Kidd’s Korner: A case for the compassionate Rice baseball players

By Michael Kidd     2/2/16 9:06pm

Last Tuesday, the Rice Owls baseball team and I took a trip to Shriners Hospital for Children located just down Main Street. If you read the first sentence again you will realize that I purposefully separated myself from the remainder of the team. It is “the Rice Owls baseball team” and then there is “I.” This mentality has been instilled in me and will probably never leave me; growing up with cerebral palsy, there was always just me. I had no team because I was different, I was the outcast who was picked last, the one who could never contribute worth a darn. That was until I came to Rice University. 

I look back on my childhood days growing up and I am truly amazed at where I am today. Now in my third year at Rice University, I have something beautiful and meaningful that I have always desired to be a part of but could never have: a team. The Rice Owls baseball team has embraced me since I first stepped on campus. Working as the student manager of the Owls for three years and counting has perhaps been the greatest experience of my entire life. 

This feeling only became that much more apparent during the recent trip to Shriners Hospital. To have a group of 32 young men right beside me interacting with patients who reminded me so much of myself growing up was a truly moving experience. There was this level of attention, respect, and humility that the team showed in the way they loved on these kids. My teammates motivated them to keep working hard while many others said they will keep working hard on the field for them. 

---

---

In one particular instance, the team was watching and encouraging a young girl of roughly eight or nine years old to continue pressing on to her goal. She ended up walking no more than 25 feet but that was the farthest she had walked in over six months. I was inspired and proud to see the way that these Division I baseball players took themselves out of the equation to make a young child’s day, week or even year. In talking to a great friend of mine who I’ve gotten to know over the past three seasons, Connor Teykl epitomized what I believe was the mood of the team. 

“Interacting with the kids puts everything into perspective [because] you feel blessed for all that you have. You take it for granted that you can walk on your own ... and even though there is a drastic difference on paper with our size and the physical ability disparity, we were able to be on the same level with the kids [in that moment]. 

Speaking from experience, having the one-on-one attention that many of these kids had with guys just like Connor Teykl is priceless. I can say that having strong relationships with each player on the squad this year as well as from the previous two years, is still priceless for me at the age of 20. Acceptance regardless of physical or mental ability is something that money cannot buy, but rather is granted by a special group of people. 

Through the whirlwind of emotions I was feeling while navigating around Shriners hospital, I continually glanced towards the faces of my teammates to see if they had made a connection between these precious kids and myself. I wanted each of them to see my face in the kids they played with and simultaneously thank them for making a world of difference many will never know they made. 

In entering the physical therapy room where the little girl I mentioned earlier was rehabbing, I turned and spoke to the nearest player to me, Dayne Wunderlich. All I did was speak four words to him: “This was my childhood.” What he did next he probably didn’t even think twice about. He did not say a word back. He did not ask for an explanation. He just looked at me and when I turned around, he patted me twice on the back in a way that spoke to me more than 1,000 words could have. Those pats symbolized that he understood where I was coming from, he knew what I was thinking and feeling, he recognized that I was different ... and he didn’t care. 

I am confident that everybody else on the team including my boss, Daniel Watson, and the coaches Wayne Graham, Patrick Hallmark, Clay Van Hook and Scott Sheppard, would have done the exact same thing for me. That is why this group is so special and the impact they have made on my life may be impossible to repay. I can only hope that everyone in their lifetime can too find their acceptance in something as meaningful as what I have experienced with Rice baseball. Many people do not know what they have done for me, including the players themselves, but I figured that reflecting on this trip to Shriners was the optimal time to let them, and the student body at Rice, know. 

Kidd’s Korner is a column written by Michael Kidd. The opinions expressed in the column are solely his own. 

---