Coach

My husband has coached Jake's baseball team the past few years. The pre-season coaches meeting - where rosters were handed out - was earlier tonight. John came home and immediately started calling players, introducing himself and sharing practice time and location information.

One call lasted just a few extra minutes, and I wish I had been listening in, to hear it first hand.

This year, a third grader who I'll call "J", was rather randomly placed on our team. Jake knows J from school, even though he's a year younger, because J uses a cozmo pump, too. John quickly let the dad know that both he and I have type 1, and that I use a pump, and that he's been a diabetic for over 38 years.

John said the relief in that dad's voice was palpable (ok, palpable is my word). He also said he would be sure to be more obvious about checking his blood sugar at practices and games, so that J would know it's cool. John's excited that there'll be a kid with diabetes on his team.

Faithful readers and friends will know that I met John while we were both working at diabetes camp. You gotta love a guy who has already proven himself to be good with kids. And you gotta love a guy who sees a kid with diabetes and gets excited about showing that kid that having diabetes doesn't have to get in the way of important things like baseball.

And for the first time in possibly forever, J's parents do not have to worry about teaching a coach the diabetes ropes. We've got it covered!