I have a dream
It’s time to let you in on a big dream that I’ve got. This has been rolling around in my head for a long time. I’m not shouting about it yet, but if you’ve made the effort to click on the link and come to this page, then you can peek behind the curtain just a bit and see what I’ve got in mind.
Why baseball coaches hold a special place
Top Coach was born of the love and respect that I have for coaches of all kinds. But baseball coaches have a special place in my heart. It is for many reasons that they hold this spot. The biggest reason is that they filled a big void in my life after my dad left when I was ten years old. The second is the incredible influence that these guys have on young lives. Lastly (for anyone who’s ever coached the game, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about), baseball coaches almost always operate from the position of underdog. I’m using that term in the broadest sense. Baseball coaches know that if anything is going to get done, they’ve got to do it themselves. In the pecking order of the big sports at most any school, baseball is low on the totem pole. Long after the basketball coach has locked up the ball cart, the baseball coach is still filling holes in the mound and sweeping dirt off the edge of the grass. But he never complains. He’s doing what he loves.
Genesis of a dream
It’s with all of this in mind that I first started thinking about what I could do to make a coach’s task just a little bit easier and offer a little in the way of resources. Unlike the rest of my “great ideas”, this one did not come to me on a dog walk or a run. It came to me during one of my many trips to the Smoky Mountains. I thought about the potential of providing a place where coaches could come for retreats. I thought about a camp where my son worked in Pennsylvania one summer, where part of the facility was reserved for pastors and missionaries who needed a place to stay for a weekend or a week.
All of that got me thinking about a place where a baseball coach could take his staff for a retreat, complete with a small meeting space and sleeping rooms. When the space is not scheduled for a staff retreat or other types of meetings (clinics, seminars, etc.), coaches could reserve the space for a get-away. I don’t envision this being very large. I think that a meeting room that could hold 20 would be sufficient. And 3-4 hotel-type rooms would be great. I can only imagine a high school coach or college assistant — not getting rich in their chosen field — bringing their wife to the facility for a nice weekend get-away. And, as I’m seeing it in my head, this would all be free of charge.
Where to go from here
All of this right now is a dream. I’ve started no planning, but I do have a picture in my head and a hand drawn picture on my wall. Will a little luck, good fortune, Top Coach success, and God’s blessings, perhaps this will be come a reality sooner rather than later. As the old saying goes, it’s the least I can do.
