6 minute read
Last Word
THE LAST WORD By: Jack H. (Nick) McCall
Note: One of the glories of summer—every American summer—is baseball. As for so many things in 2020, this has been a summer like no other. Before coronavirus’ full impact hit Knoxville this spring, Nick McCall interviewed Tyler Chastain on coaching baseball. This is offered not just to tell Tyler’s story, but also in the fond hope that one day, we can all hear again the treasured sounds of a baseball bat cracking against a fast ball; the thump of a solid catch landing in
Q: Tyler, would you tell us what led you to coaching youth baseball? A: TYLER CHASTAIN Bernstein, Stair & McAdams LLP an outfielder’s glove; and the cheers of a roaring crowd as a fast-running batter comes in to home base.
I always played baseball while I was in high school. As soon as I graduated law school, one of the partners at my first firm, Hodges Doughty & Carson, asked me to help him coach a youth team. A year out of law school, I started coaching at the West Hills rec park before I had kids. I did a baseball mission trip to Cuba for ten days before my kids were old enough to play; I kept playing until I was 30. My son Hudson was born in 1999, and I started him at Lakeshore in T-ball when he was three. I started coaching one of his teams up through 8th grade; we played at Lakeshore and Farragut. When he was 10, we started a local “travel ball” team; when he was 12, he started playing at CAK. Hudson went on to play at Transylvania University.
Coach Tommy Pharr had won five state titles at Farragut over an eight-year stretch before CAK hired him. He let me use the field for practice when Hudson was in 5th grade. The next year, Tommy needed a coach for the 6 th grade team. I took on CAK’s middle school program when Hudson was in 6 th grade. This is now my tenth year of coaching at CAK. We had one team for the first two years; I have run two teams for the last eight years. Our Middle School program is grades 4-8. Our Junior Varsity team is 4 th through 6 th graders, and Varsity is 7 th , 8 th and high 6 th graders.
I especially like coaching middle schoolers. A lot of people don’t like to coach middle school. You’ve got such a wide range in that age segment. The span of ages run from some kids who are going to get their learning permits this summer, to kids who are going to turn ten during the year. My thing is to try to keep them interested in baseball. Baseball is a hard sport: it’s not one that you can just pick up and play if you’re not steadily practicing. (Even if you do practice, it’s not always fun.) Sometimes, I enjoy the younger kids the most; the things they say and do, I have to take a step back and wonder.
At CAK, the high school program is very good. It’s won the last three State titles in a row, and Coach Pharr is just a tremendous coach. He gives me full rein to help the middle schoolers grow, and he gives us ample field time. We have an indoor batting dome; he lets us practice three nights a week. We practice during the season on Saturdays, too. If you’re not playing another sport, you can practice baseball year-round at CAK. I have three other coaches; the coaches are all dedicated, and it’s not what I’d call “daddy ball.” I haven’t had my son on the CAK team for six years. That gives me a little more credibility because I don’t have to worry about who gets to play. My coaches have sons, but they don’t coach their sons.
You know the saying that you have “Friday Night Lights” in football? Well, we have drizzly Wednesday nights in baseball. When you’re on the team, maybe you’ve got your mom there; sometimes, the game starts too early, and your dad can’t make it; you look in the stands, and there are maybe 15 people there. So, our goal is to make it fun for them and give them a chance to play.
I could do other things, I’m sure, with my time. We haven’t had kids at home for three years now; my wife joins me to watch and help out with the games. We try to treat the kids like they are our own; that means that we try to impart discipline. When the kids come to practice, they have to wear their hats; they have to wear their shirts tucked-in. We stress: Look like you want to be out here.
When the kids leave the middle school program, we want them to have had fun, and if they want to go on to play baseball in high school, they’ve got the foundation. We use the same vocabulary and the same drills that they will face on the first day of high school practice.
If someone asks me, “What’s your record?,” I’m not worried about the record. We’ll load the kids up and go to Chattanooga to Baylor or McCallie. They have to learn to travel and pack their bags; they have to learn how to communicate and tell their parents what time they need to pick them up. They have to learn how to keep up with money and buy food before games. We do it all to give them something more than just, “Here’s a bucket of balls; play ball.” They’re only young once. The last thing I want is to have a kid say: “I haven’t had any fun, so I don’t want to play baseball.”
Kids develop at different speeds. I have some of the 6 th graders who are better than some of the 8 th graders, but if that 8 th grader sticks with it, he may be a great high-school player. Very few high-school players will play college baseball, so we try to keep the middle school program the best we can. At the end of the day, if they don’t like it and quit, they’re never coming back. You rarely see a child who quits in middle school ever come back to play again.
I don’t allow parents to coach with me unless their sons have been in the program at least one year. I want to see how dedicated they are. The worst ride home for most kids is the one where they haven’t played well, and they’re going to hear all about it from their parents. There’s not one kid out there who’s trying to mess up. We try to create some separation with our parents to let the kids grow up a little. If you yell at them, they’re not going to come back. Unlike football—where there’s some distance and noise; the parents can yell all they want—in baseball, the parents are 10 feet away. (I tell some kids, “If I see you looking back at your parents after every swing, I’m going to take you out, and we’ll talk about it.”)
If I see a kid who’s a high-school senior, and he still calls you “Coach,” even if he’s not playing ball anymore, you know you’ve left a memory.
