Seventeen Inch Home Plate Stake Conference

 We got up early this morning to get ready for church & get there early enough to get good seats for Stake Conference. It fills up fast & we didn't want to be stuck on the hard chairs for 2 hours. Such handsome Anderson men!!!

 Me & My Babe. Stake Conference was really good. My favorite part was when someone told the story of baseball coach John Scolinos. He was speaking at a conference of baseball coaches & he walked up to the podium wearing a big home plate around his neck. He talked for a while & then finally addressed why he was wearing that around his neck. He asked all the different coaches (from pee wee league on up to pros) how big home plate is. The answer for ALL of them was 17 inches. He said:

“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello!” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter.

“What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches, or nineteen inches. We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'”

Pause.

“Coaches …”

Pause.

” … what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him, do we widen home plate?

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”

Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag.

“This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”

We came home, had lunch (roast, carrots, potatoes, and gravy) and then rested. Lexie texted me this picture of a blanket she has been working on for months for Miss Autumn Bottom! She is so stinkin' talented, and Autumn is going to LOVE it!