Copper Mill Elementary Principal Dewey Davis’s Little League baseball experience didn’t start out as a pleasant one.

“I had a left arm and hand that didn’t work well for baseball,” said Davis regarding his cerebral palsy. “I would get to the ball ready to make a catch only to have it hit my shoulder, chest or sometimes head. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get that gloved left hand to match up with the ball.”

An innovative solution from a coach shaped Davis’s future. “Finally, a coach told me to put the glove on the other hand. I remember that day well. With a left-handed glove on my right hand, I caught everything that came into my field. That event changed my life,” Davis explained. While he still had to contend with the issue of throwing, Davis was content to revel for a while in this victory.

If you have more than one child, you may have realized that it can be similar to Principal Davis’s Little League experience. The coach knew his brother and sisters, and may have even wondered how Davis got to be so different.

Parents of more than one child often marvel at their differences. “They don’t study the same, approach a problem the same way, or create a problem in the same manner. They had the same parents, ate the same food, and lived in the same house but they are as different as night and day,” Davis said of his own children.

It is these differences that caused Davis to reflect on his Little League experience and apply the lessons to his own children and the 4^th and 5^th graders at his school. “It took me some time to realize it’s okay to tell them to put the glove on the other hand,” Davis said.

The lessons of his coach did not stop there. “He didn’t bend the rules for me. If I messed up, I paid the price before and after the solution; but he opened my eyes to opportunity. He never torched my dreams. Just like most other boys who put on a glove, he let me keep my dreams of bigger things,” he said.