Hitting A Home Run With Diabetes
College Coach And Catcher Team Up On And Off The Field
RBIs, batting averages, home runs, ERAs, strikeouts — there are many numbers to keep track of in baseball. Some players and coaches have to watch other numbers, too, like blood glucose levels, carbohydrates, and insulin units. In the September issue of Diabetes Forecast, the consumer magazine of the American Diabetes Association, Sam Houston State University starting catcher Heath Pugh and his assistant coach, Chris Berry, who talk about playing baseball while wearing insulin pumps and the unique bond they’ve forged as athletes with diabetes.
Heath Pugh was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 14. He spent the next several months learning how to give himself insulin injections, then how to use an insulin pump. Along the way, he never gave up his drive to excel in baseball.
Pugh’s determination is familiar to Coach Berry, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age seven. Although his doctors recommended he lead an inactive life, Berry decided not to let his diabetes get in the way of what he wanted to do. “If you learn to take control, [diabetes] doesn’t have to slow you,” says Berry. “It has not stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do.” Berry and Pugh first met when Berry was coaching a baseball camp that Pugh attended. Seven years later, they met again at Sam Houston State. Berry soon became a role model for Pugh, both as a coach and an experienced athlete with diabetes.
Berry not only supports Pugh’s development as a baseball player, but he also shares his knowledge and experience about managing diabetes in the dugout and on the field. Pugh, in turn, has become a role model for the next generation of athletes, advising aspiring young athletes who also wear insulin pumps. “Diabetes is not a setback at all,” Pugh tells Diabetes Forecast. “It becomes who you are. You learn to live with it.”
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