Wit and Wisdom from an 8 year old

My son J.T., who is 8 years old going on 26.

I now realize I have made a major mistake by not carrying a tape recorder with me for the last few years. There are many reasons but the main one is the fact that I have forgotten a large percentage of the utterances of my eight-year-old third son.

I could fill a book but, due to my shortage of short-term memory skills, his latest statements will be confined to one column. And for one of the first times in history, I have asked one of my family members for permission to write about them in a column. Fortunately J.T. has agreed to be this week’s subject.

Exhibits number one and two occurred on a recent trip to Carowinds. It was just J.T. and me, a father-son day. We were geared up to ride any and every roller coaster that eight years old of height would allow on the measuring stick located at the entrance of each ride. The child fared well but the dad struggled on the very first set of twists and turns.

Within an hour I felt like I had the flu, stomach virus, and a migraine headache combined. Not wanting to disappoint the chap, I kept on riding. Finally I had to plop down on a bench with my head in my hands. Says the kid, “We’ll sit here as long as you need, Daddy, and then I’ll find us a roller coaster to ride that will make your head feel better.”

A few minutes later, when we paused to watch a small snake swimming our direction in one of those fake rivers they have at theme parks, he said, “Let’s be moving on. This is starting to make me feel a little unsecure.”

Exhibit number three displayed itself when I was making a sandwich for the little guy. As I was unwrapping a piece of one of those individual plastic cheese slices, he politely announced, “Please don’t tear the edges of the cheese while you’re unwrapping it- you know I’m sensitive about these things.”

I took the lad to a ballgame with me recently. He agreed to go if I would get him some Dr. Pepper and take him out to eat after the game. While pulling into the Golden Corral parking lot afterwards, the child produced exhibit number four when he remarked, “Well, I guess my Old Man can take care of me after all.”

Exhibit number five occurred during a recent video game we were playing together at home. After repeated failures, the eight-year-old sighed and said, “We used to be able to beat that level. I sure do miss those good ole’ days.”

While riding together recently, J.T. and I began to discuss marriage and family issues. Advised a wise father, “Pick out a good woman to marry. The most important thing is that she’s a good person.” Replied the child, “Yes, and I’ll make sure I marry one who doesn’t bark at me.” Oh, the wisdom of exhibit number six.

Of course there are more exhibits which have escaped J.T’s Old Man’s memory. But the best one was on the ride home from our day at Carowinds. An eight-year-old boy laughed at one of my lame jokes and then replied, “Thanks Daddy, for spending all this time with me.” The pleasure was all mine.

Johnny and Brenda Stroupe in 1958 and 2008.

Statistically speaking, their chances were slim. Marriages where either of the folks involved is a teenager have low survival rates. Johnny asked Brenda to marry him before she graduated high school.

She had barely finished saying yes when the U.S. Army declared it was shipping Johnny to France for two years. Heartbroken, he informed his fiancé that marriage would have to wait. I don’t know what all happened next, but I think Brenda invited herself to tag along to Europe. The wedding date was moved up to accommodate Uncle Sam.

So within a few days of her high school graduation, Brenda married her knight in shining armor, waved goodbye as he headed overseas, and hopped on a plane to join him a few weeks afterwards.

Thirteen months later, along came boy number one. Eventually they returned to the States, where boy number two happened a few years later. I am proud to be boy number two.

Over the years, people have asked my parents about the secret to their marital success. Mom mentions love, respect, patience, and those sorts of things. On one occasion, Dad was asked to describe Mom in three words. His answer is still the best I’ve ever heard- he said: “Perfect For Me.”

For various reasons, only one in every twenty marriages lasts until a fiftieth anniversary. At 5 p.m. on June 8, 2008, my parents had been married exactly fifty years. And much of the town of Cherryville was there to celebrate the occasion with them in the fellowship hall of my home church.

I put together a video that played during the anniversary celebration. Fifty years of photographic memories set to music. It took a long time to cut, paste, scan, edit, and piece together. But it was certainly a labor of love. At one point as the reception died down, I put my arms around my mom and slow-danced with her as we watched the slideshow and the music softly played. It was my favorite moment of the day and I shall never forget it.

There was lots of food- especially that of the cake variety-, lots of laughter, some sentimental tears, and too many friends and relatives to count. I guess when you spend most of fifty years in the same town, in the same church, in the same marriage, you acquire a number of close acquaintances.

Most of my heroes growing up were either sports stars or famous military generals. I’ve watched them perform and read their books page after page searching for inspiration. And often I have found it.

But now that I am forty-four years old, I have discovered that the greatest role models and the most inspirational figures in my life were the parents who I shared a home with during my youth. Intentionally or not, they provided me with the finest examples a boy could have ever observed as they revealed how to love, respect, and cherish each other every day.

Theologians debate as to what extent matches are made in Heaven. But if such a department does exist in the heavenly realm, the very angels in charge of the operation decided fifty years ago last week to reach down and gently touch the hearts of Johnny and Brenda Stroupe. And for that I am forever grateful.

Tournament takes toll on coach more than players

Pranks like placing gum on a rookie's cap occur often during contests where the tension is high but the atmosphere is loose among players.

If you tuned in last week, you will remember that the college baseball team I coach recently competed in a championship tournament down in Florida. Despite being underdogs, we clawed and fought our way to the championship game, eventually losing to the top-seeded team in fifteen innings.

But alas, there are stories to be told that don’t end up in the sports sections of newspapers. And I promised I would clue you in on some of the idiosyncrasies involved in the conduct of such a championship tournament run.

Having experienced it from both angles, rest assured it is a hundred times easier to play in championships than it is to coach in them. During our amazing five day run, I slept about as much as fraternity pledges do during Rush week. My king size bed had five pillows, none of which induced sleep. I discovered that the power of the jitters is stronger than the strength of Tylenol PM and a wide-open air conditioner combined.

Hotel rooms get smaller each day during a tournament. And the complimentary shampoo provided makes your hair stick out like a porcupine’s after a few days. No baseball coach or player would jinx his team by packing for five days. Superstition reigns in baseball. Consequently, we all ran out of clean clothes by day three.

Personally I washed my clothes by placing them in the shower with me. Underwear, undershirts, mesh shorts, and socks joined me under the spray on several occasions. To my chagrin the drain clogged one day, but thankfully I repaired it myself while wearing my birthday suit, which incidentally needs a good dry cleaning.

After the shower, I cleverly hung my wet clothes by the air conditioner. Unfortunately when I returned from breakfast, the entire room smelled like half-clean wet socks.

The worst part of a game is the idle time leading up to it. You can’t eat or drink but somehow your body still wants to go to the bathroom 35 times a day, which may explain why I slimmed fast and lost five pounds during the tournament.

I’m not a gum guy but I chewed two entire packs of Wrigley’s something or other during one particularly stressful game. I’m certain some of my hair fell out and of what remains, I suspect some visible graying occurred when I wasn’t paying attention.

Meanwhile, while I was aging in dog years right before everyone’s eyes, these players of mine were having the time of their lives, loving every minute and seizing every moment. It’s not fair, I thought, that they’re having a blast and I’m fighting cardiac arrest. While I’m searching for a chainsaw to cut the tension in the air, they’re sticking bubble gum bubbles on caps on top of heads of unsuspecting freshmen.

Such is the nature of youth. Especially youths who appreciate every moment as a gift from God and as an opportunity to show their stuff playing the game they love.

So in the end a coach must legitimately ask himself if losing weight and hair, eating unhealthy, sweating bullets, destroying the inner linings of the stomach, and smelling of partially cleaned attire is truly worth it. And the only conclusion of any sane coach would be that, without a doubt, every moment of such an experience is priceless.

Underdogs Provide Lasting Fond Memories

Pictured here is Daniel Cooke, one of my players who played incredible baseball during the recent tournament. He was named to the All-Tournament team. It is my privilege to coach young men like him.

If you read this column regularly, you already know that I coach baseball for a living. You also may know that this whole column deal is just a hobby of mine, and I have promised you long ago that I won’t use this space to do sports reporting. But I have been advised that there are aspects of my profession that folks might find remotely interesting from time to time.

So this week (and maybe next) I am backing off my promise a little to inform you of my Gardner-Webb baseball team’s recent trip to the A-Sun Conference Championship Tournament. As you may know from reading the sports page, our team advanced all the way to the championship game and lost in the 15^th inning after the longest and what the old-timers in Florida say was the most exciting game in tournament history.

Coaches make a lot of decisions throughout the course of a season. These decisions can make a coach look like a genius or an idiot, depending on the outcome. For most of this season, I was un-genius-like. But all of a sudden during the tournament, the players made most every decision of mine look as if I had authored the book on baseball strategy.

Of course they deserve the credit, not me. I think coaches receive too much blame when their teams lose and way too much credit when they win.

The heavy underdogs from GWU played over their heads, if such a phenomenon exists. Several played injured. All performed when they were drop-dead tired. And the intensity of the pressure on the field was matched only by the heat and humidity in the air.

Back at the hotel, the guys entertained each other by playing games the likes of which you might see Boy Scouts playing around campfires. They laughed a lot before, during, and after the games. While anxiety reigned all around them, they remained cool as cucumbers.

Within an hour of the championship game loss, these incredible young men were once again laughing and enjoying each other. They had much to celebrate and we left Florida with our heads held high and extremely gratified to have experienced what we did.

Back on the bus, we received calls and text messages by the dozens. In some cases people admitted they weren’t sure what to say, worried that our devastation may have paralyzed us emotionally.

But it was not the nature of this year’s team to dwell on the negative. And we surely wouldn’t sulk after one of the greatest experiences of our athletic and coaching careers.

When I got back home, several people I ran into were rightfully guarded with their words, not wishing to upset me or conjure up negative memories. I was quick to let them know we were fine. The experience was beyond words, I explained.

For five days we lived a dream. And everything except the last pitch of the last game was magical.

I don’t believe in praying for wins, but before each game I hit my knees in the hotel room and asked God to grant us the courage and passion to play as hard as we could, as well as we could, as long as we could. And in the end, my prayer was answered. A hundred fold.