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In Sharper Focus 8-year-old champs were a portrait of perseverance – but was it worth it?
10/06/2002
By KEVIN SHERRINGTON / The Dallas Morning News
Fourth in a series exploring the impact of youth sports.
No former major leaguers provided commentary when the Dallas Texans won the AABC Roberto Clemente World Series in 1997.
No ESPN coverage, unlike the Little League World Series. No details on the Texans’ hopes, their dreams, where they came from, where they hoped to go.
Just this: A team picture and a few paragraphs in The Dallas Morning News in 1997.
What happened to those boys, smiling from a team picture? Did they stay together, as their coach hinted they would? Did they win another national title?
Are they still playing baseball at all?
Five years later, what happened to a bunch of 8-year-old boys who played 64 games from February through August, then outscored five teams, 70-34, to win a national championship? What comes of practicing and playing five, six, seven days a week, for as much as six hours at a time?
What happens to a family’s desire after six months of vacations missed and meals ruined in an unrelenting pursuit of youth baseball excellence?
Bottom line: Was it worth it?
Asked at the time about his team’s prospects for the future, Brooks Haney, a dentist, said, "I think we’ll stick with it."
And they did. Of the 13 boys in the team picture, nine came back for at least one more season. Two years after their first American Amateur Baseball Congress title, the Texans won another.
But, five years later, through numerous national playoff runs culminating in another national tournament appearance just this summer, only one player from the ’97 team is still on the Texans, and it’s Haney’s son.
One family moved to Austin, and another to East Texas. One boy gave up baseball last season, and one hasn’t played since ’97.
Parents’ reviews are mixed. Some thought the ’97 Texans’ experience excessive for 8-year-old boys. One said he "wouldn’t trade the world for it," another called it "depressing" and a couple wouldn’t talk about it at all.
But, on one point, all who commented agreed: Playing for the Texans in select baseball, the youth sport’s highest level, is more than a commitment.
"It’s a lifestyle," one parent said.
Haney had rules, and enforced them. Anyone whose mind wandered during his hour-long chalk talks at practice, anyone so much as doodling in the dirt, had to run out past the big tree and back.
No one could miss practice, much less a game, which meant no conflicting sports or activities or even birthday parties.
No summer vacation.
"Do I miss that?" asked Steve Elmore, whose son, Colin, is the only ’97 player other than Haney’s son who played for the Texans last season. "Yeah, I do. We haven’t been on a vacation since my boys were 5 and 2. That’d be fun."
He thought a moment.
"Some people say you’re crazy," he said. "Some kids get burned out.
Courtesy photo
In 1997, the Dallas Texans were 8-year-old champions, having practiced as much as six hours at a time.
"You have to figure out what’s best for you and your kid."
Cary Welch did, and this wasn’t it.
"My son loves to fish, and we went fishing one time last year," said Welch, an assistant on the ’97 team. "A friend of mine called me and asked when they should get their kid involved in select baseball. I said it was a two-edged sword. If they do it, they’ll have a big advantage over the kids who haven’t. But I don’t believe it’s good in another way.
"I think it’s too much. Wait until the kid is 11 or 12. You either play select baseball or you play rec baseball and do what you want to do and be a kid.
"You gotta be a kid."
For love, not money
Brooks Haney, 49, has been coaching select baseball with his 74-year-old father, George, since 1978.
Brooks’ dental practice is flexible enough to allow him the time, he said. Unlike many of his peers in the Mesquite chapter of Boys Baseball Inc., he said, he is not paid to coach, a considerable savings for Texans families. Some teams in select baseball charge as much as $1,700 just to cover coaching costs.
The Haneys do it because they love it, Brooks said. "We’ve been able to take not the greatest talent in the world and develop them into world champions," George has said. "We have developed these kids into prime-time baseball players."
On the Texans’ Web site, the Haneys note that they have coached "many" players who earned scholarships and played major college baseball. Asked about the note, Brooks cites the 1986 Texans. Of the dozen players on that team, he said, one eventually earned a football scholarship and the remaining 11 received baseball scholarships at schools ranging from Arizona State, the University of Texas and Baylor on down to several junior colleges.
Some parents come to the Texans expressing the hope of a scholarship, Brooks said, and he doesn’t discourage them.
"The group I have now," he said of his 13-year-olds, "I’m sure they’ll all get scholarships."
Stayton Thomas doesn’t play for the Texans anymore, but his father, Robby, is counting on Brooks’ confidence.
The Thomases live in Corsicana, an hour south of Mesquite, where the Texans play and practice. Despite the commute, Robby said it was worth it. Frustrated at his own ill-fated attempts to play baseball after high school, he swore that he would do better by his only son, which is what led him to the Texans in the first place.
"When Stayton was 7, he was playing shortstop in a rec league down here in Corsicana," Robby said, "and he went out and chewed out the left fielder because he didn’t catch a fly ball. So I figured I’d better find out if he could play in a better league."
Robby made a couple of calls and found out about the Texans. From the day Stayton made the team, he loved it, even the practices. "Everything was baseball to those boys," Robby said. "We could have stayed out there 10 hours and it wouldn’t have fazed them."
They nearly did. "Brooks would sit down with the chalkboard in the infield and go over situation after situation," Robby said. "Of course, the boys would get tired, being 8. Trying to explain things to 8-year-olds gets to be a little hectic sometimes."
HUY NGUYEN / DMN
Chris Haney, son of coach Brooks Haney (kneeling), is the only member of the 1997 Dallas Texans still on the squad.
Brooks, a soft-spoken man, didn’t lose his patience, though. Parents said he was calm with players, never raising his voice.
But the hour-long chalk talks eventually wore on most kids, parents said. They said that after a couple of years, the boys chafed at the repetitive nature of it, or the length of practices. Other select teams beckoned, most requiring less time commitment.
When the Dallas Tigers called last year, Stayton was quick to switch teams. "Of course it didn’t hurt that the other coach took him down to the clubhouse in Austin at Disch-Falk Field," Robby said.
Still, Robby is grateful to the Haneys. "Stayton probably knows more baseball than most high school kids," he said.
Corsicana neighbors criticized him when he sent his son to Dallas to play. But the 43-year-old purchasing agent is sure he made the right choice five years ago.
"We’d like for him to get noticed and perhaps play college ball some day," Robby said. "Or we could let him stay home and not get nothin’ for it. Stayton’s a straight-A student. I told him the other day, ’You’ve got it right there in the palm of your hand.’ "
More practice than play
Until he was 8 years old, Tommy Brooker had always played for his father, Dan Brooker, in a Plano rec league for a team called the Wildcats.
But Tommy was a good player. And when a family friend recommended the Texans as "a good opportunity to increase his competition," the Brookers decided to try select baseball.
Tommy made the team, but soon it was apparent that he wasn’t as good as the other boys, said his mother, Renee Brooker. Consequently, he didn’t play as much, a growing source of contention given the commitment the Brookers had made.
"Especially when we’d be going to practice on [Interstate] 635," Renee said, "and the kids would be eating their dinner in the car and doing their homework in the car. And then, by the time practice was over and we got back home and the kids in bed, it was 11 o’clock."
Tommy’s lack of play led Dan to question Brooks on a couple of occasions. But, even though another family left the team before the playoffs because of their son’s lack of playing time, the Brookers stayed.
Not that it changed anything. Tommy played one inning in the state tournament and another in the regionals. He didn’t play in the nationals at all.
Not even in blowouts. "In the regionals," Renee said, "he got in and scored our 31st run, and the other team had two at the time."
By the time the Texans reached the playoffs, Dan already had washed his hands of the team, Renee said. Dan took the other two kids on reunions and family vacations that summer, and she drove Tommy to games and practices as well as to Kansas and Colorado for the regionals and finals.
After the season, Brooks received Tommy’s uniform in the mail, along with an angry letter from Dan.
It was the last correspondence Dan would have with Brooks. In late December, four months after the Texans’ ’97 season ended, the Brookers were returning from a trip to Disney World when a wheel broke off a trailer on I-635. It bounded across several lanes, glanced off another vehicle and crashed through the windshield.
Renee, who had been sitting in the rear seat of the van, made her way through the shower of glass to the front as the vehicle began drifting. Grabbing the wheel from her dying husband, she safely steered the van to the shoulder.
Dan’s death and Renee’s decision to donate her husband’s organs, used by five transplant patients, drew local publicity. As a spokeswoman for organ donation, she has appeared at numerous banquets and charity events ever since.
A cause couldn’t fill a void, though. For months after Dan’s death, Renee would find Tommy alone in his room, staring at a picture of himself with his father, both in their Wildcats uniforms.
Tommy hasn’t played baseball since the Texans’ ’97 season. "He worked as hard as any other child did," Renee said. "It was very depressing. He didn’t ever talk about it a lot."
HUY NGUYEN / DMN
Renee Brooker, with son Tommy, a member of the 1997 Dallas Texans. Tommy is holding a photo of himself and his father, who was killed in late 1997.
Football is his favorite sport now. Practices are frequent and long, Renee said, but Tommy loves it.
"I don’t mind him working hard and learning a work ethic," Renee said. "But we decided the select thing is not the way to go with 8- to 10-year-olds."
Not even if parents are willing to make the commitment?
"I still don’t think that’s healthy," she said.
Changes in direction
Charlie Spencer told his three children they could have one extracurricular activity outside North Highlands Bible Church, where Charlie is the youth pastor, and the home schooling provided by their mother, Sharon.
Why just one activity?
"So our kids could be focused and good at one thing," Charlie said.
Luke, his only son, picked baseball. They chose BBI, Charlie said, because they heard it was the best baseball in the area.
In his first season of BBI, Luke’s team played the Texans, coached by Brooks Haney. Besides noting the Texans’ obvious skill, Charlie found Brooks’ personal and team conduct "exemplary": no showboating, no profanity, no back talk by players.
Impressed, Charlie had Luke try out for the ’97 Texans. Luke made the team, and the difference in expectations was immediately apparent.
Mesquite BBI schedules a couple of games a week in its regular season. Weekends are free, leaving teams to participate in as many tournaments as coaches want. Not all teams practice or play every day, with some teams playing no more than 20 to 30 games a year.
Luke’s former team practiced once or twice a week, no more than two hours at a time. Besides a pair of league games each week, the Texans practiced Tuesdays and Thursdays. If they weren’t in a weekend tournament, they practiced Saturday and Sunday afternoons, as well.
"We played baseball about every day," Charlie said, smiling.
Despite his church duties, Charlie became a Texans assistant, never missing a practice or game.
"Home-schoolers are always downgraded for social skills," Charlie said, "so we felt like this was a great opportunity for Luke. Besides, Brooks and George were promoting character and good conduct."
Luke would play for no other coach. But one day last October, before going to a weekend camp in East Texas, he composed an e-mail for his parents, which they didn’t read until he’d already left. In it, he told his parents he wanted to take a year off from baseball so that he could participate in youth activities at church and "pursue my relationship with the Lord."
"As I was reading it," Charlie said, "tears were coming to my eyes. That’s a pretty mature letter for a 12-year-old boy."
A 12-year-old boy who had played more than 400 baseball games over five years.
Asked in June if he missed baseball, Luke said, softly, "No, not yet."
Family sacrifices
No one had a longer commute to the Texans’ games in 1997 than Steve Elmore.
He lived in New York.
A salesman, Steve spent 10 days a month in Dallas. His ex-wife, Ingrid, got the kids to practice with the help of Steve’s parents, Bev and Mary Bess, who live in Lake Highlands.
Every day, the elder Elmores drove from Dallas to Rockwall to pick up Colin and his older brother, Matthew, then carry them to games and practices in Mesquite.
"If it wasn’t for them," Steve said of his parents, "it wouldn’t have happened."
The boys sacrificed, too. "It’s tough on the schoolwork," Steve said. "There are a lot of late nights. Lots of times, they’ve already fallen asleep in the car by the time we get home from practice, and I have to wake them up so they can finish their homework."
Not that he considers it a detriment. "I think it makes them better people in the long run," he said. "It helps them learn what commitment is all about."
But commitment is one thing, and choice is another. Every year, Steve asked Colin whether he wanted to go to another team where the practices weren’t as frequent or long.
Every year, Colin told him he wanted to stay. Of course, it’s not always up to Colin. Two years ago, Brooks called Steve to tell him that Colin’s sub-par play in practices and games put his position on the team in jeopardy. He wouldn’t cut him, Brooks said, but Colin might not play much.
Told of his tenuous position, Colin played harder.
"Every year is a new situation," Steve said. "You never know with Brooks. He does have the kids’ consideration in mind, but he’s gonna put the best kids out there, and that’s fine with me.
"You’d better get used to that kind of thing early. Better to learn it now than wait until you’re 25 and find out."
’It gets old’
Almost all the Texans pitched at one time or another in 1997, but Brody Welch was one of the Texans’ aces, along with Chris Haney and Will Calhoun, who would be the MVP of the national tournament that year.
Brody pitched, and his father, Cary, coached. "It was pretty exciting at the time, me and my son and a national title," Cary said.
And it only got better. By the time the Texans were 10 and had won another title, Cary said, he was sure they could have beaten the 12-year-old champions of the Little League World Series.
But it wasn’t much longer before Brody began to have doubts about the time committed to the Texans. Before last season, Cary asked him if he wanted to play for another team, one without so many practices and games, and Brody told him he wanted to stay.
"I think he was worried about change and what to expect," Cary said.
Only a couple of weeks into the season, after another hour-long chalk talk and a four-hour practice, Brody turned to his father in the car on the way home to Plano.
"I don’t even want to play baseball anymore," he said.
Cary didn’t feel the same about it, either. Leaving work at 3:30 most days, his weekends blotted out from February through August, he felt baseball had become "a drain and a strain."
Cary told Brooks as much on several occasions, but nothing changed. "They think you gotta work, work, work," Cary said.
Finally, after five seasons with the Texans, Brody played for another team this summer.
"It gets old," Cary said. "That’s the main reason I left."
Brooks called it a "mutual decision." He said he remains friendly with the Welches, as he does with several of the parents from the ’97 team. When Brody was hospitalized briefly this fall after an injury in a football game, Brooks visited him and put him on his prayer list.
Cary even called Brooks from Oklahoma in late July, allowing Brody to update his old coach on the progress of his new BBI team.
As for the Texans, their season ended July 25 in North Carolina with a 5-4 loss in the U.S. Specialty Sports AssociationWorld Series. The Texans finished 72-21, and never did a .774 winning percentage seem quite so empty.
"Of course, we are disappointed," Brooks wrote on the team’s Web site. "We expected to do a lot better in the USSSA World Series. We always expect to do the best. We now go back to work to try to improve our team. This team will do what is necessary to make the changes and/or additions-deletions to get us over the top."
In his posting, Brooks invited interested players to try out, noting that he would be releasing "several" of his 13-year-olds.
"I’m trying to prepare ’em," Brooks said of his posting. "I don’t want any of them to be hurt. I tell ’em all, ’I love you guys.’ But sometimes you have to make changes."
One of the changes was Colin Elmore. After seven seasons, he no longer is a Texan.
After Colin’s playing time waned in the national tournament in favor of players Brooks had picked up for the postseason, Steve said he asked Brooks if they should find a new team. Brooks didn’t try to discourage him.
Colin now plays for the Dallas Mustangs, another highly successful select team.
The recent separation has left bitter feelings. No longer does it seem acceptable to Steve that players could lose their positions to better talent, or that it is a good lesson for 12-year-olds to learn.
After all the Elmores’ loyalty, Steve questioned Brooks’ motivation in turning over the roster, year after year.
"It’s not about the kids anymore," Steve said. "These guys want to win for themselves."
The Texans win a lot, and they do it without yelling or cussing or throwing tantrums. Brooks Haney tolerates no less, and he makes it clear to parents every year.
His stated philosophy: Teach baseball, have fun and win.
Colin Elmore is steeped in seven seasons and hundreds of hours in Brooks Haney baseball, and for the first time in his young life he’s learning a different brand.
Colin’s scouting report?
"This team probably won’t be as good as the Texans," he told his father, "but I’ll have more fun now."
A STAR’S FIRST STEPS
While growing up in Miami, Rangers shortstop Alex Rodriguez played many sports, including baseball in a Boys Club league. Eddy Rodriguez, a local Boys Club director, became a mentor to him. Rodriguez didn’t play on a select team until he was in high school, although he played in the Pony League World Series in San Francisco as a 10-year-old. "That’s one of my best memories," he said. "... I was playing baseball and I was so happy."
• • •
Q: What’s it like when you are the best player on your team as a kid?
A: I was never the best kid on my team growing up. I was always somewhere down the list, but I was playing an [age] division up. When I started playing against kids my own age at 13 or 14, it was like men against boys because I had been playing with older, more developed kids so long.
• • •
Q: Is your talent and success God-given or did you have to work hard?
A: God blessed me with a huge talent, that much I understand. But I could not continue to have success with that talent, if I didn’t work hard. I’m thankful he blessed me with the talent and with the desire to work hard and get better every day.
• • •
Q: What advice would you give to kids who want to be major leaguers?
A: Play as many sports as possible. I played baseball, basketball and soccer growing up and football, too. Keep all your doors open. But school should be the No. 1 priority. It can also be your No. 1 tool to getting developed as an athlete. If you work hard at school, you can get a scholarship and then get a lot of individual [sports] instruction. Working hard at school might be the best way to ensure you get a chance to play professionally.
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