While many Sumner County kids enjoyed trips to the beach or the mountains over Spring Break, the 11 youngsters on the White House Space Cowboys travel baseball team donned tool belts and went to work to help a fellow athlete.

The Space Cowboys, made up of 9-year-olds and part of the White House Baseball League, labored together to build a wheelchair ramp for Taylan Fletcher, an East Nashville Magnet School football player who recently suffered a stroke.

This is a team whose purpose is greater than accomplishments on the baseball diamond, says Space Cowboys Coach Felipe Pulliam.

“I don't just see baseball as a sport, I see athletics as a way to create a better person,” explains Felipe. “It's not only about winning and losing a game, it’s that winning and losing is teaching you a life lesson somewhere in there.”

Originally from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Felipe approached the White House Baseball League this year with the idea of starting the team.

“My son is a big Houston Astros fan like I am, and they have a AAA minor league team called the Sugarland Space Cowboys, so I got in touch with their general manager and talked to him about using their logo,” says Felipe. “We changed it a little bit to mimic the Tennessee flag with the three stars rather than having the Texas flag. And that’s what my son told me he wanted to go with this year when I decided I was going to coach his team.”

Along with coaches Micah Lashley, Jeff Koch, Josh Hager, and Tommy Sargent, Felipe knew community service would be a primary focus for the team.

“As part of our coaching strategy every week, we ask the kids, ‘What did you do this week to make someone else's life better?’ Felipe says. “And they always give us something … they helped hold the door for somebody, there was a kid on the playground who fell and scratched his knee and needed some help. No matter how small it sounds, it means something to somebody. We all agreed when we started this team that if we're going to do this, we're going to have some service projects.”

After hearing the news that a fellow athlete was in need, Coach Micah Lashley brought up the idea of building a wheelchair ramp for Taylan Fletcher, who had lost movement on one side of his body after the stroke.  

“He's in a wheelchair while he's doing physical therapy and eventually should regain his mobility, but right now he doesn't have any way of getting into his house,” explains Felipe. “The family literally had to pick him up and carry him in.”

The team rallied around Coach Lashley’s idea to build the ramp.

“Micah came to us during practice one day and said, ‘This is what we're going to do,’ says Felipe. “He had arranged for the Nashville Fraternal Order of Police to donate the money for the materials and as a team we would put in the work.”  

And so it was that over Spring Break, the White House Space Cowboys came together, built a wheelchair ramp, and learned a bit about public service in the process. In tribute to Taylan, the team sports the number 77, Taylan’s football jersey number, on the sleeves of one of their uniforms, a fitting reminder that in doing for others, we do even more for ourselves.