'Baseball is more than a game': Clear Fork uses superhero band-aids to build bond with past and future Colts
BELLVILLE — It started out as a simple way to honor a brother.
And now, it has taken on a life of it's own.
If you happen to just catch a glance at a Clear Fork baseball player's cap, you won't notice much. A really cool green horseshoe logo on the front, a two-tone color scheme with a black cap and a green bill and Clear Fork stitched on the back.
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But if your are lucky enough to get a closer look, you will notice two special things. The initials C.S. on the side in honor of local hero Charles Swank, a firefighter who passed away in 2022 while in Pensacola, Florida on a firefighter training trip, and the father of senior leftfielder Kasey Swank.
And the second thing you will notice is something not exactly visible. It is a symbol that doesn't have an obvious meaning unless you are inside the dugout and within the Clear Fork baseball fraternity.
As senior second baseman Nate Lind sets his cap down to replace it with a helmet, he makes sure to run his fingers over an Ironman band-aid that is located under the brim of his cap. In fact, every Clear Fork baseball player does the same thing.
Before the season starts when it is jersey day, the Colts get their hats and the first thing they do is pick out a superhero band-aid out of a fresh pack. It is a tradition that started back in 2016 and has morphed into a way to bond the team forever.
The origin of the super hero band-aid
Dylan Jewell moved with his family to the Clear Fork Valley when he was in sixth grade. He was born in Maryland and spent two years in Virginia before planting roots in rural Richland County. All he knew growing up was just how special his family was to him. His brother, Hunter, was his best friend and when he enlisted into the military and left home, Dylan missed him so much. He was his role model being seven years older.
He would regularly go through Hunter's high school baseball stuff that was packed away in the basement from his playing days in Virginia. On Mother's Day of 2016, Hunter was deployed to Iraq for his first tour which worried his little brother, who was a freshman at Clear Fork at the time. With baseball season in full swing, Dylan decided to go through his brother's stuff one more time and found an old high school baseball hat. He took it out of the box and was about to put it on when he noticed something funny on the inside of the bill.
Written in pen was "90% mental, 10% physical" and right below the inscription was a purple and green Incredible Hulk band-aid. The reasoning has many different legends. One is Hunter used it as motivation to be strong and turn into the Hulk when his team needed a big boost of energy. Another was so he could find his hat quickly among all of the others in the dugout.
Regardless of the reason, Dylan knew it would be the perfect way to honor his brother and keep him close while he was on deployment in the Middle East.
"I forgot he had done that when he played," Jewell said. "So, I went to Walmart, bought two boxes of super hero band-aids and put a Spiderman one on my hat. I went in the next day at practice, the guys were asking about what was on my hat and I told them the story."
His teammates loved the story and the reason behind it. So, they made Dylan bring in the boxes of band-aids the next day at practice and by the end of the day, everyone was sporting their favorite superhero. And from then on, the team was bonded and for the next four years, Dylan saw each of his teammates honor his brother.
It also showed Dylan that he was one of them despite not being from the Clear Fork Valley. Moving in right in the middle of his sixth-grade year, it would have been easy for kids and the community to reject him and his family, but seeing his teammates do something that honored his brother, someone they have never met, was special for the Jewells.
"It shows what kind of people there are in the Butler and Bellville communities," Jewell said. "It didn't take long after I moved there for people to bring me in and make me feel like I have always been there and that I belong. They treat you like family and like they have known you your entire life."
What the band-aids mean to the 2024 Clear Fork Colts
Dylan Jewell graduated in 2019 from Clear Fork High School and never gave a second thought to the band-aid tradition. He went on to the work force and is building a successful career.
He hadn't been back to a Clear Fork baseball game until this year on senior night. He wanted to see his buddy, Nate Lind, who was the bat boy for those teams Jewell played on, get honored for his dedication to the baseball program. As Jewell was watching the game, he noticed something.
The band-aid tradition stuck.
"It kind of blew my mind when I went to their senior night this year and saw that all of the players were still putting band-aids on the inside of their hats," Jewell said. "Kids that I don't even know now because I have been out for so long are still doing this. It is shocking to me because an entire team of kids are doing something without knowing why it started, but are doing it to keep a close bond as a team. The tradition stuck around and has grown in meaning, so it is special."
Every year, a senior baseball player makes sure to carry on the tradition. This year, it was Lind, who grew up in the Clear Fork baseball dugout watching his brothers come through and his dad coach. He had the band-aids there waiting for everyone and made sure to fill in why the Colts sport them. And he has already made sure to let the junior class know that this tradition will not go away and it is up to them to carry it on next season.
"It is all about keeping something going that meant so much to someone back then," Lind said. "Seeing it first-hand as a bat boy, I just saw something different in that team and it opened my eyes that things are bigger than a game you play with your friends. It is life-long. It is more than a band-aid on a hat. It is for the military, a teammate and a family that continues to give so much to this place and this program."
Lind always goes straight for Ironman just as he has the last four years. A player-driven tradition, it shows just how much baseball is a family in The Valley. It is a way to bring the team together and keep the successful tradition alive in a program that won the 2010 Division III state championship and has return trips to the Final 4 in 2016 and 2017 when Jewell was a freshman and sophomore.
"Baseball is more than a game for us," Lind said. "It brings us together and honors a teammate that came through the program before us."
Swank always goes straight for the female superheroes, of course, and has Black Widow this year.
"Traditions are a big thing at Clear Fork in all sports but the band-aids have been with us for a while now," Swank said. "It has a great story and we have won with them so we might as well keep them going. It is a great way for people to come up and start a conversation and really learn why we continue to do it."
Swank assisted Lind in making sure the tradition carried on this season.
"To us, this is simply a connection," Swank said. "The guys wear them now not because they know the story, but because they trust the guys ahead of them. When we tell them to wear a band-aid, they don't ask questions but it bonds us together."
Keeping it going
It was a tradition the predated head coach Gabe Kennedy, who is in his second season at the helm of the Colts. And it is a tradition he wasn't about to even think about stopping.
"The kids love each other and that is a big way that it shows," Kennedy said. "They love being around each other and playing baseball every day. The togetherness our kids have was built before I got here. The culture was set and the kids are the ones carrying it on.
"I am not a Bellville or Butler guy being from Shelby, but this is my home now with three little kids at home so it has been amazing to be a part of this. Change things? Heck no. This senior class set the tone and the culture. Nothing changes because things have been great for so long."
Much like the CS on the side of the hat, Lind hopes the superhero band-aids carry on for a long time because both things show the support the community has for its families.
"We are a village," Lind said. "It takes a village to get through things. We come together when a family is faced with a tough time like losing a husband and father like Charles or sends a son off to war like the Jewells. Everything means more for us and we are always there for each other."
jfurr@gannett.com
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This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Clear Fork Colts use superhero band-aids to build baseball bond
