Over All Thoughts on T Ball

While we have found T-Ball to be a bit challenging, not in how Selena plays the game but in the fact that we discovered real fast that some coaches do not appreciate having little girls on their team. As like with a lot of things that Selena has done, she often falls into a category where people baby her, or treat her in a special way from the rest of the crowd. I don’t know if that has to do with her personality, or has to do with their feelings after discovering that she is being raised by us. I think in some instances it is a combination of both.

I had a feeling from the very first contact with this coach that he didn’t think it was appropriate for her to be on the team. I think he thought he had to treat her with a padded glove, or that she would just be a powder puff on his team. Any one who has followed my blog for very long knows that Selena works very hard and learns very quickly anything that is asked of her. This has been the same with T-Ball. She has practiced here at home, batting (when we could get outside) and catch with a plastic ball (when we’ve had to be inside) either way she practices everyday. Her skills are quickly improving.

At our last practice the coach began to baby her, it was at this point that I stood my ground and told him, not to treat her differently, that she has been practicing. He stepped back and just let Selena do her thing. She stepped up to bat the ball, and he couldn’t believe the improvement in her swing. When she was in the out field, a grounder was hit to her, his eyes about popped out of his head when she dove for a grounder as the rest of the team stood there waiting to chase the ball into the outfield. Then one of the kids hit a high fly directly at Selena. She reached as high as she could and even jumped in the air with her mitt as high as she could get it to catch that ball, she missed it only by an inch or two. The coach finally shook his head, and said, “What a hustle, too bad the ball didn’t just plop in her mitt.” I believe from that moment he realized that Selena isn’t just a girl on his team, but a team player, just a child wanting to learn the game, have fun and do her best.

I am so glad that we put her in T-Ball, while Selena maybe has had to work a little harder to prove herself, really unknown to her, since she works hard at everything she does, we have seen such pride in herself. We have seen a sense of accomplishment, as well as self confidence. I have no regrets what so ever in enrolling her in the program, knowing that it was mostly boys. Will I allow her to play again next year? If she so chooses to, yes, I will. Sometimes we have to remind our girls, that while they are girls, if they truly want something, they have to be willing to work just as hard as the rest, even if it is boys.

While yes, we do have a softball association but at $300.00 just for the registration fee, I doubt we will ever be able to afford to allow Selena to go out for that. She will have to get use to playing with the boys if she decides that this is the Sport she wants to continue with. As for other sports we do have a co-ed soccer league that is reasonable, she will probably try that this fall.

We are very proud of Selena, we are proud of how hard she has worked, how hard she plays, how well she gets along with all the kids on her team, and how well she is doing in this sport. We love to see how proud she is in herself, and how encouraging she is towards her teammates. Rather she chooses to stay in little league or not we know Selena will take away many things and skills that will last her a life time.