“Atta Baby!” — A Season With the Lightning

This past weekend, a chapter closed. And if you know me, when that happens, I like to write.

The Plymouth Canton Lightning 9u team, a crew of nine-year-olds who started the year straight out of the Sandlot, unsure of their swings and scared of the ball, played their final baseball tournament together. This weekend, we won our first two games with guts and grit. Then came the third—an 11–10 loss on a walk-off hit that ended our season in heartbreak.

There were tears. Big ones. From players. From parents. From coaches.

Because they cared.

They really cared.

And that’s the part I’ll carry with me forever. That’s hard to teach.

More Than a Game

Coaching youth baseball is a strange, beautiful thing. It asks you to wear a hundred hats: teacher, motivator, cheerleader, strategist, therapist, occasional comedian. And when it’s done right, it becomes something so much more than teaching kids how to throw a ball or hit a curve.

It becomes a laboratory for life.

You get to teach them how to fail with grace. How to win with humility. How to cheer louder for their teammate’s hit than their own. How to say “I’ve got your back” without ever using words.

That’s the privilege. That’s the gift.

From Snowstorms to Walk-Offs

Our season started before most baseballs teams even thought about unzipping a bat bag. These kids came to practice indoors while snow fell outside. They showed up for work in wind storms, fielding drills in the cold, and mental reps in parking lot puddles.

They didn’t complain.

They loved it.

At our first game in October, no one got a hit. We were tentative at the plate and nervous in the field. But no one quit. Slowly, one “Atta Baby!” at a time, we chipped away at that fear.

And then something magical happened.

They started to believe. They started to especially believe in just having fun playing ball.

By the end of the season, we felt like a legit baseball team. One that could hang in any tournament, play with joy, and fight through adversity without flinching.

That transformation, more than any trophy, was the real win. And I do hope as they get older they will realize that.

Why We Coach

We don’t coach for the final score.

We coach for the little moments most people never see:

• A kid asking, “Was that the right place to throw there?” and not being afraid to be wrong.

• A teammate jogging in from the outfield to hug the pitcher after a tough inning.

• A player who struck out three times showing up early to hit off the tee the next day.

• A player asking if I knew where the nearest sliding mitt store was.

That’s why we coach.

There’s no better feeling than seeing a child discover their own strength. Not just strength in the batter’s box, but strength to keep going after failure. To cheer when it’s hard. To care enough that the final out hurts.

Because if you care, you’ve already won.

Why I Started Coaching

I knew early on, before my son Parker could even grip a bat, that I wanted to coach his baseball team someday. But not because I was hoping to mold the next Ken Griffey Jr. or chase travel trophies across the state. My dream was simpler, quieter. I remember telling a parent during that very first tee-ball season, when Parker was just five:
“I just want to watch the kids love the game and then buy them some ice cream at the end.”

And I meant it. It really was about the ice cream.

If a kid comes back and plays another season, than we won as coaches. And that doesn’t mean we’ve lost if they don’t. Baseball isn’t for everyone, and I understand that.

As a kid, I don’t remember our record. I don’t remember our standings or who hit what. But I remember how it felt when the coach smiled after a good game. I remember the sweaty walk to Dairy Dan. I remember the cone dripping down my hand while we laughed with our teammates. That joy—that feeling—is what I wanted to pass on.

That’s why I coach.
Not to chase stats.
But to chase memories.

If all these kids remember one day is that their coach believed in them, and that there was always a treat waiting after a game—well, that’s a pretty good legacy to leave behind.

The Lance Effect

Every team needs a heartbeat. For the Lightning, that was Lance.

He was the kind of coach you want your kid to play for. The kind of coach you want to be. I’ve never seen someone pour more of himself into a youth team. Every lineup decision, every practice plan, every team message was fueled by one thing: love for the kids. Not ego. Not control. Not a need to win. Just love.

And that matters. Especially in a landscape where youth sports can sometimes lose their soul.

I’ve seen the worst of it. Coaches yelling in rage when a kid misses a ground ball. Parents proudly bragging that their 9-year-old threw 135 pitches in a day. That kind of behavior sucks the joy out of baseball and the spirit out of kids. It’s disheartening.

But that was never Lance. He held stedfast to taking care of the kids physically and emotionally.

Even on the toughest days, when the team was dragging or mistakes piled up, his approach never crossed the line. He could get fired up, sure, but always in a controlled, intentional way. You could see the kids respond to it. Instead of yelling after an error, it was “Strong chin.” Or “We’re okay.” He didn’t shame them. He lifted them.

That’s real leadership.

I first met Lance during a tee-ball and coach pitch game last year. We were on opposing sides. But even from the other dugout, I could feel the energy coming from his team. His kids played hard, played loose, and clearly loved being there. That game ended as a one-run affair, and I remember thinking, that guy’s doing it right.

Months later, when I sat down with him to talk about coaching the Lightning together, I told him that exact thing. I said, “It was actually fun playing against your teams.” And I meant it.

So when I was asked to help coach with Lance, it was an easy yes. Based on vibe check alone, I was all in. You can spot a great coach from afar and I could see it in Lance before we’d even met.

Over the course of the season, that instinct proved right a hundred times over.

I wrote him this after a particularly tough weekend—one where the pressure had started to creep in:

“You’re doing it the right way: teaching them to be aggressive but respectful, balancing competitiveness with joy, and holding standards without being a robot about it. That’s rare. That’s real coaching.”

The best part? The kids saw it too. And I think they’ll carry that with them for a long time.

Coaches like Lance are the reason youth sports can be beautiful. I was proud to coach alongside him. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Oh, and one more thing about Lance. He bought the team ice cream on Saturday. In the end, it’s always about the ice cream.

The “Atta Baby” Philosophy

Some coaches preach discipline. Some chase perfection. Me? I chase the “Atta Baby” moments. That’s a phrase I picked up from Lance.

There’s a magic in being able to scream with joy when a kid who’s been struggling ropes a double. Or when the quiet kid starts throwing strikes with confidence. Or when someone who normally drifts off during practice asks a great question about the infield fly rule.

Those are my favorite plays of the game.

I tried to bring creativity into our practices—baseball card pack rewards, mini-games, wiffle ball days after tough weeks, kickball tournaments, walkup songs, and even Dan Dickerson doing a special team video. We made the grind fun. We made it feel like the reason we all fell in love with the sport to begin with.

Because when you gamify joy, kids don’t just learn, they remember.

Parker’s Ride Home

After that final game, the car ride home was quiet. That almost never happens.

My son, Parker, sat in the backseat, holding the framed team photo Lance had handed out. He cried at the field. He cried in the car. Partially because we lost. But more so because something good had come to an end.

At nine, you don’t always know how to express that. But he felt it.

He’s had his moments this year—learning to focus, managing distractions, growing into a better teammate. We had a lot of conversations about it. He didn’t always get it right. But more often than not, he tried.

And in that car ride silence, I want to believe I felt something shifting. He was coming to terms with what this team and experience had meant to him. The time. The work. The love. He’s not one to show emotions, but they were on full display this time.

By all accounts, Parker had a great tournament. He hit his first home run with the Lightning, plus a triple and a double. But he never mentioned any of that when we talked on Sunday. It was all about the team. About his friends. That’s where the tears came from.

That’s the power of youth sports when done well. It shapes them. And, if we’re lucky, it shapes us too.

Failure Is a Good Thing

I’ve learned a lot from coaches like James Lowe, aka “Coach Ballgame.” One thing he says stuck with me this season:

“If you’re paying attention and giving 100% effort, I like when you fail—because that’s when we learn the most.”

That mindset matters. It rewires everything. We don’t want kids afraid to swing and miss. We want them brave enough to swing at all.

That only happens when we create an environment where failure is welcomed—not feared. When every strikeout is followed by a fist bump. When every error is followed by “You’ll get ‘em next time.” When we teach them to be allergic to negativity.

We need more of that in the world. Not just in baseball.

Was it Worth It?

If we ever wondered whether the significant time, the planning, the long practices in unpredictable Michigan weather really mattered—this note we got from a dad last night says it all.

“About twenty minutes after I got home and my son had rattled off everything—he came back to find me and started crying. He said, ‘I don’t want the Lightning season to be over.’ I gave him a hug and asked, ‘What will you miss the most?’ He said, ‘Everything. The batting, the fielding—and my friends.’”

He went on to say this was the first time one of his kids had cried when a season ended. That the whole family was invested in Lightning in a way they’d never experienced before. That even his son’s younger brothers started crying when they heard the team lost in the semifinal.

This wasn’t just about wins or losses, it was about belonging. About creating something strong enough, joyful enough, and meaningful enough that a kid would cry when it ended—not because they lost, but because they loved it that much.

What Really Lasts

In 20 years, these kids won’t remember what our record was. And I’ll tell you here that we lost more games than we won.

They’ll remember:

• The walk-up songs.

• The wiffle ball days.

• The Lightning Chain competitions.

• The time we came back from six runs down.

• The coach who always believed in them.

They’ll remember being part of something where they mattered.

And so will I.

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So here’s to the Lightning.

To the kids who made this old-timer feel like a kid again.

To the families who trusted us.

To the coaches who cared.

To every “Atta Baby” screamed from the dugout.

It wasn’t just a season. It was a joyride. Together on me, Together on 3, 1-2-3 Together.