Email   Print   Share By Daniel Cernero, Sentinel Sports Editor

Facebook Digg Delicious June 7, 2012 | Sports

Staff Sgt. Richard Gallego, the Red Wings head coach, and Spc. David McWilliams (left), an assistant coach, both WTB Soldiers, watch on from the dugout May 31 at the Harker Heights Community Park. Daniel Cernero, Sentinel Sports Editor

Sgt. Mark Tsatsos, a Red Wings assistant coach, who’s also a WTB Soldier, talks with Red Wings left fielder Sean Salyer in between innings May 31. Daniel Cernero, Sentinel Sports Editor

Following a team meeting at the end of the Red Wings’ May 31 game, the coaches and players break from the huddle. Staff Sgt. Richard Gallego and his assistant coaches, Spc. David McWilliams and Sgt. Mark Tsatsos, all WTB Soldiers, volunteered to coach the Red Wings after the team’s previous coaches left. Daniel Cernero, Sentinel Sports Editor

HARKER HEIGHTS - Back in early April, Staff Sgt. Richard Gallego called a meeting within his unit, the Warrior Transition Brigade, to look for potential volunteers to coach a Little League team in Harker Heights.

Gallego had already agreed to become the coach of his son’s team, the Red Wings, after the team’s previous coach left, and he was there at the meeting hoping to get some assistance.

Sgt. Mark Tsatsos and Spc. David McWilliams, both Soldiers in transition, answered the call.

“They’re wounded warriors going through the process of the medical evaluation board,” Gallego said of Tsatsos and McWilliams. “They do their appointments throughout the day, and then on their time, they come out here and they help coach.”

McWilliams said one of his original motivations was to just learn more about sports, but after interacting with the kids, it had a surprising soothing effect on his post-traumatic stress.

He said that by always being around adults, he can become

frustrated when people that age act like children.

“Being around children, they’re acting their age,” he related. “I didn’t think it would help me with PTSD as much as it has. I didn’t think it’d help at all.

“It was to help out these kids. They needed a coach, and me and Sgt. T were the only ones to show up.”

He explained his thinking as, “The company needs me, so I’m going to be there. I can’t be a Soldier, so I might as well be a mentor.”

“A lot of people that come back who have PTSD or whatever, they just want to stick around their kind,” Gallego said, referring to other Soldiers. “You come out here, you interact, you meet different people in the stands, you start meeting different coaches, you start learning new things.”

McWilliams, whose baseball experience consists of his time playing in middle school, is the team’s pitching, catching and batting coach.

“I kind of have my hands full,” he said with a smile.

The Little League team keeps him busy, but McWilliams said that’s just the way he likes it, getting to spend time with the kids he has become close to. For some, he even holds individual coaching sessions, working on the different skills of the sport.

“All of my spare time goes to these kids,” he said. “And we’re here to do three things: teach fundamentals, have fun and teach discipline.”

For Tsatsos, currently an education major in college who wants to become a football coach, he said he’s hoping experience like this leads to other coaching opportunities down the road.

“I’m learning a lot from him as a coach,” he said of Gallego.

“They want to come out and coach, and this is almost like an internship for them,” Gallego said. “They get the experience of coaching, and then if they want to do it on their own, they can show they’ve been an assistant coach and put in the time.”

While adapting to the assistant coach role, Tsatsos said there’s been different situations to pick up valuable experience.

“Each kid learns differently,” he said of one thing he’s learned. “Like me, I have ADD (attention deficit disorder) and hyper activity, so I learn more hands-on.”

Tsatsos said he’s also become aware of when and how to push certain kids, whether it be in a a group setting or one-on-one, looking for how to challenge them.

“Each kid is different,” he said.

With a few weeks remaining in the season, the Red Wings are fighting for a playoff spot. The team snapped a brief two-game losing streak with a convincing 15-7 win over the Muckdogs Monday night.

“Being able to come out here and teach the ones that don’t know how to play the basics, it’s giving back to the kids,” Gallego said.

He said it’s a great opportunity for the kids involved because “they’re not sitting at home. When you get them out here and bring them out here to play, you teach them the fundamentals. It’s fulfilling.”