Photo: Evan Petty
Kids enjoying the baseball field at the Allen VR Stanley Secondary School of Math and Science for the Athletically Talented near Kampala, Uganda.
The inimitable Karen Given at WBUR radio’s Only a Game has found another inspiring story to share with listeners. This one is about a Syracuse University grad who found his calling thanks to a youth baseball team in Uganda.
“Back in the spring of 2014, Evan Petty was a senior at Syracuse University. And he was feeling a little anxious.
” ‘Um … the pressure’s starting to kick in at that point,’ Evan says. “I didn’t really know what it is that I was really going to do. I had always really liked sports. I got a journalism degree, but I didn’t work hard enough to turn it into anything.’ …
“After graduation, Evan flew to Fairbanks to write game reports for the Goldpanners — a collegiate summer team. …
” ‘I guess it bought me time. That’s pretty much all it did,’ he says.
“Evan spent that summer thinking about baseball — he’d always loved the game. He thought he’d like to be a coach. But he didn’t have any training or experience. He figured he’d never find a paid job in this country, so he started looking elsewhere.
” ‘So I think that I looked in places like Japan, even, and places in Europe. Spain, they play some baseball. I took some Spanish in high school, maybe I could make something work with that,’ Evan says. ‘But then Uganda came up.’
“Yep. Uganda. A school was looking for an English teacher/assistant baseball coach.
“The Allen VR Stanley International School of Math and Science for the Athletically Talented was founded by an American businessman who wants to bring baseball to Uganda. Besides teaching kids math and science and English, the school had another well-publicized goal: to send a team to Williamsport.
“Evan had been watching the Little League World Series on TV since he was 13. He loves it.
“The quality of the play is so high, and everything about it is so emotional and real. It’s raw. Like, it’s so raw. It’s just the best,” he says. …
“Evan hopped on an airplane and flew to Kampala. …
“When Evan saw the baseball team he’d be coaching, he was even more excited. It’s not that the players had a lot of experience. In fact, many of them had none at all.
” ‘Put it this way: Balls were being thrown very fast, and bats were being swung very hard, and players were running very fast,’ Evan says. ‘There was a lot of raw talent everywhere.’ …
“In 2011, the team won the qualifying tournament in Poland, but the players were denied visas to come to the United States. Many of the players don’t have birth certificates. ‘Paperwork is hard in Uganda,’ Evan told me. …
” ‘We had to do a whole lot of stuff and satisfy a whole lot of people and pay a whole lot of money [in 2015 to attend the qualifying games in Poland],’ Evan says. ‘And then we had to win the games, and that was the easy part.’ …
“Uganda was headed back to Williamsport, and they had one simple goal.
” ‘Shock the world,’ Evan says.”
That is what they did. Read more.
Interestingly, the Disney flic Queen of Katwe — about a young female chess prodigy from the Katwe, Uganda, slums — also demonstrates that committed adults and international competitions offer Ugandan children one of their best hopes for rising above challenging circumstances.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Great determination!
Determined kids. Determined coach. I’m not sure that if I wanted to try out a kind of job I knew I couldn’t get in the US that I’d look abroad as this coach did.
We watch the Little League World Series on TV every year–my husband loves it. I wonder if other international teams will have trouble coming for the Series, given new travel restrictions, etc.
That’s a good question. The ban has already affected the Academy Awards and various kinds of concerts and athletic events. Time will tell.