The gift this Christmas morning is not gold, frankincense and myrrh, though it is delivered by three quasi-Magi and it is child-centered, designed for youngsters yearning for perspective at a time when a win-at-all-cost mentality has taken root.
Equal playing time, praise and discipline, teamwork and sportsmanship are offered by volunteers Mick Krantz, Kathy Belloni and Freddy Page Arck, three wise coaches guided by the best interests of children.
Parents willingly place their trust in Krantz, Belloni and Arck.
In return, the three are the epitome of what a youth coach should be: caring, constructive, stern, uplifting.
“I ask the players to believe in themselves and to believe in me, that I will help them to be successful,” Arck said.
“I tell them that success doesn’t mean you win every game, it means you go out there and give your best. If we come out with our ‘A’ game, then we will not leave the court with our heads down. If we lose, we’ll be proud of our effort and know the other team was better that night.”
Spreading the wealth
For every tall third-grader prohibited from dribbling, every slow-footed fourth-grader denied the opportunity to carry the football and every beginner whose only up-close view of the mound is when he crosses it on his way to right field, Krantz is a godsend.
His policies not only recognize that body types can change dramatically between elementary school and high school, but that children who get to dribble or catch or throw are likely to stay in team sports. Krantz uses all 12 of his players as pitchers, develops five quarterbacks and lets the “big guy” bring up the ball and run the point.
“On my former basketball team they would only pass to two guys and they scored all the points,” said Dylan Zbylski, 11. “When I came to Coach Mick’s team, he let me have the ball. He let everyone have the ball. He favored more players than his son. Now I want to go to practice.”
While Dylan enjoys the red light, green light dribbling games and the one-on-one time his coach has devoted to improving his left-handed dribbling, he also benefits from Krantz’s long-term view.
“The things they are going to learn, they’ll carry with them throughout life,” Krantz said. “Very few will play college sports or even professional, but they’ll learn about teamwork, team building and developing team confidence. That’s what it’s all about.”
The score will fade long before Ty Wiest forgets the Arapahoe Youth League semifinals of 2004. He dropped two passes and felt he had let his team down. Yet Krantz kept pumping him up, saying, “Don’t worry, there’s a lot of football left.”
Sure enough, Wiest hauled in a pass from Jake Krantz, the coach’s son, scoring the lone touchdown in the Dolphins’ victory over the Patriots.
Not only is Krantz committed to outfielders splitting time in the infield and linemen taking turns at wide receiver, he encourages his players to play several sports in an era of specialization.
Instilling self-esteem
While peers relied on “What Color is Your Parachute” to aid their career search, Kathy Prendergast ditched her plans to be a psychologist on the advice of her mother, who saw in her 18-year-old West Texas State freshman hurler the makings of a talented and enthusiastic teacher and coach.
Before long, Prendergast saw it, too.
“I like seeing the light turn on for someone when you’re teaching them something and they finally get it,” she said. “It’s exciting; you’ve instilled something.”
After marrying former Texas Tech wide receiver Dave Belloni, Kathy began a 17-year softball coaching career, including stops at Colorado School of Mines and Wheat Ridge High before settling in at Sts. Peter and Paul in Wheat Ridge.
With Dave, a personal trainer and wide receivers coach at Mullen High, she’s raised four athletes.
“This is what I do, and my children love it,” Belloni said. “They grew up with it.”
Except for Dad, the entire family combined last spring to revive the Sts. Peter and Paul varsity baseball program. Kathy was the head coach, assisted by Zach, 19, and Jarrett, 17. Brennan, 15, played on the team and Shelby, 8, was the bat girl.
Belloni sums up her approach in four words: discipline, respect, class and faith, the latter expressed in team prayers before and after every game.
As for the D-word, Belloni asks for unquestioned authority when they cross the lines.
“I tell them when they come on my field, it is my field for two hours,” she said. “Discipline will help them focus.”
All 16 players, from those who play on traveling competitive teams to novices, are given equal playing time.
“All the girls know that everyone is even on my field,” she said. “The competitive girls are not the No. 1 players. They all know and expect even treatment. And they respect each other. It’s neat. At the beginning of the year, you see a little division and then, at the end of the year, they come together as a team.”
The point was illustrated last October in the semifinals of the Catholic School Athletic League (CSAL) tournament. The score was tied when novice Erica Parsons drew a walk. Belloni gave her the sign, and Parsons dutifully stole second base. She would not steal third, however. Out of fear, she shook off the sign until Belloni’s gestures – particularly pointing at a third baseman playing well off the base – convinced Parsons to risk swiping third base. When the catcher overthrew the base, Parsons surprised herself, dashing home for the winning run.
Players who excel at other sports flock to the diamond in their offseasons to play for Belloni.
“Mrs. Belloni does so much for the girls’ self-esteem,” said Joanie Keyes, mother of Sts. Peter and Paul eighth-grader Rachel Keyes. “She’s fair, she’s consistent, and she knows what she’s talking about.”
Her peers in the CSAL appreciate her subtle attempts to avoid running up the score: the steal signs that cease and the increase in switch-hitting. Beginning pitchers from the burgeoning program at St. Thomas More learned the finer points of the windmill from Belloni, and other CSAL opponents have benefited from her expertise.
“We were scoring a lot of runs and the other team’s pitcher was struggling so Mrs. Belloni called timeout and went to the mound, calmed her down, gave her some tips, and she was able to get out of the inning,” Keyes said. “Imagine doing that for the opposing team.”
Nurturing confidence
Colin Sebern never had played basketball, but his parents, Florence and Scott, felt the then-12-year-old could grow from being put in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable situation. Moreover, they wanted their son to exercise regularly over the winter months. After signing him up at Cook Park, a Southeast Denver recreation center, he was assigned to Arck’s team.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, Colin was a zero,” Florence Sebern said. “The kid could barely run, he would lope out there, and Freddy would say, ‘It’s OK, he’ll get it.”‘
In three seasons, Arck taught Sebern and the other beginners how to box out, pivot, jump stop and shoot layups. Meanwhile, he convinced his experienced players of the need to keep progressing and the importance of giving their novice teammates opportunities to catch passes, dribble and take shots.
In a story right out of a Hollywood script, all those factors converged in the 2005 championship when Colin was open in the waning seconds of a tie game.
“One of our best players – in the past he might not have passed him the ball – gave him a beautiful, one-bounce pass,” Arck said. “Colin caught it in stride and put up a beautiful layup, the winning basket. The grin on his face is probably still there right now. Here’s a kid that wasn’t that into basketball, but he stayed with it and turned out to be a great team player. The team trusted him to catch the ball and make the basket.”
As Colin recalls, he and Freddy spent the previous month working on those exact skills: moving without the ball, catching on the move, and banking in a layup.
“I’ve stayed in the game. I play now because of how Coach Freddy has helped me,” Colin said.
Florence Sebern saw her son’s confidence grow amid Arck’s rigid, skill-driven practices.
“He’s old-school, he demands discipline,” she said. “Oftentimes with coaches, it is one end or the other. They are so inclusive; there is no discipline and no one progresses, or they’re so focused on the outcome they concentrate on the star’s ability and leave the rest in the dust. Freddy plays all kids evenly; he doesn’t let the stars have too much court time. And that’s phenomenal, because Freddy loves to win.”
Whether he’s flashing his trademark thumbs-up sign or relaying the best strategy against a pick-and-roll, Arck revels in his young charges. While watching his son, Jake, play recently for Thomas Jefferson High, he was like a proud papa counting six players who played on his Cook Park teams.
Fueled by a love for the game despite a brief stint as a player, Arck took up coaching at 23. At the beginning of each season, he presents his philosophy of getting the players to believe in themselves.
As new basketballs, bats and lacrosse sticks are unwrapped this Christmas morning, parents seek coaches like Arck, Belloni and Krantz.
Yet these quasi-Magi claim they’re not the gift of Christmas; it is the other way around.
“The gift comes back to me. I love it,” said Krantz, echoing Arck and Belloni. “I love working with kids.”
