Neal Grant had always loved sports, but it wasn’t until he started coaching girls’ softball in 1976, at the age of 37, that his love for sports became more involved.
After his daughter, Bonnie – self-described as “more of a tomboy” than her sister, Darcia – decided to join up for a team, Grant followed. In fact, it was the knowledge her dad would be there beside her that gave Bonnie the confidence to sign up.
“I was the shy kind, so I think the reason I did it was because he promised to coach. We did it together.
“I wouldn't have went and played ball if he hadn't been there. It was just the support of him and being there and the guarantee he would be at the games. And he was always positive. Never ever did he get angry. You could mess up, but he never did get angry.”
Grant’s style of coaching was popular with the players and he always made other people feel welcome to be part of the game. It was this attitude that helped him establish softball in the Battlefords as not only a “boys’ sport.”
It was this perceived inequality between boys’ and girls’ sports that drove her father, according to Bonnie.
“Baseball was a big thing and the boys were playing and the girls weren't, so he wanted to bring the girls' softball up … He felt girls were getting the short end of everything. You know there’s boys' football, boys’ this and there was never anything out there for girls.
“He would say, ‘the boys all have uniforms and what do the girls have?’”
It was this question that spurred him into leveling the playing field between the standards of both boys’ and girls’ leagues and made sure all the teams in the league had matching jerseys. The move to legitimize the league was successful, particularly in the minds of the girls on the teams.
“It made you feel like you had a team and made you feel like you belonged,” Bonnie said, recalling getting her team’s matching jerseys that was made possible by her dad asking businesses to sponsor the teams.
Grant’s motivation to bring to girls of the Battlefords an experience that many boys took as a given was indicative of the type of person he was.
“He always believed in team sports and he always believed if you can do something, do it,” said Bonnie.
As Battlefords’ girls’ softball saw its popularity wane and grow, the goal to “bring up” girls’ softball wasn’t always easy. There were recurring challenges, as well, as there often weren’t enough volunteers. Although, Bonnie says, Grant always found a way to “suck someone else in” to help.
“It was a lot of work and you had to be committed because come fall, all the scheduling.”
No one knew how much time was involved more than Grant’s family.
Bonnie recalls memories of trying to contact him during the coaching season and his weekends filled with pitching and coaching clinics.
“You’d be trying to phone him and it was busy or you’d get ditched because he was going to coach, so you'd say, ‘OK, I'll see you tomorrow.’”
“It consumed his life, which was good,” Bonnie said, especially after her mother, Angeline, passed away in 1989.
“It gave him something to do and, when she was alive, it gave her something to do.”
It was a shared family passion they supported one another in and Angeline was a familiar sight at the ball diamonds.
“She didn't help as much,” Bonnie recalled, “but she loved being there, supporting him and supporting the girls.”
During a period of waning popularity in the girls’ league, Grant was asked to join the Saskatchewan women’s minor league softball as a coach. As it turned out, members of the teams he had coached in the decade prior had grown up and continued with the sport.
As Bonnie recalls, it was these members who suggested Grant for the job, having had fond memories of his coaching when they were just kids.
The catch to taking the job was that the women’s team needed a certified coach who could take them to provincials. As always, Grant was up for anything when it came to the game he loved and he completed the certification in 1984.
Even now, Bonnie is surprised to come across acquaintances her father made a lasting impression on and hear stories about this period of her father’s life, when he travelled around the province with his team.
“My neighbour, I didn't know, but she was into baseball.
“She remembers facing him and the team she was coaching played the team he was coaching,” Bonnie said with a smile.
Although it was Bonnie who brought him into the sport, it was Grant who would stick with it long after the eight years Bonnie spent playing softball.
“I thought maybe it was me he wanted to be there for, but then he started coaching for how many years,” she joked.
Being a coach proved to be an enriching experience for Grant, both by being an influence on young people’s lives as they grew up and by being able to teach and share his skills.
It was also “the satisfaction of seeing the girls go places and how he could help them” that motivated him, said Bonnie. “They respected him so much and I think he liked that feeling … He liked accomplishing things and helping and he was helping people get somewhere.”
With more than a decade coaching in the local girls’ softball league, Grant saw a generation of players grow and learn. And according to Bonnie, it was a relationship that didn’t just end with the softball season. Often, Grant would stay updated on the girls’ lives and always looked forward to seeing the friendly, familiar faces of his former players around town. As Bonnie said, “he had a big circle” of community.
Grant passed away this past March and the memories of his time spent coaching and cheering on others were never far away. He kept piles of documents of his coaching history; from game rosters to correspondence with the City regarding the installation of shale diamonds, Grant treasured the memories. As Bonnie noted, everything was in order and kept how he intended. He also kept a memento of his teams, having all the players sign a softball that he displayed at home.
“He never parted with it,” Bonnie added. “His heart was there.”
After Angeline passed away and working full time, Grant finally began to step away from coaching for good. But his spirit for supporting others didn’t leave. While he had coached, Grant had also been a diehard fan of the Battlefords North Stars.
With more free time than he knew what to do with since 1976, Grant poured his heart into his hockey team. He never missed a game and away games were listened to on the radio. At the Civic Centre, he’d watch every game with a small group who also shared his love for the North Stars.
This past March, while in the Battlefords Union Hospital, he received a special visit. Four members of the team came to his room and brought with them a jersey they had signed.
“That brightened him up so much. He was almost like a five-year-old looking up to NHL player … That was the most special thing those guys could have done. There’s no words to thank them. The smile they put on his face.”
Before they left, Grant told his visitors he was proud of them – a gesture that Bonnie says illustrates what made him special, as a coach and as a supporter of others.
“He was proud of them almost as if they were his own kids. He was as proud of one just as he was the next.”
