My Favorite Men

This week, more about one you've heard of before. My son is one of my favorite men. He has been playing baseball since he was two, thanks to my brother, his Uncle Kelly. Nate's first present in the hospital was a baseball glove from Uncle Kelly. 16 years later here we are. His junior year of high school he played varsity third base, shortstop and second base. Senior year he got moved to catcher. At 5'9"ish 150 he is not big enough for college catching. No one saw him play infield. So he took a good friend's brother's advice (former college and pro player, currently coaching same academy Nate plays for) and signed up for a top notch quality traveling ball team this summer. Four figure baseball fees. Nate told me, my heart dropped. But God provided the money in less than 24 hours, specifically to Nate, so off we went. He has played at University of Nebraska, University of Oklahoma, University of Arkansas, Wichita State University, and a few other fields. About two weeks ago he was pretty bummed because he still had no idea what college would hold for him in the area of baseball. He wants the education, but he wants to play. We had hoped for scholarships, and he was offered two really good baseball scholarships, but when the college is $27,000 a year, $17,000 a year in scholarships just doesn't seem like that much. So I decided to help. Wasn't sure I should, but it couldn't hurt, right? I emailed every baseball coach at every community college in the state of Kansas that I heard had a great program. At his tournament at Wichita State he played and he played well. He called me after the game (even though I was there) and told me he thought the coach was there. I told him yes he was. He said "I think he was here to watch me". I said I think so too. We enrolled Nate yesterday at Butler County Community College, home of the Grizzlies. He met with the baseball coach today, he has all the medical forms and information about the team. There is no scholarship money left, but the coach wants him. Says he is listed as a walk on, but will not be treated as one. Liked what he saw when he saw him play, (and the three coaches that called and said good things couldn't have hurt) and was very happy with the strong high school program he came out of and the strong summer program he was playing for (Yay GOD!!!) Another God moment in this, when we enrolled him, there is a month left till classes. He picked his classes, based on an undecided major, College Algebra, Psychology, Speech and English Composition. There was one seat left in each of these classes in the morning classes that would work with baseball (fall ball in October) and the classes are back to back. He doesn't have one at 8:00 and then one at 12:45. I love to see the hand of God working in my kids lives.