Mr. Sullivan was a Giant. To me.
I'm convinced our team won the Goldsboro, North Carolina Boys Club Little League "World Series" in 1979 because Coach Sullivan taught me how to stop a ground ball from going between my legs.
It's hard to convey the sense of weight a Boys Club ‘World Series’ win means to a 5th grader, but we all felt a ridiculous degree of pride after that winning game. Standing for a Goldsboro News Argus photographer in our pumpkin-orange high-top baseball socks & hats, our bleached-white pants, and "Lions Club" across our shirts, we felt like the Cincinnati Reds or the New York Yankees that day. I felt like Johnny Bench.
Mr. Sullivan was our Goldsboro, NC Lion's Club little league baseball coach in the early spring of 5th grade. He taught me all I’ve ever needed to know about leadership and teaching and caring for teammates - just by how he was. I have tried to emulate him ever since.
Coach Sullivan was a big man to us, and he had played minor league baseball. So he had an innate presence of skill and ballplayer credibility that made all the really good players and all the dads respect him as our coach. But I respected him in a different way and for a different reason. He was strong, he was steady, he was gentle. Coach Sullivan gave me confidence. Coach Sullivan changed me.
I thought I was the worst player on the team. It wasn't that I didn't try hard - I truly just didn't know what to do. As with Cub Scouts before and Boy Scouts after, my parents had signed me up for Little League with a portion of their tight budget to help me develop. But I had never played baseball much and certainly never outfield. Playing catch in the yard with my parents - of course...Fielding fast-moving ground balls - not so much. The other two outfielders were slightly better, but I just wasn't good and I knew it. And I really wanted to quit and avoid the humiliation I was beginning to sense on that team of infield superstars. It was during our third baseball team practice that Mr. Sullivan made me feel like a winner.
Mr. Sullivan's son was our pitcher. He was an amazing athlete, a magnificent pitcher, and Mr. Sullivan had molded him into a great captain of our team. Just so good, he and our first-baseman and the other guys across the infield had such remarkable skill in the way that they all ran plays together. These guys were the real deal; they knew how to make double-plays and how to move the ball around the diamond with such speed and precision. I, on the other hand, out there in center field, couldn't seem to stop a worm-burning ground ball from getting past me.
Mr. Sullivan changed all that.
I clearly remember the day we outfielders were all lined up by the fence during that third practice, working a ground ball drill with the assistant coaches. Mr. Sullivan walked down the line, sizing us up, and made his way next to my coach who was rolling ground balls to me. He watched me whiff every ball, and then, squinting his eyes, said something to the assistant coach who then left to help out another player.
Coach Sullivan walked up to me, hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes and said "James we're going to work on stopping those grounders!" We walked a good distance away from the others in the group and he proceeded to transform me into a ball player. Along the chain link fence there near the parking lot, for about 10 minutes, he talked to me in a way that made me feel like I was good, that I was working hard, but just needed a tweak here and there...that I was so close to getting it but just needed a little...practice.
Coach Sullivan respected me, he listened to me. He worked with me and he cared about me. In that 10-minute talk, he taught me how to lean in and touch my open ball glove to the ground to make sure the baseball didn't slide through underneath. He taught me how to crouch down and get ready to move either direction quickly out there in center field. And he taught me how to get down low and use my leg to stop a fast-moving ground ball, even if I couldn't catch it with my glove, so I could pick that ball up and slam it to the cutoff man, quick. Then he sent me some low fast-rolling balls for practice, left and right, encouraging me the whole time and confidently watched me getting better. “Run towards it! Stop that ball!” My own confidence skyrocketed during the practice game just afterward, and I felt like a different person.
That was the day I changed. And I'm not so sure I got any better at the sport that day, but I'm 100% sure I gained personal 5th grade confidence and self-respect in a way I hadn't felt on that ball field, or anywhere else, really, ever. And I proceeded to get better and better every game from then on.
Mr. Sullivan treated every one of us on that team the same way. He respected us, he instructed us, he encouraged us, and he helped us make him proud - of us. And from that summer on, I have tried to match his style in every leadership role I've held, whether as an Air Force Officer & Commander, or as a leader of company teams.
Mr. Sullivan taught me that people follow leaders one person at a time, and that leaders lead and leaders teach - one person at a time. On that day, he led me, he taught me, and I learned from him. He showed me how to lead.
And to this day, I still follow him.
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