In 1980, Paul Shingledecker had little softball experience. He did not grow up playing and was certainly caught off guard when he was asked to be the coach of the Merri-Heirs (Plum City area) 4-H softball team.

“I was a little skeptical when the 4-H leader brought a bag of balls and everything and handed them to me and said you’re the new coach, but once I got into it, it was a lot of fun,” Shingledecker said.

During his first season of 11 as the coach, Merri-Heirs won a single game. Against Olivet, his squad lost 25-1.

“They were all hooting and hollering like they had just won the World Series, and I went over and I said, ‘What is going on here,’” Shingledecker said. “They said, ‘Well, we made a point.’ I said, ‘Well, you’ve pretty much proven to me that you’re good losers, now let’s try to focus on being good winners.’”

Struggles continued as the year went on, but things changed when stakes were on the line. Shingledecker called upon the great motivator of any child: ice cream.

“That first year I told them if they won one game I’d take them to the Dairy Queen, and by God, the last game of the season they won one game,” Shingledecker said.

Merri-Heirs began calling themselves the Merri-Heirs Bears after the movie “Bad News Bears,” a struggling team from a 1976 film.

As the years went by and Shingledecker’s four kids grew up along with the rest of the team, the wins started to follow. In Shingledecker’s 10th season, the team finished second in the county, and in his 11th and final season they took home the title.

He still fondly looks back at the matchup between the first-place teams in each division, competing at the Pierce County Fair in the Grandstand.

There were no coach buses for the Merri-Heirs, as each team member was dropped off at the feed store before filling up the tailgate of the truck to ride to the field, sitting so they could not be seen above the racks of the truck.
Shingledecker said the competition was stiff, and each 4-H club had a team to call their own. There was also a competitive senior league and a volleyball league in the winter.

“A lot of these kids never played sports in school. They were, most of them, from the farm, and back then, there too the farm was a lot different than what it is today,” Shingledecker said. “It gave them a chance to get off the farm and have a little fun.”

Shingledecker spent many nights milking cows after a long game on the diamond.

The Bears practiced once a week on whatever land they could possibly find, with players starting at age 6. As everyone had to get into every game, Shingledecker joked that opponents would watch like hawks to make sure all the youngsters saw the field. He said the requirement of everyone getting in caused them to grow up fast, hitting their stride by the time they were 11 or 12 years old.

While Shingledecker kept the names out of the stories, he had plenty of great ones from his time as coach. He remembers heading to Maiden Rock for a game they were expected to win. Runners were on base, but the home run hitter was struggling to make contact, and Merri-Heirs sneaked by to win by one.

“He said, ‘Coach, I don’t need glasses, I’ve got contacts today,’” Shingledecker said. “Wednesday, when we had practice, he came running up to me and said, ‘Coach, I found out what was wrong.’ He said he had the contacts in the wrong eyes.”

Another time, a girl got a hit and ran to first. Instead of heading to second, she ran to the pitcher’s mound, steamrolled the pitcher and headed for third.

“Needless to say she got out,” Shingledecker said.

During a tournament at Ellsworth there was a downpouring of rain. He took the team to the laundromat between games and had them all wear garbage bags so their clothes could dry.

Shingledecker said they used to give out painted plaques at the end of the year for team awards. Their pitcher frequently found himself getting hit by balls, so they gave him an award with a bandaged-up bear.

“Parents have got to learn to get involved in this kind of stuff, and it’s amazing what will come out of it when they do,” Shingledecker said. “It was good years, even though we were busy. I was milking cows at the time and trying to run a farm, but you still found time to go with the kids and play ball… Seems like when you’ve got something like that, you figure out a way to make time.”