On a chilly spring day before a recent Little League game, Ken Sitkowski coaches his players through some practice swings.
“I remind them to keep their heads down on the ball,” Sitkowski says. “At this age, many of them (also) just swing with their arms. We tell them to swing through, to get their belly buttons turned toward the pitcher.”
Some players say such tips pay off.
“I was swinging and missing,” says Jack Shannon, 9, of Western Springs. “Then he told me to keep my head in and my eye on the ball, and I hit a solid one to the outfield.”
A tip to keep his toes pointed to the pitcher helped him make contact on a bunt as well. “He’s a good coach,” says Jack, who usually plays second base.
“He’s a great guy. He’s real good with the kids,” says Jack’s mother, Roe Regan, watching from the bleachers at Spring Rock Park in Western Springs.
“He knows what he’s doing–he’s tough, but he’s fair. The kids like him.”
Linda Marsmaker’s son, Lee, 10, plays outfield and second base. Sitkowski “teaches the boys the fundamentals,” she says.
Lee was on Sitkowski’s team two years ago when he coached T-ball, his mother says.
“They’re not out here just to compete. He teaches them how to play,” she says.
Sitkowski, 41, of Western Springs, has been coaching different levels of youth baseball since 1990, when his oldest son, David, now 12, joined T-ball, a game for children 6 and 7. (T-ball teaches the rudiments of baseball; the ball is placed on a tee for batting, not thrown by a pitcher.)
His middle son, 10-year-old Tom, plays pitcher or shortstop on the Blue Jays team for players 9 through 11. His youngest son, Steven, 8, plays on a team with no set positions for players 8 and 9. David also plays pitcher or shortstop in the team for players 11 and 12 years old.
At the 9-through-11 age, Sitkowski says, a priority is to keep the boys focused on the game. “Many of them do keep their attention on the game, but some are not as focused,” he says.
Assistant coach Bill Kucik of Western Springs agrees. “The attention span is about six minutes, tops,” he says. “In games, it’s a little better. Once they put their uniforms on, it makes them feel more official.”
Their abilities vary, he says, but by July, when the season ends, they will have improved. “They will all be players,” he says.
Some injuries occur. “At our first practice of the season, my son lost a fly ball in the sun and caught it in the eye,” Sitkowski says. “He had a bad black eye but no damage.”
Mostly, he fears injury from the boys swinging bats or throwing balls when other people are near. “We have to remind them not to take practice swings out near the stands,” he says. “As long as they are inside the field, they’re OK.”
John Veldman, whose son, Dan, 9, plays third base or outfield on the Blue Jays, appreciates Sitkowski’s time and commitment to the program.
“He’s very devoted to what he’s doing–he puts a lot of time into it,” says Veldman, of Western Springs, who is president of the Lyons Township American Little League.
Sitkowski’s wife, Pat, a former T-ball coach, says the games keep the family busy.
“Last night, we had two games. Ken was at Spring Rock with Tom, I was at Ridgewood with Steven, and David was at practice” she says.
The Sitkowski boys also play soccer in a community league and basketball in the Park District and swim on the Western Springs Swim Team, a private organization. While Sitkowski coaches soccer and basketball, his wife has coached swimming and is a swim club booster who helps run the teams’ swim meets.
“We’re a sports family,” Pat Sitkowski says.
In August, when the swimming and baseball seasons are over, the family plans to spend a week at the Olympics in Atlanta.
“Ever since they announced the Olympics were coming to Atlanta, I’ve been working on getting tickets,” Sitkowski says. “There is a ticket lottery system, and we got fortunate.”
The Sitkowskis have lived in Western Springs since 1985. Ken Sitkowski was born on the South Side of Chicago, and his family moved to Dolton when he was a year old and then to South Holland in 1967. He graduated from Mendel High School (now St. Martin De Porres) in Chicago in 1973 and from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1977.
Ken and Pat Sitkowski, a native of Western Springs, met when they worked for an insurance firm in Chicago. They married in 1979, and four years later, he went to work for her father, Emil Harley, at his Western Springs advertising and civic banner company, Bannerville, U.S.A.
The 12 members of the Blue Jays team wear uniforms with the Bannerville, U.S.A., name on the back, identifying it as a sponsor of the team.
Pat Sitkowski says her husband is someone who volunteers much of his time to various organizations. As a board member of the Western Springs Pool Club, a private organization that runs the swimming pool, Sitkowski was in charge of renovating the clubhouse and playground.
“That was his project last year,” she says. “You name it, he’s done it.”
Last summer, Ken Sitkowski coached the 9-year-old Little League all-stars traveling team. The players are selected by the coaches at the end of the season and play a tournament in Hinsdale in July.
“We didn’t get down to the last few games, but we did make it to the final eight,” he says.
Though other communities may take the tournament seriously, selecting players early in the season and holding more practices, Western Springs is more casual about it, he adds. “We start practicing after the regular season ends. After two or three practices, some of our kids are just learning each other’s names, so we traditionally don’t fare well.”
Nevertheless, the tournament players, Sitkowski says, get a balanced view of athletics. “In today’s age, children have so much to choose from,” he says.
“Parents expose their children to many different sports and activities. It’s sometimes difficult for them to focus on one thing.”
He notes that one recent game was played earlier than scheduled to allow players who were in the school band to attend their concert later that night.
He plans to continue coaching as long as his boys are playing.
Pat Sitkowski believes that sports teaches her children discipline and commitment. “They learn to be responsible. They come home from school and do their homework right away so they’ll have time for baseball practice later,” she says.
Sports also fosters team spirit and a sense of community, even between opposing teams, Ken Sitkowski adds.
Last year, he knew a boy on another team who worked hard, practiced often, but was never a spectacular player.
“It was his last year in Little League. His team played against us in one of the last games of the season,” he recalls.
When the boy came to the plate, he hit the game-winning home run, to the cheers of the spectators.
“Even as the coach of the losing team, I thought it was great to see someone who worked so hard become a hero.”
