Many are familiar with the Robert Frost poem “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
When Lester Strode, bullpen coach for the 2016 World Series champion Chicago Cubs and Warren County native, spoke to student-athletes at Warren County High School’s auditorium Friday, he spoke of his own decisions at the fork in the road, the importance of education, learning to accept failure as part of a learning experience, how to listen to yourself and never, ever listen to someone who tells you what you can’t do.
“When I went to Cumberland College, I went with a blank sheet of paper for goals,” said Strode. “I spoke with a counselor and said I wanted to pursue a degree in accounting. The counselor asked me if I played any sports or extracurricular activities and I said yes, baseball. She told me an accounting degree was hard enough, and I probably couldn’t do sports and study. I listened to her. I didn’t know any better, but I could have done it. I know that now. I did the general studies but looking back I should have done what I felt was right. Don’t ever let someone tell you what you can’t do.”
Strode recalled his baseball degree, beginning with Pony League, Babe Ruth and American Legion here in McMinnville. He remembers getting worn out with the idea of playing baseball.
“I wanted to get a job, earn some money, buy a car and get on with my life,” Strode said. “My cousin actually talked me back into going out for baseball. I wasn’t going to do it. I made the team and he got cut. I felt a little guilty about that.”
Strode made the decision to keep playing ball throughout high school, then came to another fork in the road.
“I was offered a scholarship to Cumberland College,” Strode remembered. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. My coaches told me to take advantage of the free education and get to play baseball I loved at the same time, but I just wasn’t sure. When I grew up my dad would go out and work hard for us to make a living and I felt like maybe that’s what I needed to be doing. But I made the decision to go. It’s not like I decided to be a Major League ball player or coach at some point. I had to make choices all the way through. That’s why it’s so important for you to have manageable small goals and not just think I’m going to be a Major League ballplayer and it’s just going to happen. You have to get there one goal at a time.”
Although the building is different, the name of the school Strode attended is still Warren County High School and he feels a great kinship to family, friends, coaches and fans alike.
“It’s a pleasure to be back here today at the same high school I graduated from. At the time I never thought I would be here, in 2016, standing and talking to the student body. It’s a great pleasure and opportunity,” said Strode. “My mom, dad, coaches and teachers, they set the tone for me to do something positive and work hard at it so as I went through life and experiences and so forth a lot of mentors and friends gave me advice. Sometimes friends give good advice and sometimes bad advice and you have to choose for yourself, even advice from your coaches and teachers. Bottom line is you have to know what you want to do in life, what goals you want out of life, what you want to accomplish and set a direction to get there. Yes, there’s going to be bumps in the road. There’s going to be failures but failures if you look at them in a positive way, they can be good because a failure teaches you something different. A better direction than what you were headed in so don’t be afraid to fail. Think how can I take this failure and turn it into a positive because in reality the game of baseball is a game of failure. You can go to the plate as a hitter, swing 10 times and hit it only three that’s only 33 percent and be successful and that’s baseball. There’s a lot of million dollar players that do that so don’t be afraid of failure.”
Strode described his transition from minor league ballplayer to coach as another fork in the road when he was offered a position with an up-and-coming team to coach. But that meant retiring as a player.
“It was at this point I was getting older, I knew my body was breaking down and my path to more success in the majors was slim. I also learned along the way there to make plans and set goals and I knew that by choosing the coaching position, I could reach my goal as a Major League coach. My wife and I discussed it and I went with coaching.”
The rest, as it were, is history, a rich history steeped in tradition where a baseball Rocky Balboa success story dream came true for Lestor Strode when, after Game 6, the Chicago Cubs found enough inside to win the game and the 2016 World Series.
“I think Mother Nature is a Cubs fan,” said Angela Strode, Lestor’s wife. “It was bedlam and suddenly it started raining. They were showing videos LeBron James on the big screen and then there was a break. When they came out, the Cubs became victorious. It was a pretty darn great exciting moment.”
Strode’s mother, Jeannette, thinks it was synchronicity that did the trick.
“They just came together,” she said. “It was like each one knew what the other one was going to do and they got it done.”
After the speech, Mayor Jimmy Haley reread his proclamation to make Nov. 4 Lestor Strode Day and presented him the key to the city.
Lestor Strode will give a 30-minute interview on local station WCPI 91.3 FM along with his high school coach Tuesday at 5 p.m. There will be a rebroadcast for those who miss it on Wednesday at 5 a.m. and Thursday at 1 p.m.