It’s no secret that coaches have the ability to change our lives. They’re people we spend hours on end with for season after season. They’re people who are just as passionate about the game you’re putting your heart and soul into. But what happens when you lose a coach? Loss is a concept that nobody truly understands. One minute someone is here, and the next they’re not.

Everyone gets to know their coaches, but I got to know mine a little different than most. When I was in eighth grade, I luckily got the chance to play on the high school team after a coach advocated that I deserved it. He was a coach in need of a pitcher, and I was a pitcher jumping for joy at the thought of being allowed to play with high schoolers. Because I was the only middle school kid, the bus wouldn’t stop just to pick me up. My coach picked me up early from school every day to bring me to the high school for games, or practices. Every day. Our short two-minute car rides became the highlight of my days. We would talk about ways I could improve, we would talk about the team we were about to play, those short two minutes allowed for a lot of spoken words.

After my first high school season, my coach decided it was time to retire. Retire was not the appropriate term to use though. When people retire, that usually means they go and do their own thing. Not Coach, he was at the softball field every game day. He watched, and cheered, and very rarely missed a game. He still would talk to me after every game, to tell me what I could improve on, or what we did well with that day. Even when he wasn’t my coach, he still acted as if he was, and cared just as much.

On March 12 of last year I found out the news of his passing, and my heart broke.

I wish I could tell him. I wish I could say thank you for believing in me when nobody else did. I wish I could say that every time I stepped onto the field, I heard his voice telling me to slow down and remember to breathe. I can recall the way I always felt confident because my coach wouldn’t put up with me discouraging myself. I wish I could laugh with him about the time I got so mad he took me out because we were winning by so much. Or the time I hurt my finger playing Southwick and he laughed at me when I said the trainer was cute through the tears rushing down my face. I wish I could say he changed the way I played softball, and he inspired me to be better, to do better.

After the passing of Coach Wilby, our town was shaken. An empty seat at Tandem, and an absence from the bench just beyond center field were just the start of the emptiness we all felt. As our senior year softball season approached, I was upset when I looked out to the outfield and saw an empty bench. At our first game, we all walked into a little surprise in our dugout. Sitting on the bench were two coffee mugs mostly full, and a paper which showed the smiling face of Barry Wilby. The paper read, now there truly is an angel in the outfield. I know someone put that there, and I know Wilby is gone, but I couldn’t help myself from smiling while my eyes teared up. He was there. He was watching us every step of the way. He watched us win Bi-County League Champions, he watched us beat a team literally NOBODY thought we could, and he was at UMASS when our season came to an end.

Maybe to some people, Coach Wilby was just another friendly face, but to me, he was the coach that didn’t allow me to give up on myself. He was my angel in the outfield.