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by Jim Grout This article was inspired by a conversation with John Hichwa. John recently retired after thirty years of teaching physical education at the John Read Middle School in West Redding, CT. John is a long time friend of PA [Project Adventure], an exemplary teacher of PE and PA, (National Teacher of the Year in 1996) and a continual inspiration to everyone who knows him. He is currently working on a book due out next year, entitled, Right Fielders Are People, Too. As John and I talked, I related the following stories about my RIGHT FIELD experiences. Throughout my childhood, I played a lot of sports. Much of it was unorganized pickup games with friends and some was with organized youth teams, hockey, football, baseball, etc. Most of it was very enjoyable and successful. However, when I was about ten, I tried out for a little league baseball team. I didn't make it, I got cut. I still remember the name of the team, A & W Root Beer (haven't been able to drink the stuff since). A few days after my failed efforts, I was at the park shooting basketballs and feeling quite dejected. A tall, slender man approached me. He was carrying an equipment bag. Baseball bats protruded from the open end. He said they were starting a new baseball team and they needed players. I politely rejected his offer and continued shooting. He persisted in trying to get my to join him. I persisted in saying, thanks...but no thanks! He turned and walked away...then he stopped, turned around and came back. "We could really use you," he said. I took a last shot, it hit the rim and bounced out. I don't think I was feeling any less dejected, but I hated basketball and the missed shot was all I needed to give baseball another try. So I headed off to diamond #4 for another attempt at America's Favorite Pastime. I arrived at the diamond, the coach instructed everyone to pick a position and head to it. I walked slowly to RIGHT FIELD. There was several of us in the position as the coach began to hit fly balls. I dutifully waited my turn. Finally, after several others had shagged a dozen or more hits, I was next. If thirty three years of memory serves me well, I caught a few and missed a few. I do recall, after each catch, rifling the ball back to the kid doing the catching for the coach. Just about the time I was wondering how I was doing, the coach waved me in. I was sure I was about to get more bad news. As I approached him, he said, "You throw like an infielder, what are you doing in RIGHT FIELD?" I indicated that I liked the outfield, particularly RIGHT FIELD. This man, who I knew only as someone with a penchant for persistence, said again, "You throw like an infielder, what are you doing in RIGHT FIELD?" I got slightly more honest and said that it was a safe place to be because not many balls got hit there. He smiled and said, "You should play shortstop!" I've never been one to stutter, but I know I replied, "Sh-sh-shortstop!" Then I got serious and told him that I couldn't play shortstop because there was no way I could stop EVERY ball hit at me. He looked at me calmly and said, "Look at it this way, you'll certainly stop more then you let through." I queried, "Can you look at it that way?" And he responded demonstratively (I'll never forget this), "SURE YOU CAN, I'M THE COACH!" Thus began my most glorious season in Little League. I played shortstop all summer. I did stop more balls than I let pass through and loved every minute of it. But more importantly, I never played RIGHT FIELD again. The man who coached this team, Mr. Lovett, has remained in my memory throughout my life. While I have had countless coached from Little League baseball to college soccer, he was truly a gem. He encouraged me to take a risk and worked me to my fullest potential. As I have become a coach over the years, I have tried to carry his gift with me and give it to those young people with whom I work. The adventure field has also provided me a wonderful forum in which to practice this gift giving. every workshop, whether with adults or kids, has a number of RIGHT FIELDERS in it. Some have been there forever, others find themselves there for the first time. These are folks, who for whatever reason , are hiding out, afraid to make a mistake, afraid to take a risk...reluctant to play shortstop. What an opportunity I am given to get them to do so. An example: A few years ago I was doing a three day team building with a school faculty group. It was the first evening and we were gathered outside in the street adjacent to our workshop housing. It was dusk (just before the street lights come on and your mother makes you come home). We were doing Turnstile, the jump rope game where someone has to make a successful jump, every time the rope makes a revolution. The group was doing quite well until it was the principal's turn to go. The group numbered about twenty and she was somewhere around fifteen in line. Time and again the group chanted their successful jumps...TWELVE, THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN, FIFteeeeennnn only to have their string of victories end with the rope wrapped squarely around the principal's ankle. She hung in there pretty well for the first half dozen attempts but as her failed attempts mounted, her anxiety grew. At one point she even tried to slip to the end of the line to become number seventeen or eighteen, anything to get the group past FIFteeeeennnn. But the group was persistent, not unlike my coach of thirty three years ago. They encouraged, they cajoled, they even chanted, "You can do it, You can do it!" Finally, long after the street lights had come on and folks should have been home with their mothers, the rope made yet another revolution. But by this time, as it approached the principal's ankle, she pushed hard...harder than all the other times combined, and this time there was no ankle to be found to wrap around, for it was floating high above the ground. The rope smacked the ground hard and then arched toward the sky. As it did the group chanted FIFTEEN! What happened next is reserved only for World Series champs and Olympic gold medallists. The group picked the principal up on their shoulders and paraded her around the street lights chanting FIFTEEN, FIFTEEN, FIFTEEN! To the untrained eye, it might have appeared odd, but I knew this was simply a case of another RIGHT FIELDER becoming a SHORTSTOP. The next time you work with a group, adults or kids, take yourself back in time and ask yourself these questions: DID YOU EVER IN YOUR OWN GROWING UP...
No doubt you could answer yes to one or more of these and no doubt many in your group could as well. SO WHAT DO YOU DO?
RIGHT FIELDERS don't simply become shortstops, they are encouraged and challenged to go for it. Give folks the gift of your encouragement so they'll take a risk and push them to identify and achieve their fullest potential. This issue of "Zip Lines" (Ed: Magazine published by Project Adventure) is full of various perspectives on "risk taking". Are we too safe or not safe enough? In the quarter of a century that adventure education has been around, it has been safe and grown safer, yet the perception of risk remains high and the calls for greater and greater caution grow louder. So encouraging risk taking has become more challenging and helping folks achieve their potential less likely. SO WHAT DO YOU DO? Be guided by the safety record not the perceptions and like John Hichwa did for thirty years...work hard to create more SHORT STOPS and fewer RIGHT FIELDERS. John, we salute you! This article first appeared in Zip Lines, a publication of Project Adventure. You can order Zip Lines by calling 800-795-9039, or writing to Project Adventure, PO Box 100, Hamilton, MA 01936. As of this writing, the subscription price is $20/year. Jim Grout is the Director of Project Adventure - Vermont, and can be reached at PO Box 1640, Brattleboro, VT, 05302. (802)254-5054, <jgrout@pa.org>. |