My intent for my next blog was to discuss suicide. Unfortunately about 3 weeks ago, one of the former students from my middle school ended his life. I'll talk about that soon. Unbelievingly just after receiving the information on the suicide, I received some additional bad news. Tiny Laster had passed away on the morning of May 3rd. Tiny was a man with a little name but a big heart and a man full of knowledge. A man that many people loved and many people loved to hate. He was a man with a big heart and much vision. He ended his life coaching the Hampton University Pirates softball and volleyball teams after coaching basketball, softball and volleyball for much of his life. He spent much of his life in Alabama until coming to Hampton to help the programs out there for the past 15-20 years. He entered my life in the late 1990's or 2000. As a young volunteer asst. coach for an up and coming softball team at Coppin St. College I met him on the dirt as his team was drubbing our team for the umpteenth straight time. I was initally appalled at him when I realized that he threw his weakest pitchers against us (still beating us) and he would let his players coach the bases against us. I remember being so insulted when visiting a game between Hampton and Morgan St. University during spring break one year and noticed his demeanor was totally different. Morgan St. was a much more competitive team at that time and I noticed his best players were out there on the field for the entire game and he spent the entire game coaching 3rd base (like all of the other coaches we faced). I was incensed until after spending a few months thinking about it, I realized that I would have done the same thing. This helped encourage me to try to help my program become more competitive by trying to recruit some of the best players available. At the end of my 2nd year (as a paid asst. coach now) I watched him get off of his rear and actually coach 3rd base in a game against us when we surprised them by staying close to them late into a game. They ended up beating us a again but I could see he had begun to respect us and he told us just that. As time went on, the head coach at Coppin moved on and the new coach bought in her own staff and I moved down the road to Howard University ( a new program). As a first year program we played Hampton tight, almost knocking them off with only 1 recruitable player. It was nice to hear from a successful coach like Tiny, "that you are doing a fine job." When my head coach resigned after the 1st year I was dejected and remember talking to him as I visited him on campus at Hampton and remembering him allowing me to watch one of his practices and allowing me to assist him when his team came up to MD to play some games that year. That was a thrill to me. I didn't want to be out of the game and he gave me the opportunity to stay in the game. The next year, I found out he mentioned good things to Morgan St. about me and that my started my next stint on the college level. All thanks to Tiny!
This brings me to the week he passed away. I talked to him the Sunday before he passed away as he told me the outcome of his game and he mentioned that he was tired. He asked me about my coaching desires for the next couple of years and he asked me to help him find a place for his team to stay during the tournament. We were going to talk during the week. It was quite a shock to my system when I was talking to another coach 4 days later and heard him say to me "Did you hear about Tiny Laster?" That was such a shock to me! Hearing Jeff Savage make that statement put me in disbelief for the next week! He was too young to go (61). A man that had fought so hard for equal benefits for young ladies under Title IX, a man that strived hard to keep his ladies teams as #1 of their respective conferences, a man that would be quick to pull out his rule book no matter if he was wrong or right, a man who had fought being on kidney dialysis the past two years while still coaching was gone. A man who just 1.5 days before he died won his last softball regular season championship against Norfolk St. with a perfect 14-0 conference record. Tiny thanks for all you've done. Rest in peace my brother!
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