“Coach I can’t play second, I’ve never before.”

“Never say can’t to me ever again. Now get on the field, and try your hardest.”

Coach Prorok is very different from other coaches; she doesn’t yell. She would wear sweatpants, and a sweatshirt no matter how hot it was to our games. Her hair was always either in a bun, or in a ponytail. She is very friendly, and always smiling. Our softball team was a family, when they put us in a dugout and Coach Prorok was the mother.

The beginning of our season was not the best, having morning practices before school and having to be there by 5:15 every day. She would make us condition by running up and down the stairs of the hallways, and said it would help us in our games, it would never hurt us. She was right, if we couldn’t of ran up a couple of stairs, we couldn’t of ran the bases to score a run. In the beginning I wasn’t the wisest on the team; and I’ve asked questions that would be the simplest questions to answer now. I would ask questions like “What’s a run? I thought it was called a home run?” She would try to respond, but she would be laughing too hard. “No, if its more than one more batter then it’s a run”. She never judged me; although it was my first year.

In the middle of our season, we have lost most of our games, but with help of our coach, she kept us going strong, she would cheer us on and say that we can win the game. We had many games that were really obnoxious, some of the referee’s were favoriting other teams, and people treated us badly because we were the girls who went to our school. Our coaches old High School, Hersey, was giving us a hard time for going to our school. One girl slid to home base, and the ball slightly touched her, she then complained in the snottiest voice ever “you hit me”. At this point one of my teammates was sick of it. She was very angry, the referee screaming at her, and we couldn’t calm her down. Coach took her to the side and said if she couldn’t calm her down, she wouldn’t be playing for the rest of the season, that set her straight. Then, she called a timeout, and talked to Hersey’s coach and the referee. She explained how horrible their behavior was, and that they needed to stop because they were making our team very mad. She was saying that she was embarrassed by their team because that was Coach’s old High School. During the season, I had a really bad grade. I was failing math, and my coach was a math teacher at the school. During games she would help me with my homework on the sideline, because i needed to get my grade up to play. She did everything that she could do to help me with my math, like helping me during homeroom also. She would take time out of her schedule to help one of her many teammates not have to sit on the sideline the whole game. Coach prorok tries her best at keeping people successful in life.

At the end of the season, it was hard for us to stay strong with so many loses and so many games that would make us angry. She would keep us going strong through every game by screaming our names, saying that we can do it, never give up! At the last game, my whole team was planning to dump a cooler of water on her head. Everyone was going to, at the end of the game she backed off, she knew what was coming. We really didn’t know how she found out about it. So guess what we did, dumped it on each other. It was our last game, we had to do something fun! The other team, Vernon Hills, were just staring. They were staring at us and thought we were the weirdest team ever. The season was hard with many loses, but she really didn’t care if we won or not, she focused on how much fun we had. The banquet was the best part of the season. She called us out on everything we did that season. She compared us to Disney characters, each and every one of us. I got the Dory award. I got this award because I would act like Dory during the games. I would be all over the place and chant out to people. I would scream to cheer them on, when they were in bad moods because we knew we were going to lose again. I acted like Dory because I have a really bad memory and I don’t understand in some situations. I really liked how she noticed that I literally acted like Dory, and I didn’t even know myself. By the end of the season, I was really sad, because it was an end to our family and i started crying. Coach, knowing how worried she always was about us, came up to me and thought it was because of something else. She thought that there was something wrong, but in the end, it was just me sad about the end of the season and how much of an inspiration she was to me. She ended my speech with “Just keep swimming”.

Coach Prorok was one of the few that has inspired me greatly. Whether it was out on the field or after school tutoring, she was always helping me out. To our softball team, she was not only our coach, but a mother to our family.