The Newsy Neighbour Magazine
February Issue 112
Article Provided By: Chris Sperry
In Nashville, Tennessee, during
the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended
upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA's convention.
While I waited in line to register with
the hotel staff, I heard veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers
scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept
resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh man,
worth every penny of my airfare.”
Who is John Scolinos, I wondered? No
matter; I was just happy to be there. In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old
and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He
shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester
pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate
hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.
Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy?
After speaking for twenty-five minutes,
not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared
to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach
Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had
simply forgotten about home plate since he’d got on stage.
Then, finally:
“...You’re probably all wondering why
I’m wearing home plate around my neck,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I
laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. “I may be old,
but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you
baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home
plate in my 78 years.” Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many
Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in
Little League?”
After a pause, someone offered,
“Seventeen inches?”, more of a question than answer.
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in
Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?” Another long pause.
“Seventeen inches?” a guess from
another reluctant coach.
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now,
how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot
up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school
baseball?”
“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding
more confident.
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And
you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.
“Any Minor League coaches here? How
wide is home plate in pro ball?” ... “Seventeen inches!”
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how
wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?” ... “Seventeen inches!”
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his
voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher
who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!”
he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. “What they don’t do is this: they don’t
say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make
it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have
a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can
make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'”
Pause. “Coaches…” pause, "... what
do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules
forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught
drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do
we widen home plate?” The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand
coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold.
He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw
something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed,
complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our
homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our
discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no
consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”
Pause. Then, to the point at the top of
the house he added a small American flag. “This is the problem in our schools
today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have
been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and
discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where
is that getting us?”
Silence. He replaced the flag with a
Cross. “And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in
positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have
such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening
home plate for themselves! And we allow it.”
“And the same is true with our government.
Our so-called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves.
They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us.
And we allow them to widen home plate and we see our country falling into a
dark abyss while we watch.”
I was amazed. At a baseball convention
where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run
better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man
with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life,
about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a
leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be
right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an
undesirable path.
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos
concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this:
if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know
to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same
standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do
not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail
to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to
look forward to ...” With that, he held home plate in front of his chest,
turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, “... dark days ahead!”
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age
of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches,
including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year
after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He
is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than
a baseball coach. His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players—no matter
how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most
of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches."
And this, my friends, is what our
country has become and what is wrong with it today... and how to fix it!!
"Don't widen the plate!"
© Chris Sperry
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