Coach

  This is an article I wrote about "That One Person" that is featured in the Summer Issue of Optimist International Magazine.         http://www.optimist.org/magazine/Summer2016/TheOptimist-Summer2016.pdf  

            Ed Wilson was a baseball legend. He coached Little League Baseball for over twenty five years. His team, Hanover Center, won over fifteen league championships, ten county championships, and at one time enjoyed a winning streak of fifty games which set a world record for the most consecutive victories by a baseball team at any level. He also guided two All-Star teams to North Carolina State titles.

He was my coach for three years of my youth and a few years later as a young man I was an assistant coach on his staff. Coach’s teams set records that will never be approached and yet that pales in comparison to why this man was so loved by so many of his ‘boys.’ He impacted lives and none more so than mine.

A perplexed rival coach once said to him. “I don’t understand why your teams are better than mine. I have players just as good as yours and I know as much about coaching baseball as you do.”

Coach’s response summed up a lot about his philosophy as a coach. “That’s because you are coaching baseball and I am coaching boys.” 

The morning after receiving the news that Coach passed away at the age of ninety eight, I found myself outside the gate to the Little League field. My thoughts drifted to a time when I stood in the same exact spot when he would alter the course of my life forever.

It was an early spring day forty years previous. I was nineteen. That morning I noticed in the local newspaper the Little League tryouts information. Each team was listed with the boys that were to report to the team that selected them. I filed away in my mind the four p.m. time that the boys were to report to Coach and went about my day.

Sometime after four I stood outside the gate to the baseball diamond. I had no plan. I had told no one I was going but I was there none the less.

Coach was businesslike as ever as he conducted practice. Still, he walked over a couple of times to inquire about how I was doing. I was not in school or employed and far worse I had no positive direction in my life. I had gotten myself into trouble the year before and he knew about this because he came to visit me when he heard the news.

It was nearing six p.m. and tryouts were about to conclude. He walked over one last time.

“You need any help, Coach?”  I asked sheepishly.   

Coach had a gruff, no nonsense demeanor. He looked at me and said, “You want to help me? Be at the school tomorrow at four.” He turned abruptly and walked away.

I was at the school the next day before four o’clock as I knew he would be. He already had a full coaching staff. I have come to realize that he did not need my help as much as he knew that I might be in need of his.

In time, I would look back to that one moment as being the crossroad of my life.   I discovered a love for the kids and for coaching. I began to realize the chance he had taken on me and I did not want to disappoint him.

I spent the next four spring and summers coaching with him before taking my own path. I taught basketball to the same age boys for the next twenty years. The lessons I learned from my mentor were with me always. They remain so because Coach taught all of us a lot more than baseball. He taught us life.

His son, Bob, asked me to speak at Coach’s funeral. It was one of the greatest honors of my life. I shared that day as I have many times that for some of us there is that one person who God places in our life that makes all the difference. Ed Wilson was that man for me. I shudder to think where I might be if not for a chance a ball coach took on a lost young man on a late spring afternoon.

Winter Park Optimist was formed in 1954 at Hugh MacRae Park, located in Wilmington, North Carolina. Coach and his brother Glenn ‘Doc’ Wilson, who also was a successful Little League baseball coach, were instrumental in the early days and for years to come in the shaping and guiding of Winter Park Optimist Little League.  There are two press boxes that were named in their honor many years ago. On April 6, 2013 there was a day held in their honor on the very field they coached on long ago. 

Winter Park Optimist is still going strong to this day over sixty years later. The baseball fields are still located in Hugh MacRae Park but there are now four baseball fields, which is twice the number when I was with Coach. They also have three fields nearby at John T Hoggard High School for girls fast pitch softball.   

Written by Billy Beasley. Author of The River Hideaway. You can contact him at billybeasleyauthor@gmail.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorBillyBeasley/

That One Person

The last day of Passion 2012 the host Pastor, Lou Giglio talked about what one person could do. He spoke of how easy it is to sit back and say, "God will do it with or without me." I lack the answer to that but I do know that one person changed the course of my life by taking a chance on me.

It was late afternoon in early March and I was standing outside the fence of the Little League Baseball field that I played on as a youth and served as an assistant to my old coach one summer when I was fifteen.

The day had been so warm early that I was still clothed in shorts and a tee shirt. As the sun got lower I got cold and started to leave many times but I clung to that fence watching "Coach" conduct tryouts for a new group of kids.

Why was I even watching? I went with no goal in mind. This was during the days when kids had to tryout for a team. The coaches drafted players and the practice time and place for each team was printed in the newspaper. Ironically I had noticed this and for some odd reason I drove to the field that day.

I was nineteen and I had chosen about every wrong path a boy could. There was nothing positive in my life. I was not in school and I was not working. I had a nice criminal record already for marijuana distribution. "Coach" knew this because he came to visit me when I was waiting for trial. That is how it was with him. You played ball for him but regardless of age you remained one of his kids.

He noticed me and had walked over a couple of times and spoken. The practice was nearing the end and he walked over one last time. This voice inside of me mustered up enough courage to humbly ask, "Do you need any help coach?"

The most amazing thing happened. This man, probably 60 years old at the time, with his buzz cut and the boy standing in front of him with a criminal record and hair past his shoulders.  I will never forget his immediate response.

"Coach" had a gruff no nonsense manner of speaking. "You want to help me? Be at the school tomorrow at four o'clock." He turned and abruptly walked away.

I am certain he heard about his decision to allow me to help with the kids from the Optimist dignitaries who ruled with an iron fist and often a narrowness of mind. I never heard any of it. I was one of his kids and I believe that was all that mattered to him.

Why such a crossroad? Did I immediately turn from the party lifestyle I was living? No, but slowly changes happened. I loved sports and I loved being around those kids. I still had ideas of getting back to my illegal business activities. My dad who I rarely paid attention too said to me, "It sure would be a shame if you got into trouble again after the chance he has taken on you."

Ouch, I tried to dismiss that with my usual rationalization. I could not do it. He had gone out on a limb for me. He had given me a positive outlet when I had nothing positive.


I don't know where I would be if not for "Coach." Maybe arrested again like my partners who all suffered serious consequences within that year. Prison, or maybe death from the lifestyle. I was saved later by Jesus Christ, but only after I was rescued by an old ball coach.

I helped "Coach" for four more years and then I became head coach of a basketball team. The boys I coached were the same ages, ten to twelve. Every practice and game I took what I learned from "Coach."

One young man I coached was the grandson of "Coach's" brother, Doc. There is one moment in those 20 years of coaching that stand out as a true full circle moment. It is 1994 and my team is standing in the hallway celebrating winning the Tournament Championship.  Kevin, my former point guard, was now in college, and was helping me just as I had my old "Coach." Doc's grandson was on that team and he brought his brother, my "Coach" to the game. It was trophy presentation time and Kevin came up to receive his trophy. I said, "Just as I will always be "Coach's" boy. Kevin will always be my boy."  One thing I am certain of is that moment does not happen without "Coach."

I enjoyed great relationships with many kids. I am blessed to be in contact with some of them today fifteen years after coaching my last game. Ironically, when I communicate with them and though they are men with their families. I hope that they think it OK that I still view them as my kids. And if some of them think half as much of me as I do my old "Coach," and mentor Ed Wilson, then I am a blessed man beyond anything I could have hoped to derive from standing in the cold watching a man teach the art of baseball and so very much more. I love you Coach always, and I can never repay you for what you did for me.