I watched a CBS Sunday Morning program report on Jim Abbott, the baseball pitcher who succeeded past his wildest dreams in baseball, despite the absence of a right hand. A great story if there ever was one.
Toward the end of the program, during a book signing, Abbott is playing catch with a young boy who is also missing a hand. Abbott is coaching the young man to throw properly, and the kid was making progress.
And I thought, I love to do that stuff. I love to coach the young, be it sports, knowledge, behavior, whatever. Progress may be slow, but each attempt brings with it improvement. Add a little positive reinforcement, continuing focus and, voila! Eventually, you have the results you wanted.
Sometimes, the road is long. I remember well an incident many years in which a child who had initially been acclimated to a swimming pool lost it on the second lesson. My wife and I never did figure out why. And we couldn't get a decent answer from the child, who was less than one year old at the time.
My wife Jan and I made the decision that we would continue to go to the pool for the rest of the swimming lessons. And it got worse well before it got better. Tears and crying attended our sessions each week.
During the last swimming lesson, however, we achieved success way beyond our hopes at that point. The child came around during the lesson, had a ball in the swimming pool with us, and went on to swim some years later on the the Tigers swim club that operated at the time.
Jan and I have been working with my grandson Noah to catch and to throw a ball. We've been very pleased with his progress, and I think he has fun with it. I have a tennis ball that I've kept away from dog slobber that I bring when we visit, and he's doing very well.
I look forward to it. Practice makes perfect, and it's easy when you're having fun. And there is little that compares with the joys of coaching young people.
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