caring about the kids

As many of you know, Denny loves to coach baseball. He loves to coach the kids and build a great team. I LOVE to watch him coach baseball as he nurtures the unique gifts of each of the boys. It is never about him and how many wins he can put after his name. It is always about the boys and the lessons they can learn in the dugout and around the diamond.

In the younger divisions, all the coaches and all the parents promote equal playing time for all kids so they can learn the sport. But once they make the leap up to Majors (11-12 year olds), many of the coaches and some of the parents start to be more interested in the "W" than the experience for the kids playing the game. This was Denny's first year coaching in Majors and he believed he could provide his team with equal playing time along with a variety of fielding positions, and build a competitive team in the process.

The season started off a little rocky. We won some and lost some. But more challenging than that, he had a parent who disagreed with his coaching style. This parent has an "all star" child and he believed his child should play all the time and not have to sit. Denny spoke with this parent multiple times and the parent continued to stay on his case. The parent took his complaint to the Little League board. In addition, other coaches approached Denny to tell him it wasn't fair to the better players that they had to sit on the bench some of the time. But Denny believed in how he was coaching and thankfully the board supported him. The parent and coaches finally left him alone and he could focus his attention on his team who, by the way, were NOT complaining about their coach.

Now fast forward for the rest of the story... All 5 of our Safety Harbor teams played in a district tournament with a total of 55 teams. We were the ONLY Safety Harbor team to make it to the final level, and we came in SECOND!!! Then we played a Safety Harbor tournamant - 5 teams, double elimination. Guess what? We WON!!! We now advance to the Best Of District tournament. The best team from each Little League in our district will compete. Go RAYS!!! Go Coach Setzer.