Steve Jones is the head coach of the Impact Gold – Jones team which previously was part of the Bombers organization and was ranked as one of the Top 5 14U Teams heading into last summer. A friend of Extra Inning Softball, the national championship-winning leader has written for us in the past including an article on Dad/Daughter Coaching Dynamics.
Steve has coached softball for more than 20 years and developed many collegiate level prospects including his daughter Sa’Mya, who is ranked as the #1 prospect in the 2024 class.
Click HERE to learn 15 Things You Didn’t Know About 2024 Extra Elite 100 #1 Sa’Mya Jones!
On this day of remembering and honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, we asked Coach Jones his thoughts on Dr. King and where we are decades after his message was introduced to the world… here are his insights…
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Celebrating Dr. King’s birthday, and more specifically his existence and influence on society, is a significant celebratory event for our entire country, not just the minority community.
It is my prayer that the state of affairs in our country right now is a keen reminder of his (and others’) historical importance.
I have a strong admiration for Dr. King and others like him. None were perfect but they were all extraordinary in one important world-changing way. I believe standing on one’s principles—even when it is the most difficult of things to do and doing what is right is one of the highest forms of being chiefly principled—is a prevalent tenant of what I try to teach the athletes I train weekly.
When something is right but greatly unpopular with those that surround you, it is not instinctive nature to stay the course of righteousness; it takes strong moral and ethical conviction to resist such pressure from peers and enemies alike.
It is stalwarts of conviction and principles like Dr. King who show what we are capable of if we remain principled, and just as importantly if we as a people shine our light on all those things we have in common instead of focusing on (and/or demonizing) our differences.
As it is important to note that our commonalities greatly outweigh the differences between us, although we should celebrate and appreciate the beauty of the differences too.
Dr. King’s Dream wasn’t meant to become a cliche and the reference to it should be heavy in weight with the underlying premise of a society in which the shade of your skin has absolutely no influence on the worth, value or substance of the person.
The reality is, the first thing one encounters is what they see and until we can get to a place where that truly doesn’t matter, it is important to know that people of every race, color or gender benefit from the presence of diversity.
I coach a sport that at the highest levels historically has not been the most racially diverse and I coach a team that has some of the best players in the country on it who also happen to be an extremely diverse group—racially, politically, ethnically and socio-economically.
Thanks to opportunity and some forward-looking coaches in the college and travel ball ranks, it is a more diverse sport than it was when I began coaching 20 years ago but the evolution of diversity is still young in the sport.
I asked my daughter, Sa’Mya, if she had any thoughts about Dr. King, his significance as to race relations and how she feels about the state of affairs now just to get her thoughts earlier today.
Her reply for me was a little disconcerting but at the same time quite encouraging for the future of our society and the hopes of one day more fully realizing Dr. King’s Dream.
She lamented a little about the events relating to the riots, the racial divisions that partisan politics seems to stoke and some of the seemingly hurtful things she runs across on social media.
But she also stated that she doesn’t encounter those issues herself where she has to “deal with them firsthand.”
In Sa’Mya’s words:
“My teammates are just my teammates and sisters and we don’t care if we are white, brown, black or yellow; we are just good friends and teammates who love each other and like spending time together.”
Like my daughter, I can say that my life would not be as enriched as it is without the diversity of friendships and acquaintances I have. Dr. King is one of many trailblazers I have to thank for this and for the experience my daughter has had on her softball team and other environments.
My guess is that if Dr. King were still with us and coached softball with me, he’d advise the country to take a few pointers from our softball team: a diverse group that loves each other and works toward a common goal while always having each other’s backs and holds the other accountable when they go off the rails in detriment of the greater common goal.
— Steve Jones, Impact Gold – Jones
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“It may well be that we will have to repent in this generation. Not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people…” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
