We all need coaching at times

We can all benefit from coaching.

Even CEOs of Fortune 500 companies seek enlightenment from experts.

Experts not only help us avoid pitfalls; they also help us expand our gifts.

Pitfalls in communication include such things as clichés, misuse of language and misspellings.

I needed a coach while covering sports for my high school newspaper.

Our faculty adviser brought me up short when I wrote that the high scorer in a basketball game had "stirred the meshes" for 23 points.

That cliché had to be discarded, the adviser said, so as not to draw disdain.

But I was too raw to know better; I was enchanted when I read that term in a Philadelphia newspaper.

The legendary sports editor Stanley Woodward, banished from the New York Herald Tribune for refusing to devote space to the passion of the paper's owner — women's golf — landed at the Miami News, where he browbeat his writers into avoiding clichés.

When one reporter wrote that a baseball player had "belted the ball out of the park," Woodward whipped off his belt, pushed it in the writer's face and said, "Have you ever seen a guy hit a ball out of the park with one of these?"

Never again.

Just say the guy hit a home run.

You might say — CLICHÉ ALERT! — it sticks out like a sore thumb, poking the reader in the eye.

Here's a rampant error, in writing and in speech: the rendering of the word tenet as tenant.

A tenet is a principle; a tenant is an occupant.

Copy editors and speech coaches wean writers away from such mistakes.

Clear, crisp and cogent writing leads a reader along an uncluttered and vivid path.

Let's read excellent writing, and embrace the best writers as our personal coaches.