Photo by: Mississippi State Athletics
Staff Stories: Tyler Bratton
July 07, 2020 | Softball, HailStateBEAT
by Brian Ogden, Assistant Director/Communications
STARKVILLE – Early on a spring Saturday morning, Tyler Bratton walks into the indoor facility at Nusz Park. Mississippi State's assistant softball coach is ready to begin a 12-hour day at the ballpark with the Bulldogs hosting a tournament.
He flicks the lights on and starts setting up for the first group of hitters to come through the batting cages. He rolls the hopper full of balls behind the L-screen, making sure his setup is just right.
Then from behind him a question: "Where's Fog?"
Behind him, standing not much taller than the bucket he's tried to help set up, stands Bratton's six-year-old son, Maddux. He's wondering where his favorite player is.
She's not here yet, but it's time for Bratton and Maddux's work to begin. Bratton lifts him up into the cart full of softballs, makes sure he's safely tucked behind the screen and holds out his hand. Maddux passes him a ball and the routine begins.
As hitters cycle through the cage, Maddux dutifully passes balls for his dad to pitch. One group comes through, then the next, until Fa Leilua walks in, and Maddux lights up.
"There's Fog!"
Maddux hops down and runs over to Leilua who scoops him up and spins him around before she ever steps in the cage.
"I'm really blessed to be around such a wonderful culture of players and coaches that provide such a welcoming environment for my family," Bratton said. "At Mississippi State, we talk about family all the time, and it's not just a talk the talk thing. It's a walk the walk thing. Our family really is here, man. Maddux is a big part of that."
Bratton has a shadow following him the rest of the morning. When he heads up to the press box to scout the opponents in the first game of the day, Maddux is sitting beside him watching closely. When the Bulldogs head into the dugout to put on their cleats, Maddux is playing catch with them on dugout steps. When State's outfielders jog out onto the grass to take fly balls, Maddux is in the middle between the manager receiving their throws and Bratton hitting them fly balls, each ball passing through his hands before being launched into the afternoon sun.
Bratton has never known softball without his son. Maddux was born in November 2013, the next month, Bratton made the transition from serving as a director of operations for the baseball program at MSU to his first on-field coaching role with the softball team. Having his son beside him between the lines has allowed Bratton a chance to show another side of himself to State's student-athletes.
He hopes the young women he helps lead see him as a role model, that he might remind them of their dads and how those men poured into their softball careers.
"I think it's a constant reminder that it is a game and it is fun, but we're also setting an example for the next generation," he said. "As busy as you are, you can be both. You can be a good coach, and you can be a good dad."
Bratton and Maddux's mother are divorced, which limits the amount of time he is able to spend with his son. He gets him every other weekend, and during the season Maddux spends the Bulldogs' home weekends in Starkville.
The situation makes every moment that the little boy spends at the ballpark that much more precious for his father.
"As it is now, when I don't have him, I look forward to a phone call at night," Bratton said. "You're talking to a six-year-old, so imagine you're trying to check in on your son's life, and you end up talking about the same things every day. He always wants to show me his muscles, so I show him my muscles back. That's the hardest part, missing him."
It was Christmas time in 2017 when Matt Roberts, State's men's tennis coach, told Bratton about the girl. Her name was Lauren, and she was friends with Roberts' wife in town. Mrs. Roberts thought the pair would hit it off, so she suggested a double date before the holidays.
But at the time, he wasn't so sure. The first date went well. Then a second. Then a third. Bratton still hadn't told her.
"I didn't know if it would last," he said. "You're scared when you talk about your son. Are they going to run away or are they going to be in it to win it?"
Once he found a way to bring it up, Lauren had the perfect response: "What took you so long?"
"When she said that, I said, 'You know what? This girl right here, she's alright,'" Bratton said.
The two were married in the summer of 2019, and Bratton describes her as the best thing he could ever ask for. She's joined his team as he calls it along with his parents. When Bratton has practice or a game, Lauren and his parents step in with Maddux.
Lauren sits with him and draws. She rides bikes with him. She brings him to the field to watch the games. She's even made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to pick up Maddux from his mom's house.
"Not a lot of wives or husbands expect to get married and be married into someone that already has a child," Bratton added. "She handled that unbelievably well. I'm extremely blessed for that. My son loves her, man.
"Seeing the way those two interacted, that was a big piece. I wasn't going to marry anybody that wasn't going to be good with Maddux. Lauren got it."
A few weeks ago, Bratton returned to his annual summer routine of traveling the country to watch the game he loves. This time it was different. Instead of the players on the field fighting nervousness while trying to make an impression, Bratton was the one worrying.
For the first time, Maddux was playing. Lauren joined Bratton to watch his first tee ball game in Huntsville, Alabama.
"I was flooded with emotions because I can remember being his age and playing for the Red Riders," Bratton said. "That was our team's name in tee ball when I was a kid."
In Bratton's earliest memory from the diamond, he was playing third base when a line drive caught him in the eye before he could get his glove up. He remembers his father, who was also a coach, telling him it wasn't something to feel bad about, but that the black eye looked good on him and he'd come back better after it.
"You have concerns all of a sudden where I hope he doesn't get hit or I hope he doesn't get hurt sliding into second," Bratton said. "All of those things now it flips to the parent side of where you want your son to be healthy and don't want anything to happen to him."
Between pitches, Bratton would spy Maddux kicking the dirt in the outfield. The field wasn't far from the airport, and every time a plane passed overhead every kid looked up to watch it fly by.
Bratton had to remind himself that this was tee ball. It's perfectly normal for the kids to be distracted. But the coach in him was screaming inside that there was a game going on and the ball was about to be in play.
As Maddux walked up to the plate, he looked into the stands and cracked that big smile he always has on the field. Bratton thought about those planes overhead. Normally, he'd be on one right now.
"Seeing that little Maddux smile, happy that I'm there," he said. "If we were in the middle of a season or if we were on the recruiting trail or something, there's a good chance that I wouldn't have been there to see that. That's pretty special that I got to be there and watch him play, see him do his thing and love doing what I do."
When the game ended, Maddux ran over to give his dad a hug. Bratton wrapped him in an embrace and lifted him off the ground. It's something Bratton's parents always told him he'd miss one day.
"He's 50 pounds, but it's like the lightest 50 pounds, you know what I mean," he said. "That's one of those things that I try not to take for granted, every day that I get a chance to pick him up, because there will be a point in time where he'll be too heavy for that. Right now I pick up 50 pounds in the weight room and man, doing sets of 50 in certain exercises isn't easy, but picking up Maddux is always an easy 50 pounds."
With Maddux taking the first steps in his athletic career, Bratton has been able to see his role change somewhat. He's not just including his son as a helpful bystander anymore. Now, he can start guiding and instructing at a basic level.
Maddux loves to draw and has a big bucket of sidewalk chalk at Bratton's home in Starkville. Bratton's used that chalk to draw out a field in parking lot and mark a strike zone on the brick wall outside. He compares it to many of the drills he helped demonstrate with John Cohen for his wall ball DVD series in the early 2010s.
"We're throwing balls of the wall and Maddux is fielding tennis balls off a brick wall," he said. "It's pretty basic, but it kind of gets him out there working. It's something I've found a lot of pride in, something that I've been able to share a lot of time in doing that with him. It's he and I kind of making our own fun."
Along the way, Bratton has gained a newfound appreciation for what parents do to help their children achieve dreams. He knew being a father would help him be more relatable to parents on the recruiting trail, but this was unexpected.
"I think before I had Maddux, you kind of just assume that that stuff happens," he said. "You just assume that the really good players just found their way. Although there are a handful of stories out there where kids have really gone above and beyond by themselves, you realize somewhere in the background a mom or dad or both along the way really helped them get there."
Bratton hopes Maddux will love the same game he does, the same way he does. But at the core, regardless of ability or success, he wants his son to be able to find the same joy in sports that he does.
Back at Nusz Park, it's easy to see that joy shining through as Maddux is passed from player to player in the dugout before the game. Each one will pick him up, give him a hug and then pass him along to the next player waiting in line.
Before the first pitch is thrown, Bratton lines up on the third base line with the rest of the team for the National Anthem. As he admires the flag waving in the breeze with the anthem crescendoing from the sound system behind him, he looks down to his right hip.
There's Maddux, locked on the same banner. He mimics his dad down to even the smallest detail of keeping his left hand tucked behind his back.
"It's kind of a chance for two minutes, that calm before the storm, where we get to appreciate all the beautiful things we have," Bratton said. "A child is always watching. He's going to remember those things, and it'll shape his future years down the line."
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