A coach for a season, an impact for a lifetime

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Dear Mr. Kiffin:

In 1989, when I was 13, you were my Little League Baseball coach in Bloomington.

Your son Lane was also on the team. He was very, very good at baseball. I was not. In fact, I was bad at baseball. Really, really bad even. I think the season you were my coach was my seventh season of Little League, and I had probably amassed about seven base hits total. Once I reached the age where the kids started pitching the games, I would do my best to coax a walk and maybe score a run, but most games ended with me going 0 for 3 with a couple of strikeouts.

The season you were my coach started as expected, with me being really bad at baseball. In the first game of the season I struck out in my first at bat, and as I was walking back to the dugout I threw my bat and helmet in disgust at myself for being so continually awful at a game that I had loved since I was old enough to walk.

But, boy oh boy, Monte, you were having none of that kind of behavior. You walked over to me on the bench, grabbed my arm, got in my face and let me have it like I was a professional linebacker who had just got called for roughing the quarterback on third and forever. “We do — DO NOT — throw our bat and helmet on this team,” you shouted in my face with the same voice that inspired 300-pound world-class athletes to reach the pinnacle of their chosen profession. “WE DO NOT DO THAT ON THIS TEAM. YOU GOT THAT!?”

I, of course, started to cry. The kid next to me told me not to worry about it, that everybody strikes out. He didn’t understand that I was crying not because I had struck out — I mean, I had struck out like seriously hundreds of times over the years — but I was crying because you, Monte, had yelled at me in front of the entire team, in front of all the parents, in front of my parents, in front of my dad.

I also remember that you, Monte, called my house the weekend after that game. I wasn’t home, but you told my parents to tell me that you were sorry and that you hoped I wouldn’t quit the team.

I thought that was pretty cool. I still do. And I didn’t quit the team.

And you know what happened next, Monte? All of a sudden I was not completely horrible at baseball. I mean, I was still not good, but I wasn’t terrible. I would get hits — into the outfield even! — after you helped me with my swing. And you played me at first base, something no coach had ever tried. I don’t remember if our team was any good that season, but I know without a doubt that it was by far the best season of my Little League career. I mean, it’s not even close.

It was also my last season of Little League. That fall my dad would die and I would kind of lose interest not just in baseball but in being a kid. And so I wanted to write this letter to thank you, Mr. Kiffin, for giving that skinny 13-year-old kid with glasses who loved — loved — baseball a chance to not be terrible at it for just a couple months. To go 1 for 3 with an infield single and a walk. To see my dad pump his fist at me with pride as I stood on second base after a double into the gap in right. To go out for pizza after the game and feel like part of the team. You did that. And I wanted to thank you. You are that special kind of person who brings out the best in people, and I’m pretty lucky that you decided to share a little bit of that gift with me all those years ago.

So: Thanks, Mr. Kiffin.

Matt Becker lives in St. Paul. Monte Kiffin, a prominent assistant coach in the National Football League, was with the Minnesota Vikings when he was Becker’s Little League coach.