With Competition, Betz Wild Unites The Community

Betz Wild believes that competition brings people together. For the past five years, she has worked as a physical education teacher at Severn School, and she previously worked as a physical education teacher and athletic director at St. Martin’s-in-the-Field Episcopal School.

She brings her love of competition into both her professional and her personal life. After having kids, the former high school and college athlete joined a competitive adult field hockey league.

“There’s just something about hearing your kids on the sideline like, ‘Go, Mom!’” Wild said.

Inspired by the fun she had playing field hockey as an adult, Wild started a competition between her neighborhood, Whitehurst, and the other nearby neighborhoods – Oakleigh Forest, Fair Oaks, North Cape Arthur and Cape Arthur. She dubbed the competition the Community Olympics.

Wild organized the first Community Olympics competition — which pits participating neighborhoods against each other in recreational activities such as cornhole, swimming and kayaking — in 2005. Since then, the event has been held in 2006, 2015 and now 2017. “Anytime we can get people from the communities working together, if we can do it in softball or kayaking, then when something really important in our lives is going on, we find we can work together in that respect too because we know each other,” Wild said.

In addition to her work with the Community Olympics, Wild has headed up the local Pitch, Hit & Run competition in honor of her son Taylor, who played baseball at SPHS and was killed while serving in the Marine Corps. The official skills competition of Major League Baseball geared toward children ages 7 to 14, Pitch, Hit & Run events are hosted by civic groups and sports leagues across the nation. Victors from each age group advance to a sectional competition and may advance to a championship at Camden Yards followed by the chance to go to the national championship competition during the Major League Baseball All-Star Week. Severna Park participants have made it all the way to All-Star Week in both 2016 and 2017.

The Severna Park competition adds a special element to commemorate Taylor’s relationship with his brother, Griffin.

“As Taylor was a brother for Griffin, the players walk around with the little kids that day,” Wild said. “So they’ll take their scorecard with them. They’ll introduce themselves and they’ll take them around to all the stations, and the parents can just sit and watch.”

Wild moved to the Severna Park area from Ohio in high school and now lives in the old house she occupied as a teenager. She is married to Bill, a police officer whom she met shortly after college when he was a security guard and she was the “swatch girl” over the holidays at Macy’s. Her son Griffin plays baseball at Lynchburg College in Virginia and her daughter, Libby – who takes after her mom as a field hockey player, swimmer and lacrosse player – is about to start her freshman year at Severn School.

Through her work with the Community Olympics and the Pitch, Hit and Run competition, Wild has used competition not to pit people against each other but to bring them together.