Anyone who knows me knows that I am not an athletic person, throw a ball to me from a far distance and I probably won't catch it. When playing volleyball with me be prepared to retrieve the ball from the surrounding terrain. I blame my lack of athletic ability a lot on my clumsiness as some of my friends know, I managed to hurt myself just simply rollerskating. But to surprise some I did play softball and basketball when I was younger, softball for three years and basketball for two years.

For both of these sports I had the same coach, except for my first year of softball which was coach pitch, so to that coach, just ignore this as this is not for you. But this is for the coach who caused me to stop playing both sports.

Like I stated before, I have always struggled with sports, but in an attempt to try something new and maybe not suck as much at playing sports, I started playing church league softball and basketball. I had the same coach for both and the experience I had with this coach, to say the least, was not a positive one. Even in church/recreation league, he treated it as if winning was the most important part of the game, almost forgetting at times that we were between the age of 10 and 13, sometimes forgetting that some of us couldn't just pick up on how to play well.

What mainly frustrated me about this time was that he would not take the time at practices to help us improve on what we needed help with. There was about four of us on the team, who throughout the entire game time would not step a foot out onto the field except to hit occasionally. It would always be the ones who were able to pick up on it quickly or had been playing since they were very young. An example of a time where I was struggling with hitting the ball in softball, instead of giving me pointers on how to become more effective when up to bat, he would just let it go, choosing to let me keep staying in place of inconsistency. Overall this was the main reason I ended up leaving both sports as the coach refused to take the time to help me along with other members of the team in improving our skills.

Now I do understand yes, winning is a great thing. but the question must be raised, is it the most important part of playing the game? Particularly at a young age when it is a recreation league?

My opinion on this, is that at this level, we should be working on improving those skills in whatever sport it is, because contrary to some beliefs sports is not something that comes naturally to all, but that does not mean we should give up on that group of people just because it doesn't come naturally. If the person is willing, help them instead of pushing it to the side, hoping that they can figure it out on their own, because most of the time they won't. When a student is struggling with a math problem, you don't let them just continue to do the problem wrong, you show them the correct steps to do it correctly instead of letting them continue to fail.

(Steps off soap box).

Now after finishing my rant on why I left sports as far as playing them goes, I have something to the say to the coach that caused me to leave sports. Thank you, I would have ended up so different from the person I am today if I had stuck with one of those sports, if you had treated me differently, I would have been different. In the words of Randy Pausch, you were a brick wall to me and I realize I didn't want it enough to push past a difficult coach. I believe this was one of those fork in a road moments that we have in life, where our life goes differently depending on which way you go. By choosing to stop playing softball and basketball it opened a door to another group that welcomed me, concert and marching band.

Though you wouldn't take the time to help me, I have now learned an important lesson and that is: Sometimes people won't take the time to help you and that's okay, sometimes people will take the time to help you solve the problem. Hold onto the ones who take the time to help you and don't worry over the ones who won't.