Easter this year was rainy with temperatures in the 50's.  I loved it.  It's a silly thought, but I can't help but wonder if it was because of what I wrote in the last post, the one with my complaints.  Anyway, it's nice to know that the Lord reads these. Friday was a day of fair weather, that found my brother, my Daddy and me throwing the baseball.  While we talked, my brother reminded me of a day that I hadn't thought about in a long time.  When we were growing up we used to play baseball in our backyard as often as we could.  One day Daddy came out and played with us and commented on the size of our field.  We were only using half of the backyard making it pretty easy to hit home runs.  Daddy told us that it would be better if we would move home plate back and use the whole yard.  We thought for a minute, then moved the plate back.  We stood looking at the distant (in our minds) property line that was our "fence".  Soon we were hitting balls out there and we were almost embarrassed that we had ever settled for playing on the shorter field.  Whether he realized it or not, Daddy taught us that day that a base hit on a proper-sized field is better than an easy home run.

That lesson has stayed with me and not only helped me to avoid many regrets, but has also given me memories of experiences that many people don't have.  I was not a great runner when I was younger, but I have run against Olympic medalists and world champions.  They absolutely obliterated me, but I still got to line up with them, (and I've seen two of them since then and they remembered me).  Later, as a track coach, I got to coach a track team of eleven girls, eight of whom had never competed in track and field before.  The Lord brought alongside me two of the best field event coaches I have ever known.  One of my main purposes that year was to take those kids to meets where we would compete against schools five times our size with some of the best athletes in our area.  Some of the kids and parents questioned the wisdom of what I was doing, but I taught those kids that I would rather face the best and lose than to win easily.  The kids bought in, and by the end of the year we had upset the defending district champions for the team title by a margin of two points with every one of our eleven girls scoring at least one point.  I was, and still am, so proud of those kids.  They weren't afraid to line up against anybody, and along the way we beat athletes and teams who most people thought we had no business even competing with.

Gentlemen, lead by example and teach your kids to move the plate back.  False self-esteem is overrated.