CRISIS CHANGED OUR LIVES: Baseball coach Bob Flint misses interaction with players

Bob Flint, age 75, looks forward to the return of sports. (File photo Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone)

Long-time Orange County baseball coach Bob Flint, currently an assistant coach at Northwood High School, is one of the many coaches whose lives have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic which cancelled spring sports.

Flint plans on coaching again at Northwood in the spring and joked, ’I’m only 75, so I’m just starting the second half of my career.” Flint has been head coach at Irvine and Woodbridge and also had assistant coaching stints at El Toro and Orange Coast College.

In the latest of an OC Sports Zone series, Flint talks about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected his life:

“This crisis has been quite historic. Being retired, it’s been a bit easier for Jeanne (his wife) and I than younger working families. My day is pretty routine: morning news, dog walk (or BB in baseball terms), yoga, stationary bike, lunch, read my books, nap, evening TV, bed, rinse and repeat.

“I’d like to get back to getting out more and will. But following the guidelines is the first priority. The ‘I’ve got my freedom to do what I want folks’ are really irritating. Their ignorance of the constitution is appalling.

“I really miss coaching baseball. I think I’m gonna have to be dragged off the yard. I miss the interaction with the coaches and players. I’m getting pretty familiar with the Korean (Baseball) League; haven’t missed a pitch. Their game is philosophically is closer to our high school and college game than the MLB

“…..These are the times we are living in.  We’ve been here before and this probably won’t be the last pandemic.”

Flint said there have been a number of pandemics across the world including the Spanish flu in 1918 in the United States which he noted had “….(600,000 plus American deaths, 50 million world wide), that we ignored after it ended, like it never happened. I remember the polio epidemic as a kid and now covid.”

-Tim Burt, OC Sports Zone; timburt@ocsportszone.com