From Deseret News archives:
Are youth coaches villains or victims?
Of the 100 or so coaches in the Bountiful Pony League, they are two of the best, says league president Craig Parry. They have good rapport with the 9- and 10-year-old boys who play on the team, as well as their parents, and they spend a lot of time on behalf of the team.
"They're good guys," says Parry.
So how did they find themselves vilified in Sports Illustrated? How did they find themselves on the 10 o'clock news and the subject of blogs and letters to the editor and radio call-in shows?
One minute they were good guys helping kids; the next they were Everything That's Wrong With Youth Sports. And all because of a coaching decision they made during a game.
Put yourselves in their shoes; what would you have done?
Your team — the Yankees — is playing the Red Sox in the championship game. You have a one-run lead in a tight, seesaw battle that has already gone to extra innings. It's the bottom of the seventh, the Red Sox are at bat, it's two out, with a runner on third, and the team's best hitter, Jordan Bleak, is walking to the plate. He already has collected a couple of hits, one of them for extra bases.
What to do — pitch to the slugger or walk him and pitch to the next kid, Romney Oaks, the team's weakest hitter? Oh, and by the way, a few years ago Romney had a brain tumor. He is a tough little guy, a survivor who has battled back to be one of the boys, albeit one with a shunt in his head. He wears a helmet even when he's in the field.
It's only little league, and you're a grown man with collected years of wisdom, but this is the climax of a four-month season, the championship on the line, parents yelling in the stands cheering, boys standing in the dugout cheering their teammates. You have only seconds to decide what to do, or about the time it takes the hitter to walk from the on-deck circle to the plate.
What would you do?
Farley and Farr decided to walk Jordan and face Romney. Romney's family winced in the stands. How could they pick on Romney like this, they wondered? Romney struck out and cried himself to sleep that night.
The family was outraged. So were the Red Sox coaches, Keith Gulbransen and Mitch Perkins, who nearly came to blows with the Yankee coaches.
This happened in late June, but the story didn't really catch fire until later. Ben De Voe of the Davis County Clipper originally lashed out at the coaches — "Hopefully these coaches enjoy the trophy on their mantle, right next to their dunce caps." More than a month later, the Salt Lake and national media got wind of the story.
