This is the first of a four part blog series that will shed light on The Recreation?s Projects newest adventure, little league baseball in Uganda.
?After all, where do dreams start?? They start when we?re playing, when we?re free to run and romp around.? That?s when we imagine we?re something bigger than we are.?
-????????? Kevin Carroll, ?Rules of the Red Rubber Ball?
Roby?s Cubs was the first baseball team I ever played for.? My dad was the coach and we played our games in a beat up field across the street from Dairy Queen.? This team gave me meaning in life at 7 years old, and I ran with it.? Daily you could find me outside of my house throwing a baseball against a wall and having it bounce back to me so that I could pick it up cleanly and throw it back to the wall.? All by myself I would play a World Series in my head and dream about where this sport could take me.? I wanted to be Shawon Dunston, the short stop for the Chicago Cubs.? My dad went ahead and named the field outside our house Hoins Stadium and mom chose not to get mad when I killed her grass where home plate and the pitcher mound stood.? It was quite the little make shift baseball field.? They told me I had to do well in school in order to make it to the big leagues.? They could have said I needed to clean the house 5 hours a day, and as long as it gave me the chance to play I would have done it.? I played, worked, hoped, and dreamed whenever I had a baseball in hand.? At seven years old no dream was too big, I was swinging for the fence.
As most of you know I didn?t make the major leagues.? I actually was cut from my 9th grade baseball team.? But those trials helped me realize that sport was an avenue, not a dead end.? They revealed my joy in working with people and this became a driving factor in my career choices.? They taught me diversity as I always saw a picture of people who looked different playing together, another factor that has resulted in moving half way across the world.? They taught me to lose, but more importantly, get back up again.? They taught me there was always another season, and time to rebuild.? They taught me hard work, you get what you put in.? They also taught me that spending time with people is God?s greatest gift.? I can?t tell you what happened in the Nebraska/Oklahoma game in 1994 (that is not true, but most people can?tJ), but I can tell you that I went with my Grandpa.
Coach Mike lining Gulu's first baseball field
So you can imagine the disappointment I feel when I see that kids in Uganda don?t have the opportunity or chance to let sports drive them to a better future.? We at TRP think that is not okay.? So we are doing something about it.? Recently an opportunity jumped up to run a Little League Baseball program at Bishop Negri Primary School in Gulu.? It has me jumping out of bed in the morning.? Why?? Because it is a chance to combine my current passions of providing youth sporting opportunities in Uganda with where it all started for me:? on a make shift baseball field.? And my hope is that through this experience, that we will see these youth start to believe and dream of a life in which they can overcome boundaries that others put on them, or if they so choose, to alter the course of life that sometimes seems predetermined here.? My hope is that they will swing for the fence.
?Never accept the boundaries imposed upon you.? To truly honor your red rubber ball, you must alter the course when necessary?
Ready to go
-????????? Kevin Carroll, ?Rules of the Red Rubber Ball?
This was the first in a four part blog series on The Recreation Project?s newest adventure, baseball in Uganda.? Stay tuned for our next update called ?Covering the Bases? which will take a deeper look at the specific programs being implemented on the ground.
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