David brings his mix of compassion, analytical skills and business acumen to his stories from his ten years as a coach, and leader in his local youth baseball league.
By day, David Chaumette has spent more than two decades helping businesses overcome their challenges across numerous industries. A recognized thought leader on the management of electronic data, including issues related to social media. Mr. Chaumette has been quoted in numerous media outlets, ranging from The Houston Chronicle and KUHF-FM to ESPN.com and TMZ. Today, Mr. Chaumette works to help executives to thrive. His individual and team leadership coaching solutions make a difference at every level, from a first-time manager to the CEO.
Yet that is not the whole story. Over 10 years and more 20 youth baseball seasons, David lived at youth baseball fields from California to Georgia to his home state of Texas. That experience taught him about fathers and sons and life in general. Those life lessons are not only true between the foul poles, but also in other corners of life.
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Observations On The Diamond That Transcend Baseball
As a coach, father, and youth league leader, I learned a lot about children, including mine, and life from opportunities on the baseball diamond. Most of those learnings transcend baseball.
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Observations on the diamond transcend baseball.
Walking the aisles of my local bookstore, I have often noticed that there is no shortage of advice books on baseball. Helping the Little League Hitter, 101 Baseball Drills, Dealing with Difficult Parents. You get the idea. I have my share of those books in my house as well. For this book, I have tried to do something completely different. You see, I never played any baseball past Little League and I don’t pretend to have any special insight to playing baseball. My expertise – if you will – is something bigger, and that is: I have learned a lot about children, including mine, and life in general, and all the opportunities that came on the baseball diamond. I don’t claim to be perfect, I can’t even necessarily follow my own advice, but I have seen several people doing the wrong thing and the right thing with their kids on the diamond, and now, I have captured those observations here. I suppose the thing that I noticed most was how these observations transcend baseball. That’s really what inspired me to write this. After all, I’m not really sure the world needs another book on how to hit a curve.
This book is structured like a youth baseball game: six innings each with a top and a bottom. Here is the Table of Contents:
Pre Game Warmups
This is not a book about how to hit a curve. This set of stories is bigger than that.
Top of The First: Fathers and Sons.
The irony of youth baseball is that many fathers do it to be closer to their children, and often that's the last person their children want to see on the field.
Bottom of The First: Kicking out Grandpa.
When communication breaks down and tempers flair, it's the well meaning adults who are most often in the wrong.
Top of The Second: Making New Americans.
The great American melting pot today can be found between the foul poles.
Bottom of The Second: What Jordan Taught Me about Trophies.
One of my players died at 14, but his life was full of meaning. The lessons he taught me have stayed with me for years.
Top of The Third: Being on the Outside Looking In.
When my son took an academic vacation during the all star season, our lives and our relationships immediately became more complicated.
Bottom of The Third: Scheduling on a Well Oiled Team
Youth baseball has many quirky rules, like life. And knowing the rules, especially the convoluted ones, is key to success.
Top of The Fourth: Handicapping the Game
This is the story of two boys, one with one leg and one with a real limitation.
Bottom of The Fourth: Jonathan, Hands Down!
The player who never spoke to me taught me a lesson about how we listen.
Top of The Fifth: Protecting Arms and Hearts
When the kids are on too many teams, it's easy for the adults in charge to lose sight of what's truly important.
Bottom of The Fifth: Babysitting your son (is not my job).
Some parents barely slow the car when leaving their kids at the fields. And it's everyone loss.
Top of The Sixth: Kids Calling Signs.
As the adults at the fields, we should give our kids a voice and encourage them to use it.
Bottom of The Sixth: When the Bottom is Actually the Top
Everyone wants to bat clean up, but everyone gets to bat. And sometimes the real heroes of the game bat last.
Extra Innings: The Thank You Note
One child who I never coached sent me a thank you note, and reminded me of the long range impact of our words and our actions.
Extra Innings: The Last Tournament
My son's last game reminded me that youth baseball is about parents and their children, having more perspective than your child, and realizing that endings always come with beginnings.
Worldwide, a lot of families are involved with youth baseball, and the number is on the rise. According to the Little League Baseball and Softball participation statistics following the 2008 season, there were nearly 2.6 million players in Little League Baseball worldwide, including both boys and girls, including 400,000 registered in softball (also including both boys and girls).
Study shows youth baseball, softball participation on the rise https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/...
There are many books which focus on skills in baseball, but this book focuses on the environment -- and the creating of a positive environment -- in baseball. The book is ideal for those families who have a love of the game and want stories that are relatable and can create opportunities for discussion in a family or community.
My current marketing plan consists of the following:
1. Leverage social media (3200 contacts on Facebook, 3200 contacts on LinkedIn (some overlap), Instagram and Twitter).
2. Release excerpts of the book to youth baseball magazines and other outlets focused on baseball
3. Reach out to individual youth baseball leagues and offer bulk purchase rates with donations of a portion of the proceeds back to the leagues. [This could capitalize on a movement in youth sports to be more positive.]
4. I would ideally like to travel as a speaker if I can get a book tour set up. Perhaps some readings as well.
Taking on the Title of COACH: A 5 Step Guide for Coaching Youth Baseball and Softball. https://www.amazon.com/Taking-...
The Triple Crown of Youth Baseball: A users guide to becoming a more effective player, parent, and coach.
https://www.amazon.com/Triple-...
Throw Like A Girl: How Good Coaches Transform Girls Into Successful Women. https://www.amazon.com/Throw-L...
Untold Tales From The Bush Leagues: A Behind The Scenes Look Into Minor League Baseball, From The Broadcasters Who Called The Action. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H...
From Coach to Coach: A Practical Guide to Coaching Youth Baseball for Coaches of 9 and 10-year-old Ballplayers (Volume 4)
The Coach's Guide: Lessons Learned Coaching Youth Baseball (From Coach to Coach Book 1). https://www.amazon.com/Coachs-...
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Bottom of the Fourth: Jonathan, Hands Down!
My youth baseball league has a special needs league attached to it. In other words, in addition to the traditional youth baseball league, we also have between eight and ten teams every spring which have kids with special needs, such as kids who are deaf or with Down’s Syndrome. Those limitations do not diminish their love of the game. In fact, they are often as hard charging and competitive as any other set of players I have spent time with.
During my involvement with youth baseball, I coached four special needs teams, and those experiences are still some of my favorite memories of youth baseball. On those teams, there are about twelve kids on the team. Everybody gets to bat each inning. Everybody plays in the field each inning. Each game is basically a t-ball game (where the ball is hit off of a tee as opposed to having a pitcher throw the ball).
Every year, I had at least one player on my team in a wheelchair, and, every year, I had at least one (sometimes more) kids on my team who were simply unresponsive. I finished several seasons with some players on my team never saying a word to me.
Yet, despite this perceived lack of communication, these games represent some of my favorite youth baseball experiences. I remember watching one of our players running (or in her case being pushed in a wheelchair) the bases during my first year of coaching. As she crossed the plate, she had such joy in her smile and giddiness in her laugh, I teared up (but no one noticed, so the tears really didn’t happen). These are memories that have stayed with me for years. They still make me smile.
Another amazing aspect of my special needs teams was the community involvement. With twelve players on a team, managing one of these teams was not a solo job. The players often needed personalized attention, and typically there were only two or three coaches. To ease that burden, local high school students volunteer to help the coaches. Each player on the team would be assigned one or two of these volunteers depending on the player’s level of independence. They are not completely altruistic; they do get volunteer hours for their college applications, but these kids always come with a good heart and endless enthusiasm. And we needed them. On a team with about 12 to 15 players, we would need 20 to 30 highschoolers volunteering in order for things to go smoothly.
My last year coaching, my team was the Cardinals. Interestingly, my assistant coach that year had a kid on the team. Now, many of the men and women from our league were very deeply involved with the special needs teams, but their involvement was typically completely independent of whether that person had a child who was playing in the league.
This was not the case with the more traditional teams, and, in today’s world, I’m sure that many would be uncomfortable in a situation where the coach did not have some connection to some of the players on the team. Most of us did it because it was good community service, and then we figured out that it was also a great deal of fun.
Those Cardinals were like other teams where one of the kids had their dad coaching. As I mentioned in other chapters, dads focus perhaps too much on their own children, potentially ignoring the other kids on the team. That was not a problem when I was the head coach. I had coached teams where I was the only adult coaching the team. On those teams, I deputized several of the players to help me run the team. It was a great learning experience and (more importantly) manageable (pun intended), but only when the kids were eleven or older. But being the only coach on this kind of team was a challenge, even with all of the high school volunteers.
I probably could have handled the situation, but there was another complication: Jonathan. Jonathan was about 6’ 2” tall and weighed about 220 pounds. A big boy at about 16 years old, Jonathan had some learning disabilities and was among those players who never really spoke to me even though we interacted a lot. Importantly though, he was a typical 16 year old boy with the same yearnings and desires that most boys of that age.
This last point is important because of the aforementioned high school volunteers. Typically each season began with an informal pairing up process between the volunteers and the players. Most of the time, there was no real need for any of the coaches to be involved; things just worked out. When it was time for Jonathan to pair up, the two who stepped forward were sisters about 12 and 14. Exactly who 16 year old boys like to spend time with.
From across the field, I saw this and became concerned. I didn’t really think that Jonathan was a danger to anyone (and I still don’t) but he was physical and he was big and strong, and I didn’t him to do something unintended. So I suggested that the girls switch to another player, and when it was time for us to go out in the field, I went with Jonathan as his personal volunteer.
Throughout the game, the volunteers helped make the game more fun for everyone. For starters, they made sure the player didn't get hurt. They made sure that the player knew how to run the bases. They helped the player field the ball and then throw it while on defense. Most importantly, the volunteers kept the player company during the game. For both player and volunteer, it was a consistently rewarding experience.
The system works out really well when the player is a six year old and the volunteers are in high school. Jonathan was a little bigger than that, so I ended up hanging with Jonathan for each game of the season. When Jonathan was in the field, I was next to him hanging out. I ran the bases with him.
Unfortunately, Jonathan was an aggressive kid. He would frequently put his hand in my face, and most often, he would do that after taking his hand out of his mouth. He would occasionally pick his nose and then try to touch my face again. One week, he brought a small rubber lizard to the game, which similarly went in my face after Jonathan had rubbed it in the infield dirt. With every step, he always had a smile on his face. Like so many other players, he was caught up in the joy of being on the baseball diamond.
At 5’7”, I came to think of that season as my weekly cage match with someone much bigger and much stronger than me. While I had guile on my side, I was clearly outmatched. Every once in a while, I would look to the stands at Jonathan’s parents, imploring with my eyes for assistance. After some time, I realized that this was just one hour of my week. The rest of the week was all them, and I might represent the only break that they would get.
By the end of the season, Jonathan and I had a well developed relationship. He never said a word to me, but after eight games, we understood each other and I was disappointed that the season was ending. The only thing remaining was the team photo, scheduled for after the last game.
As we assembled the team for the photo, Jonathan was as active as ever. Posing for the photo required all of us – coaches, volunteers, and players – to stand relatively close to each other. Knowing Jonathan well at this point, I made a point of standing next to him, in an effort to try to control him if necessary. Yet, even after eight weeks of practice, I remained overmatched.
Just as Jonathan began flailing his hands around, a small girl about ten, Jonathan’s sister, walked up from behind the photographer. In one fluid motion, she clapped her hands sternly said, “Jonathan, hands down!” In response, Jonathan lowered his arms to his side and stood up straight. Within a minute, the photographer had taken the picture, all without any extra movement from Jonathan. Of course, I had one thought in my head: why couldn’t someone have told me about “Jonathan, hands down!” two months ago, when I began my weekly wrestling match?
That was my last season coaching in the special needs league, so I never got a chance to use the new approach with Jonathan, but it did teach me an important lesson. Sometimes, even when you spend a lot of time with people, you don’t necessarily know how to communicate with them.
David...I would love to get together with you and talk about your book. I'm a huge baseball fan and see lots of Astros and Skeeters games, in fact I volunteer for the Astros Foundation. Just got back from Round Rock where I saw the Iowa Cubs (I grew up in Iowa) beat the Express 6-5. Look forward to hearing all about your book. Richard Gruen
Looking forward to reading this!
Congratulations David! I can't wait to read it!
Can't wait to read it! Let's grab lunch next time I'm in town.
Will be Amazing, Nothing less expected from You My friend.
I'm sure I will. Good luck with the publisher.
First time my son has recommended I read a book! Seems appropriate that I read it with him (or not!) :) LOL!
Looking forward to reading it! Congratulations David!
Can't wait to get my copy of your finished book. Congrats on fulfilling your dreams through your many talents! Janet Diaz
look forward to reading it, though I'm not an avid reader.
Great to hear from you! looking forward to read your book! Haoshi
I very much look forward to receiving and reading an autographed copy of your book, David! I'm sure it will be filled with nuggets of wisdom and, I suspect, some good humor as well. Youth sports and the lessons found there are essential and as a former youth player and periodic coach (basketball, soccer, football), I'm keen to see what your experience has in store for the interested reader...which will be me in this case! With good expectations, Wes King
Great job David! Have you talked to anyone from Friendswood Little League?
Congratulations! I look forward to reading the book!
David Chaumette...true to commitment, love, hope and dreams!
I’m looking forward to the read. I fugure some if it will sound familiar.
Contact my son Casey Cease at Lucid Books. He is a successful publisher.
Looking forward to reading soon! So excited for you!
on May 10, 2018, 10:37 p.m.
I loved your video. Well done, and congratulations!