wore me down. I could handle the sideline strategists and the hyper-competitive assistant coaches, diffuse them with humor or channel their energy.
It’s the ones who didn’t care enough. The ones whose players missed half our practices and many of the games, who treated our team’s schedule like a suggestion. Their indifference was like sandpaper to my spirit.
Eventually, my reservoir of goodwill ran dry. It’s one thing to care a lot. It’s another to care too much, particularly about a rec sport. I needed a break.
But now, a couple years later, I think I’m getting it back: the juice, the desire to make practice plans and game line-ups. To set up cones on damp grass and hustle to run drills on crisp fall afternoons, as sunset becomes earlier and earlier. To make that shy kid laugh. To ride home as my daughter, sweaty and tired, asks why we can’t have practice every night.
Cory Armstrong-Hoss lives in Everett with his wife and three kids. His kids have played nine different sports. He’s a lifelong athlete, and he’s served as a coach, ref, and youth sports administrator. Find him at substack.com/@atahossforwords.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
