Bates adds author to list of jobs
Observer-Reporter
As a baseball coach, Dave Bates guided Carmichaels to three WPIAL championships. Bates is the new coach at Greene County rival Mapletown.
Joe Tuscano/Observer-Reporter
Dave Bates signs a book at Carmichaels library recently next to daughter Emma.
Dave Bates has had a lot of adventures in life, from admitted ski bum at a Colorado resort to educator to WPIAL winning baseball coach at Carmichaels High School.
Now add self-published writer to that resume.
The Greene County native has a book out, “Friendship Afield, A Collection of Short Stories and Snapshots.” The stories are an examination of his life through his outdoor adventures.
“I’ve wanted to write a book since I was a kid and ended up getting embarrassed by my daughter,” Bates said of his daughter, Emma, who beat him to the punch with her own publications.
“It was a process. It was like I said. It was like a stone wall, a great idea when I started. When I finished, I had enough of the stone wall. Someone would stop by my house and say, ‘Would you do that professionally?’ No.”
The quick-read book opens the readers to some of the most important people in his life.
There’s John Thomas, a.k.a. Foul Ball John, who became part of the Bates’ extended family until his death in 2019.
Then there was his uncle Jim and Bates’ come to Jesus moment. Nuf said.
The “Two Doe” chapter showed that sometimes being lucky is better than being good.
There are stories of family interaction with hunting or fishing as the fabric that pulled the stories together.
There are instances of good luck or God’s will, as Bates would say, when a woman approached him in the cafeteria of Waynesburg University on the day his money ran out way before his credits, and told him, “God put me here for you.”
It was Janet Brown, who just that day had been hired as director of institutional advancement. Brown had become friends with Bates’ sister the week prior and she told Bates of her younger brother’s money problems. Brown steered Bates to a number of scholarship possibilities that kept him in school and redirected his life.
“I have lots of stuff I couldn’t write about,” said Bates with a smile. “There’s a whole book full of stuff like that.”
Bates writes a monthly column in the Greene County Messenger surrounding gun carry and its laws. He spends time now as a firearms instructor and runs the Alpha Omega Shooting Solution school. He also serves as a hunter safety instructor with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Bates patrols locally with the Cumberland Township Police Department.
“The hardest part about writing this book was not leaving people out,” Bates said. “There are so many people and every time you think of one person, another pops up. I didn’t want to hurt this person’s feelings.
“The best part of this book was seeing the cover when I went down and picked them up. I touched it and smelled it, like an old baseball glove.”
To order a book, call Dave Bates at 724-966-7011 or email at alphaomegashootingsolutions@gmail.com.