Fifty years later, players honor former Tacoma youth coach

Many of us with a passion for sports can trace our “love of the game” back to youth teams and the coaches who taught us the rules of sport and, in some cases, life. A few guys who grew up in the Midland area of Tacoma never forgot their old coach and decided to let him know, 50 years later, what he meant to them.

It was 1962 and Rick Shadle was new to the neighborhood. He was out riding his bike and happened upon the Midland playfield where a group of kids his age were playing ball.

“I didn’t have the slightest idea how to play baseball or hold a mitt,” he remembered. “And Mr. Heyer was standing right there and he said: ‘Come on, we need players.'”

Shadle says he could not have pedaled home faster to tell his mother that he was on a team.

“And so it began,” said Shadle.

Harold Heyer, a working class guy in his 40s, played baseball as a kid growing up in Iowa, but he was a coach by accident. Now 94-years-old, he remembers that a friend was running a kids’ team.

“And he come down to see me because we were friends and he wanted to know if I would help, because he didn’t know what he was doing and I said sure. After the second game he was gone,” recalled Heyer. So began his youth coaching career.

Heyer’s wife, Sue, mowed the lawn and made him a sandwiches to go so that Heyer had time to rush to games and practices right after work.

“I loved baseball ever since I could remember baseball and I loved getting those boys together just to have the group and play ball,” said Mr. Heyer.

His 18 years of coaching left a lasting impression on Shadle and some of his young teammates, including Bob Mann, “Bobby” to his friends back then, all now in their 60s.

“Sometimes it takes a little bit of time in your life to figure out where you learned some things and I think I learned a lot from these two (Heyer and his wife),” said an emotional Mann. “I think it’s made me a better person.”

Coach Heyer remembers teaching the kids the rules of the game and life.

“Sportsmanship. I mean if we lost, we lost and we could shake their hands on the other team.”

“We had fun,” recalled Shadle. “And I don’t ever remember being pressured to win or anything like that. It was getting along with others and if we lost, like he said, we congratulated the other team.”

Coach Heyer is proud of the way he handled the kids, never criticizing a player in front of the group.

Some of the young teammates played together through high school, winning a South Puget Sound League championship at Franklin Pierce High School. Shadle went on to play college ball at Western Washington University.

The idea for a team reunion came up a few years ago when a couple of old teammates got together and then plans stalled amid busy lives. Until one day this summer when Shadle took an order at a Tacoma flower shop, where he works part time. Mrs. Heyer had suffered a stroke.

“I didn’t know,” recalled Shadle. “I knew the flowers were going out to the house and so I told the boss I’m going to go out there in the truck and do it personally; I need to see these folks.”

That medical scare for Mrs. Heyer got the ball rolling on a party to celebrate the 50th anniversary of coach Heyer’s first team, the Midland Mets, in 1962.

“Putting this together has been an absolute blast. We’re glad he’s here to share it with,” added Shadle.

Fifteen former players have confirmed their plans to attend the picnic. Half-a-dozen others are possible. If organizers missed a former player, they can contact Shadle at (253) 307-0211 or send an e-mail to retiredrickshadle@yahoo.com.

A one-time sponsor, Anglea’s Restaurant, agreed to provide food, chairs, and tables and defer some of the cost.

The boys used to play some hardball at the Heyer place and the coach says they broke only one window over the years. This time, there’s talk of a whiffle ball game at the picnic in the Heyer’s yard on Sunday.

“When I heard about that, I got immediately worried for my hamstring and knees and everything else,” quipped Shadle.

Players contributed photos, an old schedule, a pennant and other memorabilia for a poster board collage.

I asked Coach Heyer to put names to some of the young faces. “Don’t ask me, I can’t remember my own name anymore,” Heyer joked. But he’s thrilled by the reunion. “It’s way beyond anything that I ever expected. I never dreamt that I would see any of my teams together, I mean any of the boys. It’s something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”