George Rumore: Remembrance of a Man Who Came Home from War to Do Good

I first met George Rumore at a weekly fastpitch-softball-skills clinic that he held in one of the many warehouses whose interiors were bisected by large nets that formed hitting or pitching lanes. Our oldest daughter had shown some skill in the sport during my tour in San Diego, and these types of sports clinics had increasingly dominated our family life during the offseason, even as the sport itself consumed our weekends during the months from March until November. But this weekly clinic was important. A friend of mine, a fellow softball dad who had more experience in the Northern Virginia area, told me that this clinic was run by the coach who would also be overseeing my daughter’s high-school softball team. The clinic presented an opportunity for new players to learn his way of playing softball and to gently reveal her athletic abilities to the coach prior to tryouts.

The first night I attended the clinic and watched intently from the balcony that overlooked the warehouse floor, my first thought was “He’s former military.” The clinic proceeded with remarkable precision and discipline. Various skills stations were established, and each player proceeded through each of them in a timely fashion. At each station the players were instructed in the manner the coach wanted the skill executed: throwing, catching, fielding grounders, batting, bunting, etc. The two hours flowed like clockwork, and at the end there was a “grand finale” in which Rumore would hit hard grounders to each player. If she fielded it correctly, she went to the back of the line and got to do it again. Missing the ball or incorrectly fielding the ball resulted in her sitting down at the edge of the indoor field. Whoever was the last player standing was congratulated and presented with an archaic plastic Pez candy dispenser capped with the head of some old cartoon character, to great applause. It was “cute,” I thought.

About the Author

Jerry Hendrix

Jerry Hendrix is a retired Navy captain and a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute.

I first met George Rumore at a weekly fastpitch-softball-skills clinic that he held in one of the many warehouses whose interiors were bisected by large nets that formed hitting or pitching lanes. Our oldest daughter had shown some skill in the sport during my tour in San Diego, and these types of sports clinics had increasingly dominated our family life during the offseason, even as the sport itself consumed our weekends during the months from March until November. But this weekly clinic was important. A friend of mine, a fellow softball dad who had more experience in the Northern Virginia area, told me that this clinic was run by the coach who would also be overseeing my daughter’s high-school softball team. The clinic presented an opportunity for new players to learn his way of playing softball and to gently reveal her athletic abilities to the coach prior to tryouts.

The first night I attended the clinic and watched intently from the balcony that overlooked the warehouse floor, my first thought was “He’s former military.” The clinic proceeded with remarkable precision and discipline. Various skills stations were established, and each player proceeded through each of them in a timely fashion. At each station the players were instructed in the manner the coach wanted the skill executed: throwing, catching, fielding grounders, batting, bunting, etc. The two hours flowed like clockwork, and at the end there was a “grand finale” in which Rumore would hit hard grounders to each player. If she fielded it correctly, she went to the back of the line and got to do it again. Missing the ball or incorrectly fielding the ball resulted in her sitting down at the edge of the indoor field. Whoever was the last player standing was congratulated and presented with an archaic plastic Pez candy dispenser capped with the head of some old cartoon character, to great applause. It was “cute,” I thought.