We have all read the stories online about the reach of our softball community. Let me tell you how great the softball world is first hand.
A little over a week ago one of our Assistant Coaches suddenly passed away, he was a young healthy guy with 3 young kids, nobody know what happened just that he was coaching with us on a Saturday and on Sunday afternoon he was being admitted to the ICU in critical condition, by Tuesday morning he was gone (without a cause). Its hard for any of us adult to understand let alone a group of 11 & 12 year old girls. Somehow, word spread quick of the passing and teams from all over the country were reaching out sending prayers for our girls and the the coaches DD.
The AC's daughter is one of the strongest people I know, we were scheduled to play in a round robin this past weekend us coaches were going to cancel but she demanded that we play because that is what her dad would have wanted. When we show up on Saturday to play the opposing teams come over to us with bags, each one had a wrist band in our team colors with his initials that every team was going to wear, a headband with his initials for each girl on his team, and a card for each player. It brought me to tears that these girls who were our opponents had so much love and support for our team.
As if that wasn't enough a few teams (some we have played in the last year and some we haven't, some close and some across the country) have send flowers for the funeral, fruit baskets to the family, cards, etc. We even had a coach from an opposing organization offer to pay the kids remaining dues.
While this has been an extremely tough time for the family the one thing they keep saying is how amazed they are at the softball comunity, it just goes to show how there are more important things in life and how great it is to be a apart of the the softball world!
A little over a week ago one of our Assistant Coaches suddenly passed away, he was a young healthy guy with 3 young kids, nobody know what happened just that he was coaching with us on a Saturday and on Sunday afternoon he was being admitted to the ICU in critical condition, by Tuesday morning he was gone (without a cause). Its hard for any of us adult to understand let alone a group of 11 & 12 year old girls. Somehow, word spread quick of the passing and teams from all over the country were reaching out sending prayers for our girls and the the coaches DD.
The AC's daughter is one of the strongest people I know, we were scheduled to play in a round robin this past weekend us coaches were going to cancel but she demanded that we play because that is what her dad would have wanted. When we show up on Saturday to play the opposing teams come over to us with bags, each one had a wrist band in our team colors with his initials that every team was going to wear, a headband with his initials for each girl on his team, and a card for each player. It brought me to tears that these girls who were our opponents had so much love and support for our team.
As if that wasn't enough a few teams (some we have played in the last year and some we haven't, some close and some across the country) have send flowers for the funeral, fruit baskets to the family, cards, etc. We even had a coach from an opposing organization offer to pay the kids remaining dues.
While this has been an extremely tough time for the family the one thing they keep saying is how amazed they are at the softball comunity, it just goes to show how there are more important things in life and how great it is to be a apart of the the softball world!
