I'm still not exactly sure how this happened, but some time over the weekend, I got talked into coaching a Little League baseball team. One of Tiffany's coworkers (John) is a head honcho in a league in his neighborhood (which is not far from ours), and they wound up with too many players in the 9- to 10-year-old group and not enough parents who were willing to don the whistle and clipboard. John had already made inquiries about my availability to umpire, and in a moment of need decided to go for the gusto and see if I'd be willing to coach instead. Somewhere along the line I said Yes.

The last time that I coached anything was as a teenager when my dad and I served as assistant coaches for my brother's Little League team. Though the team went something like 3-7, I like to think that I contributed in a small way to one of those victories. I was in charge of running infield/outfield practice before each game, and one day I decided that I'd give everyone a chance to try something new. So, I put all the regular infielders in the outfield, and vice versa, and ran the drill that way.

Well, the drill was quite a bit sloppier than usual that day, since most of the kids had never played their assigned position before. After we won the game, over an opponent that was objectively more talented than we were, my mom told me that some of the other parents had observed our pregame exercise and concluded that their boys would whip us easily. They were openly talking about it, in fact. Whether this before-the-fall pride was transmitted to their kids or not I couldn't say, but I'll take the credit for it anyway.

Though I have no idea what I'm getting into, I find I'm rather looking forward to it. I've been told by John that I'll have several dads to serve as assistant coaches, and Tiffany has volunteered to help out as well. I'll let you know how we do as the season progresses.