Sports concepts 鈥� especially winning and losing or coming from behind and powering through or giving 110 per cent for the team 鈥� are excellent metaphors for life.
This became especially apparent to Wildcats softball manager Gary Kingman when he told the 14-year-old athletes he鈥檇 coached for four years that he had cancer.
"We were going to battle this. We were going to beat it," he said.
When he informed parents and players at a team meeting more than two years ago, he couldn鈥檛 imagine they even understood the words non-Hodgkin鈥檚 lymphoma. "I didn鈥檛 know what it meant so I don鈥檛 know they did," 聽he said Tuesday. The cancer now in remission. "You say the word, and everybody goes sideways."
He felt no pain, but chemo left him exhausted, with too little energy to attend many games and, when he did one sunny day in March, his body was left with too few defences to keep from catching a fever and then pneumonia. "I just couldn鈥檛 stay away," said Kingman, who had been on the leadership executive of the 麻豆传媒映画softball league for two decades. He recovered.
"It was a pretty sad moment for all of us," said pitcher Julia Jachimowicz, 17, who started on the team when she was 10. "It鈥檚 hard to remember because it was a life-altering thing for us. He supported us through so much and we鈥檙e more like a family than a team. He鈥檚 put so much of his time into the team. He didn鈥檛 have to but he did because he cares so much."
Robyn Newell, the team鈥檚 assistant manager and at the time a PhD candidate in biomechanical engineering, coached the team in Kingman鈥檚 absence. Before that winter, the Wildcats played in the B division and in 2009 and 鈥�11, they won bronze at the B.C. championship. In 2012, the year Kingman was diagnosed, the Wildcats were moving up to the highly competitive A division.
鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 realize how tough it was going to be," said Kingman, noting many A teams aspire to win national championships. The Wildcats had a tough season with the absence and frightening potential loss of their coach, but also because of the many losses on the diamond. Still, they created a tribute to try and keep spirits high. The Wildcats hung a photo of Kingman in their dugout for all the home and away games they played until their coach returned.
"We hung it up even in the rain, so it started to get a little crinkled, but we kept using the same one," said Amanda Percival, 16, who plays shortstop. "That probably made him feel pretty good and pretty loved. It gave us another reason to push hard and do our best for him."
Kingman, now 71 鈥� "But I try not to act 71," 鈥� saw the portrait when he attended a few innings of a game.
The players and their parents also organized to prepare meals, ones like lasagne and soup that Kingman could freeze and then heat up and eat for several days. 鈥淭hat was amazing,鈥欌�� he said.
At the Canadian Open Fastpitch Championship earlier this month, the U18 Wildcats played well but won only one game in the consolation round. Kingman said they get the challenge they wanted in the A division and the record isn鈥檛 their only measure of success. They had already supported their coach in a much bigger game.
"I think it helped them," Kingman said about his surviving cancer. "It really did because adversity is what this whole thing is about."
On life and sport, the coach added this: 鈥淏aseball and softball, it鈥檚 probably the toughest game to play. It鈥檚 a team game but it鈥檚 an individual game ... It is a brutal game and it鈥檚 unforgiving if you make a mistake because it will come right back at you. The baseball gods are seriously mean, is all I can say, and that鈥檚 what I tell the kids.
"It鈥檚 such a life game, too. Softball and baseball, or any competitive sport, is about learning how to live. You鈥檝e got to battle out there."
