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After reading that, he's now my favorite player.
Coghlan living a father's dream
Sunday, September 20, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry
Roy Silver's phone at work would ring most evenings after the accident, and he knew the teenager on the other end of the line was filled with pain. "Are you still there?" the young man would ask.
"Yup," Silver would answer, and soon enough, the teenager would arrive at Silver's batting cages in Clearwater, Fla., to hit some baseballs off a tee. To throw. To talk. To just get away from his house, where there were so many tears in that devastating summer of 2001.
Just days before Chris Coghlan turned 16, his father, Tim Coghlan, had been killed in a car accident. "At the time, all I knew was that I didn't want to go home," recalled Coghlan, the Marlins' rookie left fielder, earlier this week. "Everybody was crying, and I didn't want sympathy. Baseball was my out."
Baseball was part of what he shared with his father, a former SWAT team member who trained other officers. Tim Coghlan was, through his son's eyes, "very tough-minded, very strong, determined. He was very supportive, and at the same time, he wanted me to get better."
Tim Coghlan had encouraged his teenage son to work at baseball, and the truth was that before his father's death, the boy was interested in other things. So Tim Coghlan had brought his son to Silver's place, Winning Inning. He liked the way Silver challenged Chris and pushed him to meet a higher standard.
Chris Coghlan would become frustrated after a series of bad swings, and Silver would tell the boy "Go get water" -- an order that was about hydration but also served as an admonition. Tim Coghlan watched this from the side, and privately, he encouraged Silver to challenge Chris, to not let him off easy, as his mentor. "Keep on him, Wild Man."
Chris Coghlan was preparing for his final exams in the spring of 2001, and he had argued with his father; Tim Coghlan wanted him to study. Chris took an exam, and arrived home to see a lot of cars in the family's driveway. He walked into the house and called out "What, do you guys have a party going on?" And then he saw his mother's face, in the kitchen, and saw her tears.
"What happened to Dad?" he asked immediately. When they told him, Coghlan ran to his room and locked the door.
He says now, "It's like, overnight, your life changes. It's like your life is in a movie."
But a movie ends. For Chris, the pain persisted that summer, and into the next year, when the grief was most overpowering and when he was depressed, when he chose to not play baseball. Heather Roefaro, Coghlan's mother, told the St. Petersburg Times earlier this summer that among her children, it was Chris who took the death of his father the hardest.
The hours spent at the Winning Inning's cages were part of the process of coping, Coghlan believes.
"Knowing that Chris was entering a storm in his life, not knowing how the storm was going to last, we were talking about things like God, anger, future, devastation, and all those words that come along with a situation like that. … Coming down here was like an escape, like coming to a sanctuary," Silver says.
They would finish a hitting session and begin to pack up the balls, sometimes while talking, sometimes in silence. "I knew he was a lost soul," Silver recalls. "I could tell in the long run that he was going to be OK. I wasn't that concerned after the first eight months or so. I knew he was going to be OK.
"It was not easy for him to get up every day in the year after [Tim Coghlan's] death. He was kind of floating in space. But about a year after his dad's death, there was a transformation. He got very serious -- he was not going to be denied. He went after it, with school and with baseball."
Silver had told Coghlan, "Your Dad is not dead -- he's inside of you."
Eight years have passed since Tim Coghlan died, and with the benefit of time and perspective, Chris is sure that after his father passed away, all the toughness and focus and drive he wanted to see in his son had emerged. The choice, for him, had become stark: He could either meet his father's standard or not, so he pushed himself. "I didn't have anyone to push me anymore," Chris says. "My dad always wanted me to go to college, and I worked as hard as I could."
He's sure that if his father had lived, he never would have pushed himself to the level he has reached, certain he would have never made it this far: At age 24, he is a front-runner for the National League Rookie of the Year. Through Friday's games, Coghlan was hitting .308, with a .380 on-base percentage, and 74 runs scored in 114 games.
"I would rather have my dad, of course -- any day, any hour -- than professional baseball," he says.
Silver had also worked with Chris' younger brother, Kevin. A few years ago, both Coghlan sons had approached Silver separately and said to him, in essence, "I don't know if I can share this with Mom or my brothers or sisters, but losing Dad has made me a better man."
Silver already knew that, he told them. "That's what he'd want to hear. You've taken the best of your dad. And you need to have this conversation with your brother."
Through the years, part of what Silver and Coghlan spoke of was his faith, which has become extremely important to the Marlins rookie. "Baseball was my out, at the time [of his father's death]," he says. "Now I have Christ, and now I have so much peace, in my heart and my life. There's nothing in this game that's going to be worse than me losing my dad. An 0-for-4 is pretty small, in relevance to your life. I'm more even-keel, so much more."
Coghlan was picked by the Marlins in the first supplemental round in 2006, after attending Ole Miss, and came up through the minor leagues as a second baseman, hitting .344. Early this May, Dan Jennings, the Marlins' assistant GM and vice president for player personnel, spoke with him about possibly shifting to the outfield, something he hadn't done since he was 12 years old. Coghlan thought he was being teased, but he had a good game, and the next day, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria called him and told him he was being promoted to the big leagues. He boarded a plane, and on his flight to the majors, he read a book called "The Discipline of Grace" and asked for peace. Three days after the notion of playing the outfield was mentioned to him, he started in the majors in left field, in Colorado.
"I try to keep everything as simple as possible," he said. "I try not to look any deeper than I have to."
And when he first played the outfield, he concentrated on this: If the ball is in the air, just catch it.
Coghlan paused in the outfield in Coors Field, his thoughts on his father. "I'm playing this game for you, for the Lord," he thought. "I remember thinking during the game how big of a smile he would have had on his face," Coghlan said. "I know he's up in heaven watching down, and how cool it would be for him to be in the stands watching a game."
Coghlan living a father's dream
Sunday, September 20, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry
Roy Silver's phone at work would ring most evenings after the accident, and he knew the teenager on the other end of the line was filled with pain. "Are you still there?" the young man would ask.
"Yup," Silver would answer, and soon enough, the teenager would arrive at Silver's batting cages in Clearwater, Fla., to hit some baseballs off a tee. To throw. To talk. To just get away from his house, where there were so many tears in that devastating summer of 2001.
Just days before Chris Coghlan turned 16, his father, Tim Coghlan, had been killed in a car accident. "At the time, all I knew was that I didn't want to go home," recalled Coghlan, the Marlins' rookie left fielder, earlier this week. "Everybody was crying, and I didn't want sympathy. Baseball was my out."
Baseball was part of what he shared with his father, a former SWAT team member who trained other officers. Tim Coghlan was, through his son's eyes, "very tough-minded, very strong, determined. He was very supportive, and at the same time, he wanted me to get better."
Tim Coghlan had encouraged his teenage son to work at baseball, and the truth was that before his father's death, the boy was interested in other things. So Tim Coghlan had brought his son to Silver's place, Winning Inning. He liked the way Silver challenged Chris and pushed him to meet a higher standard.
Chris Coghlan would become frustrated after a series of bad swings, and Silver would tell the boy "Go get water" -- an order that was about hydration but also served as an admonition. Tim Coghlan watched this from the side, and privately, he encouraged Silver to challenge Chris, to not let him off easy, as his mentor. "Keep on him, Wild Man."
Chris Coghlan was preparing for his final exams in the spring of 2001, and he had argued with his father; Tim Coghlan wanted him to study. Chris took an exam, and arrived home to see a lot of cars in the family's driveway. He walked into the house and called out "What, do you guys have a party going on?" And then he saw his mother's face, in the kitchen, and saw her tears.
"What happened to Dad?" he asked immediately. When they told him, Coghlan ran to his room and locked the door.
He says now, "It's like, overnight, your life changes. It's like your life is in a movie."
But a movie ends. For Chris, the pain persisted that summer, and into the next year, when the grief was most overpowering and when he was depressed, when he chose to not play baseball. Heather Roefaro, Coghlan's mother, told the St. Petersburg Times earlier this summer that among her children, it was Chris who took the death of his father the hardest.
The hours spent at the Winning Inning's cages were part of the process of coping, Coghlan believes.
"Knowing that Chris was entering a storm in his life, not knowing how the storm was going to last, we were talking about things like God, anger, future, devastation, and all those words that come along with a situation like that. … Coming down here was like an escape, like coming to a sanctuary," Silver says.
They would finish a hitting session and begin to pack up the balls, sometimes while talking, sometimes in silence. "I knew he was a lost soul," Silver recalls. "I could tell in the long run that he was going to be OK. I wasn't that concerned after the first eight months or so. I knew he was going to be OK.
"It was not easy for him to get up every day in the year after [Tim Coghlan's] death. He was kind of floating in space. But about a year after his dad's death, there was a transformation. He got very serious -- he was not going to be denied. He went after it, with school and with baseball."
Silver had told Coghlan, "Your Dad is not dead -- he's inside of you."
Eight years have passed since Tim Coghlan died, and with the benefit of time and perspective, Chris is sure that after his father passed away, all the toughness and focus and drive he wanted to see in his son had emerged. The choice, for him, had become stark: He could either meet his father's standard or not, so he pushed himself. "I didn't have anyone to push me anymore," Chris says. "My dad always wanted me to go to college, and I worked as hard as I could."
He's sure that if his father had lived, he never would have pushed himself to the level he has reached, certain he would have never made it this far: At age 24, he is a front-runner for the National League Rookie of the Year. Through Friday's games, Coghlan was hitting .308, with a .380 on-base percentage, and 74 runs scored in 114 games.
"I would rather have my dad, of course -- any day, any hour -- than professional baseball," he says.
Silver had also worked with Chris' younger brother, Kevin. A few years ago, both Coghlan sons had approached Silver separately and said to him, in essence, "I don't know if I can share this with Mom or my brothers or sisters, but losing Dad has made me a better man."
Silver already knew that, he told them. "That's what he'd want to hear. You've taken the best of your dad. And you need to have this conversation with your brother."
Through the years, part of what Silver and Coghlan spoke of was his faith, which has become extremely important to the Marlins rookie. "Baseball was my out, at the time [of his father's death]," he says. "Now I have Christ, and now I have so much peace, in my heart and my life. There's nothing in this game that's going to be worse than me losing my dad. An 0-for-4 is pretty small, in relevance to your life. I'm more even-keel, so much more."
Coghlan was picked by the Marlins in the first supplemental round in 2006, after attending Ole Miss, and came up through the minor leagues as a second baseman, hitting .344. Early this May, Dan Jennings, the Marlins' assistant GM and vice president for player personnel, spoke with him about possibly shifting to the outfield, something he hadn't done since he was 12 years old. Coghlan thought he was being teased, but he had a good game, and the next day, Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria called him and told him he was being promoted to the big leagues. He boarded a plane, and on his flight to the majors, he read a book called "The Discipline of Grace" and asked for peace. Three days after the notion of playing the outfield was mentioned to him, he started in the majors in left field, in Colorado.
"I try to keep everything as simple as possible," he said. "I try not to look any deeper than I have to."
And when he first played the outfield, he concentrated on this: If the ball is in the air, just catch it.
Coghlan paused in the outfield in Coors Field, his thoughts on his father. "I'm playing this game for you, for the Lord," he thought. "I remember thinking during the game how big of a smile he would have had on his face," Coghlan said. "I know he's up in heaven watching down, and how cool it would be for him to be in the stands watching a game."
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