Athletics

SANDLOT BASEBALL: A story about Indian Land from PATHWAYS

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I have spent a large portion of my life sitting on a tractor, riding mower or John Deere Gator doing nothing more than traveling in circles. Cutting fields or dragging infields for untold hours, always ending up where I started. Miles and miles going absolutely nowhere. Occasionally, I did try to cut in different directions so that I might unwind myself. My last field, a middle school field, in Greenville County, South Carolina, was a palace compared to any of the fields that I played on in high school. It was a different time on a different planet, it would seem. My statement doesn’t mean that I didn’t coach on some pretty poor fields.

Our field was no different from any of the other fields that we played on in that it was terrible. Like many other fields, it was built as an afterthought. It was, however, terrible in different ways than the other terrible fields. Every field has its own…ah…ambience for lack of a better word. Ours was a football field adjusted to accommodate a baseball field. The backstop was constructed from creosoted “re-purposed” telephone poles and chicken wire. A skinned infield was located off of one end meaning the right field fence would have been about two hundred and fifty feet from home plate…if there had been a fence. Instead of a fence we had a steep drop off that was studded with pine trees. The left field line went on forever following the general path of the football sidelines until it ended with a fence. While much deeper, at least there were no light standards to navigate in left although there were goal post to worry about. In right you had to worry about light standards and goal posts. David Jowers, a big, blond-headed lefty, ripped a line drive so hard that when it hit a light standard he was almost a “3 unassisted” at first base from the rebound. After striking the standard it one-hopped back to the first baseman.

I found myself “camped out” in right field my sophomore year as the starter. Proud to start, normally right is where you put your worst fielder if you are playing on a little league team. Thank goodness this wasn’t little league or I might have gotten my feelings hurt. I think I played in right because I was the most expendable. No big loss if I ran into one of the light standards or got tangled up in a goalpost.
My first start was not on our terrible field, however, it was on someone else’s terrible field, Mt. Pisgah I think, and my first start was almost my last. Their field was not a football-baseball combination, it was an afterthought stuck behind the gym which took up a lot of the area of right field along with its high brick staircase that led up to court level. Just behind the infield a hard-packed dirt road ran through right and on into left field. Did I mention the outfield grass had not been cut and mounds of clover pushed up through the dormant Bermuda? To further complicate my field of dreams, the fans brought their lawn chairs and sat in the shade created by the high gymnasium walls and the tall staircase. If there were any ground rules involving fans I was not told them.

Early in the game a ball was hit over my head. I thought I could reach it…back then every ball that was hit I thought I could reach. Doing my best impersonation of Willy Mays at the Polo Grounds, I spun to my right and sprinted to the point I thought the ball was going to land. All I could see in front of me was a sea of fans…well maybe not a sea, more like a small pond of fans. All I could hear when I looked back over my left shoulder for the ball was the SNAP, SNAP, SNAP of lawn chairs being closed as fans vacated the area. No, I did not catch it. I watched the ball pass cleanly between my extended glove and my nose right before I stepped into someone’s green and white lawn chair. At least they didn’t have to cut me out of it.

Late in the game a flare was hit between me and the second baseman. I decided to field it on its first bounce but the ball didn’t bounce. Instead, it died in a clump of clover and my glove passed harmlessly over it. Slamming on brakes I then fell down, got up, overran the ball again before the “third time being the charm” came into play. All I could do was hang my head. When we finally got them out Coach Gunter met me at the bench and asked “Do you need to take a stick with you?” “Sir?” “So you will have something to hit it with!” Yeah, maybe. Later a popup between the second basemen and myself would turn into a double as I waited for it to come down…AFTER IT BOUNCED! The ball hit the hard-packed dirt road. Momma, I want to go home!

Thirty plus years later I would find myself standing at home plate behind Lockhart High School thinking about the fields that I had played on and wondering if I had just stepped through a time portal. In the spring, their outdoor athletic facility was a football field that doubled as a baseball field. In dead centerfield was a press box with bleachers that extended into left and right fields. Both sets of goal posts were in play as were several light posts that ran behind the bleachers. The right field foul line actually split the goal post which made them in play. The infield was placed off of what would have been the actual football playing field but dimensions were strange. Somewhere near four hundred feet down the left field line, nearer to five hundred down the right and a mere two hundred fifty feet to dead center if you hit a ball over the press box. What really bothered me was the water spigot with the bucket turned over it in center field and the hole filled with tires beyond the right field goal post. The coach had used more chalk to lay out the out of play areas than he had used to line the field. During the longest ground rules meeting in the annals of baseball, I was told that if a ball rolled into the hole filled with tires it was a ground rule double. I was more concerned with what happened if my right fielder fell into it. This game was a tort liability waiting to happen. I decided the best thing for me to do was to put the outfielder I could most afford to lose in right field…just like my coach had done thirty-plus years before.

Second Chances

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Sometimes I get to work too early. The sun had not made an appearance as I drove around the gym toward my parking place. I would not have been able to see Ole Sol if he had been up as it could not have been foggier if I had been in an old werewolf movie. We were still a few days away from the official start of school and were in the middle of the mandatory teacher workdays that, despite its name, allow teachers to get no work done. As I pulled into my parking place I noticed a car parked next to the fence separating the parking lot and the baseball field. I saw movement off to the side near our activity bus. It turned out to be a young man carrying a gas can and a cutoff garden hose. Hummmmmmmm. I wonder what he could be doing. Give the kid credit; he walked right over like he was supposed to be carrying a gas can and garden hose.

Despite recent true life horror stories, I have really never felt fearful in a school environment. This was not a normal school environment and I freely admit to certain feelings of, ah, trepidation. When he spoke I could actually smell gasoline on his breath. Rather than point out the dangers of huffing gasoline I just asked him what he was up to. He was good, I admit it, as cool under fire as any twenty year combat veteran. “Man, I just ran out of gas and the coach just came by and said I could get some gas.” Really, can you describe him for me? “Ahhhh, it was so dark and foggy I didn’t get a good look.” I decided to take a direct tack and told him what I knew to be true and who I was. Realizing he needed gasoline I was going to let him have it but at a price. He would have to return before five o’clock that afternoon with gas or money to replace it. If he didn’t I would call in his tag number to the police and have him arrested. He agreed but of course never showed up. I called his tag in and found out it had been reported stolen. Imagine that.

The following Wednesday, school started for real. I walked into my first period class ready to impart my vast knowledge of driving to the impressionable young minds that were now in my charge. As I called the roll I noticed a young man sitting on the front row trying to make himself look invisible. When I called his name he raised his hand and continued to think invisible, really invisible. “Son, do I know you?” He replied, “No Sir.” “Oh I believe I do and providence has delivered you right into my hands.” I told him to hang around when the bell rang. We came to a quick understanding since I had a name and access to an address. He returned the stolen car tag and spent the rest of the semester doing all of the odd jobs that I cooked up for him. He did such a good job I enlisted him to play football the next year.

This is a short excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” The complete book may be purchased or downloaded at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Was-Never-Only-Thing/dp/1500597732/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446497350&sr=8-1&keywords=winning+was+never+the+only+thing

THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN

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The following is an excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” and one of the reasons that teachers live to teach. Should you wish to purchase a copy it can be purchased in book form or downloaded at the following link: goo.gl/dO1hcX
THE ANGRY YOUNG MAN
As a student, Leroy was no great shakes unless you compared him to a 1.0 earthquake. It would become apparent as time went on that he was a lot brighter than he was letting on but it would take several years for his intelligence to truly manifest itself. After telling him to complete an assignment and get back on task, he tore off a piece of tape, put it on the palm of his hand and said, “put this agin’ your ear and see if you can hear this tape telling you Hell No!” For creativity I would have to give it a ten. For stupid things to say to your teacher and coach, also I give it a ten. As a hush fell over the class, a flush of heat rushed from my feet to my ears. I calmly turned to the door and asked him to step outside with me. I was hoping that by taking time to walk out I would calm down. It didn’t work. When we got to the hallway, I turned and grabbed him by the throat while pushing him against a locker. In my mind I can clearly hear the hollow metal thud that the locker made, and the rattle of disturbed locks. I do not know what I said, which is not a good thing. From past history I would reason that I probably used the F word a lot and probably used it in ways it was never intended to be used. Luckily I came to my senses, realizing that not only had I picked him up off of the floor but that I was choking him. As I gazed upon his reddening face and into his saucer like eyes I decided that I probably should let him down and did. I was not proud of myself and for the next week cringed every time my classroom door opened. I fully expected the men in blue to show up to arrest me or Mr. Rhodes, my principal, to fire me. It did not happen and interestingly, Leroy’s brightness began to show a flicker of dim light. Please, I would like to make an observation to all budding young teachers; this is not a good motivational tool.

Leroy was also a baseball player of sorts. Two for four at the plate is great but as a career not so much. In the four years that I had him as a player he was able to complete just two of those seasons, his freshman year and his senior year. In between there was an issue with eligibility his junior year but before that, there was an issue with me and his anger his sophomore year. Small, quick and wiry, Leroy possessed a howitzer for an arm although, at times, it was somewhat inaccurate. As a freshman I used him as a pitcher, short stop and outfielder and he distinguished himself enough to make the varsity team his sophomore year. Unfortunately, Leroy had a huge hole in his swing. Anything that curved or bent avoided his bat as if it had some sort of perilous disease. My tiring of repeatedly saying, “Out in front and over the top” caused me to bench him in favor of another player. People on the bench have at the very least, two issues; one, they don’t like being there and want to play more. I understand this and really do not want a player that doesn’t want to play. Two, they do not like to chase foul balls. To a player chasing foul balls is demeaning. I agree with them that it is demeaning but I don’t care, it has to be done. Being Leroy, the anger kept building until finally he could not take it anymore. When I told him to “hop on” a foul ball he did not move even though I knew he had heard me. “Leroy, the ball will not grow legs and come back on its own.” His comeback was, “It’ll have to before I go pick it up!” My calmness surprised me. “Leroy, either get the ball or go get out of your uniform and don’t come back.” Unable to get past his anger you can guess which option he chose. I found his uniform hanging on the door knob of the athletic office. The ball did not return itself either.

Because I primarily taught freshmen, I saw very little of Leroy his junior year. Some would say this was a blessing and at the time I would have agreed. Due to his grade problems I did not have to deal with him during baseball season and did not expect him to come out his senior year. As usual I was incorrect. Like a bad penny, he kept turning up. What did I have to do to get rid of this kid? When I saw him sitting at a desk in the first organizational meeting of the year, my first thought was “You’re cut.” As the meeting came to a close, I noticed Leroy hanging back. As soon as everyone had exited, Leroy was at my elbow. “CaCaCaCoach Miller,” he stammered while looking at his shoes, “You don’t owe me anything but can I come out for baseball?” I was somewhat taken aback that he had even asked. “Why should I let you come out Leroy? We have not exactly Gee-Hawed.” Again looking at his feet Leroy finally looked up and said, “I’m not the same person. Can you give me a chance to prove it?” With “No way!” on the tip of my tongue I instead said sure. I am such an old softy. I did not totally lose my mind, I gave him quite a few parameters to adhere to and he did; to a Tee!

Leroy’s season was a good one for him on the worst team that I had at Riverside. He still had the hole in his swing but so did everyone else. In between innings I found him sitting next to me talking about the game that was in progress or cutting up with his best friend, David Brissey. He seemed to be less angry and much happier. At practice he was usually the first one out to the field and since he lived near my route home I began to taxi him home. In other words, I was seeing way too much of him. Seeing and participating in the turn around in Leroy’s personality helped make the season more successful than it really was. He was still an angry young man and at times gave in to the anger. Mostly he used his anger as a tool for success and for some reason Leroy had decided that I was responsible for that success.

As Leroy’s senior year drew to a close I found myself being invited to many different family functions, including graduation celebrations, graduation itself and an impromptu evening fishing expedition over spring break. As we sat in his grandpa’s old and beat up Jon boat Leroy told me that the best thing that ever happened to him was being jacked up against a locker and being kicked off of the baseball team. He had done some type of self-analysis his junior year and realized that he was headed down a long, bumpy and unhappy road if he did not change his ways. Not bad for a seventeen year old. It was as if he had become self-aware; then he dropped a bomb shell. He was going to go to college. I did not want to throw ice water on his dream but to myself I contemplated the likelihood of his success with the grades that I knew he had. They would not reflect the type of student usually pursued by institutes of higher learning. I am glad I didn’t and was once again was proven incorrect. Leroy took remedial and transfer courses. On a recommendation from me, he began his career at North Greenville University and if memory serves, somehow ended up at Furman University. If Furman were up north it would have been a member of the Ivy League and mentioned with Yale and Princeton. He not only ended up there, he graduated. Leroy traveled a little farther down his road and picked up a Masters Degree and even ended up teaching at the collegiate level for a while. I try not to wish bad things on good people but I fervently hope that he had a student that was just as big a hemorrhoid as he was. I also sincerely hope that if Leroy had such a student that the student turned out just as successful as Leroy did. Leroy, even though I’m not sure why, I consider you to be my biggest success story. Hope you are well!

ENEMA, SC

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Excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” available on Kindle at http://goo.gl/1afw3c
ENEMA, SC
“There’s a ‘For Sale’ sign on a big old rusty tractor.
You can’t miss it, it’s the first thing that you see.
Just up the road, a pale-blue water tower,
With ‘I Love Jenny’ painted in bright green”
“My Town” by Montgomery Gentry

Lockhart is a relationship that, fortunately, I did not get to foster. You see, Lockhart is a small town in Union County South Carolina and not a person. I have been there twice and intend not to go there again if possible. It was a mill village in the heyday of textiles in South Carolina named for either James Lockhart, a miller who established a grist mill, or because of two sets of deer antlers that had been found locked together after both animals had perished. Today there are many more deer than textiles left in South Carolina and even fewer people left in Lockhart. If Some Town, SC, were to be called the armpit of South Carolina, then as far as I am concerned, Lockhart is where you would give South Carolina an enema. I am sure there are many good people in Lockhart, it is just I never had the opportunity to meet but a few of them. In forty years of coaching, no team of mine was ever treated as badly as we were treated at Lockhart High School. We were not treated badly by the players or coaches, the fans though were another kettle of fish entirely.

In 2001 I was in year one of a seven year tenure at Tamassee-Salem. For the previous thirty-one years that Tamassee-Salem had baseball, it had been an endeavor in frustration. Tamassee-Salem had not one winning season or trip to the playoffs in their history. I was so cocksure of myself that I thought that I could turn it all around with nothing more than hard work. Try as I did, there was nothing I could do to change the losing climate that was in place in year one of my stay there. We were in the latter third of the season and had not taken one game past the fifth inning “mercy” rule. For those of you who are not baseball fans, the high school mercy rule states that a baseball game is over if one team is ahead by ten runs after at least four and one half innings. Instead of preaching about winning I was more concerned about getting us into the seventh inning. I cannot describe how bad we were those first couple of years but I can tell you that in my first off-season workout, I hit four fly balls to three kids and all four balls found human flesh instead of leather. In our first game we went down eleven runs before we had an opportunity to bat and I had broken two clipboards in frustration. Most of the teams we played tried to keep the score down but for the most part it was a futile effort. I had to ask one coach to stop trying to bunt the ball back to the pitcher in an attempt to make outs. We could not field the bunts.

In addition to being bad there was no way to get anywhere easily from Tamassee-Salem. We would travel south to play Dixie, Ware Shoals and McCormick. To the southeast there was Christ Church in Greenville and Thornwell in Clinton. As we traveled toward the rising sun, we went first to Landrum and then on to Blacksburg. Once past Spartanburg we turned again to the southeast to Jonesville and finally on to Lockhart. Landrum was the shortest at just under an hour away, followed by Christ Church at just over an hour. The rest were far, far away, with Lockhart being the farthest. Because of the way that we played, most of our road trips ended in the wee hours of the next morning.

Lockhart school was typical of what had been built in the nineteen-forties or fifties in South Carolina. The Lockhart architecture consisted of one long brick building with an entrance framed by high columns that reminded you of the Parthenon (except the Parthenon’s columns were in better shape). In the spring, the outdoor athletic facility was a football field that doubled as a baseball field. In dead centerfield was a press box with bleachers that extended into left and right fields. Both sets of goal posts were in play as were several light posts that ran behind the bleachers. The right field foul line actually split the goal post which made them in play. The infield was placed off of what would have been the actual football playing field but dimensions were going to be strange. Somewhere near four hundred feet down the left field line, nearer to five hundred down the right and a mere two hundred fifty feet to dead center if you hit a ball over the press box. What really bothered me was the water spigot with the bucket turned over it in center field and the hole filled with tires beyond the right field goal post. The coach had used more chalk to lay out the out of play areas than he had used to line the field. During the longest ground rules meeting in the annals of baseball, I was told that if a ball rolled into the hole filled with tires it was a ground rule double. I was more concerned with what happened if my right fielder fell into it. This game was a tort liability waiting to happen and I decided the best thing for me to do was to put the outfielder I could most afford to lose in right. Sorry, Casey.

As we waited to begin the game, it became apparent that we were the social event of the week. Our dugout consisted of a portable bench on the first base foul line. There were no bleachers so everyone in Lockhart sat behind us in lounge chairs. Before the game everyone was the amiable Dr. Jekyll but as soon as the umpire yelled “Play Ball!” they all became the very hostile Mr. Hyde. There was one particular gentleman directly behind me who rode me like a fine cutting horse. I usually don’t mind this as it usually keeps the cretins off of the kids. He was dressed to impress, wearing bib overalls over a discolored “wife beater” tee and tipped the scales at least one hundred pounds over what would be considered healthy. Graying brown hair stuck out of his mesh cap in every direction and it was hard to discern where his mullet ended and his back hair began. Every time he tried to get under my skin, I tried to wise crack back. I did take offense when he yelled across the diamond to the umpire: “Kain’t you keep that fat son of a bitch in the coach’s box?” When I came back over after our at bat I pointed out that there was no coach’s box and I really wasn’t that fat. After the fifth inning, I asked him what was going to give his life meaning after I left to go back to Salem. He must have gotten depressed contemplating our separation because I heard nothing from him for the rest of the game.

Everybody who batted got a good dose of fan ridicule. Some of it was the good natured, “You swing like a broken gate” ribbing but a lot of it was personal and most of it focused on body features or types. Todd Oliver became the focus of two young men standing near the concession stand and every time he came to the plate they began to chide him with comments about the Pillsbury Doughboy or the Michelin Man. Todd was somewhat rounded but I really never considered him terribly overweight. I wondered if these two fans actually owned or had ever looked in a mirror. To be honest, had they been a couple of inches taller they would have been round. Both boys would have dressed out at about two seventy five or three hundred pounds and they only stopped yelling when stuffing their faces with hotdogs. I thought about bribing them with food to shut them up but I realized I had not brought enough money for the food they might consume. With hands on hips, I fixed them with my steely glare from the third base coach’s box, in hopes it would draw their attention away from Todd. That simply got the woman who sat with them questioning what I might be looking at. I assured her that it was not her. Maybe if she shaved…her chin. I know…sometimes my mouth should have a locking brake.

At some point I asked their coach if it was always this bad. He studied me a moment and smiled, “This isn’t bad; you should be have been here when we played Jonesville.” I asked if he had ever tried to do a little “fan training” on the accepted methods of taunting and he laughed as if I had told the best joke he had ever heard. “What gives?” He calmly explained: “You did notice that I am black and that this is Lockhart, right?” He went on to say that the only reason he had the job was because no one else would take it and that he was riding out the season. This would be Lockhart’s last baseball season as they consolidated the following year with Union. The people of Lockhart were upset. I was not.

The game itself was the best we played all year. Not only did we get it past the fifth, we held a seven to six lead going into the bottom of the seventh. In my mind I knew that the baseball gods would not shine upon us that day. I could only hope that somehow, someway we would stumble into a win. Their best hitter tripled to right field. I tried to will it to land in the hole filled with tires but he actually hit it over the hole. He scored on a sharply hit ball that skipped through the infield in to right field. As the batter tried to stretch his hit into a double, Casey’s throw got by the five players who should have fielded it. It bounced over the third base foul line and rolled into out of play territory. The umpires deemed that the runner had made third and awarded him home and the game. I really don’t blame them. The umpires had absorbed a great deal of fan abuse and were ready to go home. As I left the field, everyone had turned back into Dr. Jekyll again. They were such gracious winners. One older gentleman came up to me as we left the field and apologized for the conduct of the fans. I started to say that it was okay but decided that it wasn’t. I simply thanked him for his concern.

Tamassee-Salem baseball survived the trip. I tried to build on the positives and soothe sore and bruised pride. I also tried to explain why I felt everything that went on at Lockhart was wrong and how we could not let the fans get under our skin nor would I allow us to stoop to that type of strategy. Getting into our heads was what the Lockhart supporters wanted to do, and by allowing them to distract us, had contributed to our loss. Nietzsche taught that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It must be true. We played every remaining game into the seventh inning and found ourselves ahead in the seventh inning of our final game of 2001. As we faced our opponent’s last batter I had a different feeling than the one I had in the Lockhart game. We were not going to have to try to stumble into a victory and find ourselves falling short. As we recorded the last out, I reacted to the victory but no one else did. As I jumped to my feet and pumped my hands over my head in jubilation my team looked at me as if I had lost my mind. It was their first victory in two seasons and the team was stunned into a silence reminiscent of funerals and libraries. Our kids had not won in so long that they did not know how to celebrate. It did not take long for them to figure it out. Players, parents and fans were soon chest bumping and high fiving. I am sure, had there been champagne; everyone would have been spraying it as if we had just won game seven of the World Series. I found it particularly satisfying to see the huge grins on the faces of Todd Oliver and Casey Wood. Both of them had played such prominent roles in the Lockhart game and the 2001 season as a whole. If either one of those smiles had been a power source, I am sure it would have lit up Oconee County. I was smiling pretty broadly myself as I thought, “If you could only win one game, the last one should be the one.”

WHAT IT WAS WAS FOOTBALL

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WHAT IT WAS WAS FOOTBALL
Earlier in the week with equal parts understanding and trepidation, I viewed the story of a Missouri school district disbanding its football program. Danger and fear of head and neck injuries and, with the addition of less expensive and less dangerous sports, reduced participation in football is inevitable. When I say less dangerous, I believe that in any sport there is a potential for injury but with collisions on every play, football is high risk. My apprehension is that this is the drip that will turn into a flood if we don’t work to make football safer and more fun to play. Fun may be more of the issue than safety. In a national poll, the highest percentage of former players listed no longer enjoying playing as their reason for giving up football.

As both a player and a coach, football was a part of my life for over thirty years. It’s still a part of my life as I have become a spectator; however I have found that it is not nearly as enjoyable because I do not know the kids who are participating. I am a little jealous of my friends who are still coaching…but not enough to brave the August sun, the long hours and what has turned into a yearlong season.

I never thought I would be talking about fun and football in the same sentence. Making football more enjoyable has come a long way with the new pass-happy offenses…that is unless you are a defensive coordinator. I think if I were still a defensive coordinator I would wear a paper bag over my head if I had to try to stop these “fun and gun” offenses.

There are just some parts of football that are not fun. Bumps and bruises aside, August heat and humidity are hard to endure. Offensive linemen don’t have fun…unless there is a “pancake” block I guess. I was an offensive lineman in high school and I can assure you I never walked out on the playground and suggested that we work on our blocking. “Hey! Stand there and let me run into you and then you can run into me.” During our Thursday before practice tag football games I witnessed that even “Big Eaters” like to play with a football.

Rule changes and new technology have actually made football safer but not totally. New diets and new year-round strength and conditioning programs have made it both safer and more dangerous. Force equals mass times acceleration. With the increase in size and speed, players are able to hit each other a lot harder. Want to lessen head injuries? Take the face mask off the helmet. Dental bills and nose jobs will increase but I bet you traumatic head injuries will decrease.

Football is harder to play than other team sports. Before you attack me, I did not say better or more important. To the person playing “tiddlywinks,” it is more important. Tiddlywink players, I support and applaud you. Hitting a baseball may be the hardest athletic technique to master as even a good hitter has a seventy percent failure rate. I salute pitchers for their skill. But that is not what I mean by harder. What I mean is, physical pain aside, a football team has more “moving parts” that have to be in sync. A baseball or softball game can be controlled by one person, the pitcher, if that pitcher has someone who can catch the pitch. In basketball, a game can be controlled by a point guard, a post player and three people willing to get out of the way. In soccer, within the team concept, there is a great deal of individualism and individual creativity. None of these sports require the precision that is necessary in football…These are sports that I have coached or coached and played so I have some experience to go with my opinion. Just so you other folks are not mad at me, I also believe that there is an artistic beauty to those other sports that you just don’t have in football. Football is just brutal, even when occasionally played with a little finesse.

I have never believed that any athletic event is a war, no matter what pro-athletes or, cough, cough, coaches say. I believe we use this description too often and it devalues what our military and law enforcement personnel go through. Football has a foxhole kind of mentality that you don’t get in other sports or, at least, the sports that I have coached.

Life lessons are learned when playing all sports; however, there is a uniqueness to lessons grasped in football. Just because of the sheer numbers in football, a very distinctive form of teamwork must be executed. Everyone has to learn a role, even second and third stringers. Outstanding football teams have good backups who understand their roles. Each player has to rely upon the guy next to him to do his job. The players absolutely must work together.

Football players must persist to achieve and to continue to work hard even when they are banged up or after a big loss or series of losses. It’s easy to come to practice after a win because you have an adrenaline high after the victory. I had one coach tell me that it was better than sex. Why? Because the high lasts all week. If you win a state championship, I guess the high lasts for a year. If this were a Viagra commercial we would need to seek medical help! What is grueling about the sport is having to get back up after a heartbreaking defeat or a whole series of them. I know it seems trite, but football is not about getting knocked down; it’s about getting back up.

I heard a young head coach speak this week. I felt for him. They are five games into the season and his team has scored just thirteen points…and given up over two hundred. That’s right. They have been outscored over forty to a little less than three. Talk about an exercise in futility! What impressed me first about him was his humor, even if it was a type of gallows humor. Secondly, he was optimistic that they were getting better… even if it was just picking up one first down.

I hope high school football doesn’t go the way of the dinosaurs or that we turn it into a flag football league. Had I had a son, I would have wanted him to play but would have supported him if he didn’t want to play. My daughter played futbol and was a tough knot. Had she wanted to play football, I would have supported her after I had tried to talk her out of it. I just believe it is worth the risk because of the life lessons that you learn and the friendships you cultivate. I hold this opinion because of the warm feelings that I have as I remember coaching and playing this awesome sport.

SMALL TOWN FUNERALS

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SMALL TOWN FUNERALS
I grew up in a small community, not even a town, went to a small town college and have taught at a couple of small town schools, one being Landrum. Like the home of my birth Landrum has grown some in the last twenty years but it still has small town looks, small town feel and most importantly small town ideals. This past Friday I sat inside of the First Baptist Church and contemplated what all of that meant. I was attending Brian Kuykendall’s “going home” memorial. Part revival, part musical, it was all love and a wonderful tribute to Brian, his family and his legacy.

While not a huge church, it is the biggest one on Main Street even if it is the only one on Main Street, an oddity in area that sports more churches than “you can shake a stick at.” It was bursting at the seams when I got there and was filled to standing room only by the time the service began. With the fire department in attendance I don’t think there were any worries about the fire marshal closing it down. For a moment I contemplated how a burglar might find this to be a beneficial day to be working with the number of townspeople and policemen attending. Fire trucks were parked outside while the Landrum firemen dressed in uniform served as pall bearers and the rain that fell only added to the sense of gloom. Even inside, what little talk could be heard seemed to be muted. All of that changed once the memorial began.

As one of the ministers talked about Brian’s competitiveness I succumbed to a bad habit, daydreaming. While I should have been concentrating on the minister it was too easy to drift back twenty years. On the football field in my mind I found myself standing on an opponent’s field wondering if it was a requirement for small town football for one of the goal posts to be crooked. When I mentioned this to head coach Jimmy Cox, he cracked, “The way we are scoring on offense it probably won’t be a problem.” Only Eighteen to twenty football players had welcome me to my first meeting with the team and I could not help but wonder about our size, numbers not weight and height. One of those players was Brian.

Brian was competitive, a good thing because he wasn’t the biggest kid in the world…or the most athletically gifted. I think that Brian tasted victory six times in the two years that I was there. For Brian it wasn’t about winning, although it hurt him to lose. Brian was truly all about being the best that he could be and I am not being trite or mocking when I say that. As the memorial continued it was apparent that he had passed philosophy on to his sons and many of the kids that he coached. It was a tenet that was repeated several times during the service Brian proves that being on a poor football team does not define you in life. Brian’s life would have been portrayed as an undefeated season as could many of the lives of kids who played the game. Brian truly had become the best he could be.

It was a ceremony dedicated to love. Not the love for him, which was ample, but the love that was apparent for his wife, his family and his community. Love begets love and it was clear that even for a small town, there were buckets of love and his memorial was a fitting tribute. Brian left behind a lasting legacy that will continue to live through his family, Tammy, Kaleb, Dalton and CJ. It is also a legacy that will continue through his church, the community and the youth athletic association.

As the funeral procession slowly moved toward Brian’s final resting place I was again struck by small town ideals. A police car lead the procession followed by fire trucks. Another police officer held and directed traffic at the main traffic light. You just don’t see that anymore anywhere other than small towns. “Would you rather be a big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond?” I think Brian answered that question. I know Landrum is happy Brian stayed in his home town even if his stay was much too short.

A STORY FOR BRIAN

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As the first decade of the new millennium drew to an end I found myself being forced into retirement due to our state’s TERI program and the economics in play during that particular slowdown. I was comfortable with this retirement especially when a new charter school opened and wanted me to continue my teaching and I once again became unretired. My coaching career was coming to an end but at least I would be able to teach without the distraction of practices, games, long bus rides and the cold that always began the baseball season and seemed to get colder as I got older. That was what I thought at least…about the cold and the fact that my coaching career was over. As my wife and I walked one morning late in the summer of 2009 I informed her that long time Landrum coach, Travis Henson, had accepted a collegiate position at North Greenville University. With typical Linda Gail insight her comment was, “You better not answer your phone because John Cann (Landrum’s athletic director) will be calling.” I didn’t listen and ended up as their interim coach for a year. It was a good year, not a great one, but it allowed me to reconnect with Brian Kuykendall.
Brian was a former football player and student from my first stint at Landrum back in the mid 1980’s. He was also a baseball player but during my first stint I had been banished to coaching track and I didn’t get to coach him in that sport. I did get to watch, and he was a player that was light on ability but heavy enough in grit and was a great competitor, a coach’s dream. Short and stocky with dark good looks, he really hadn’t changed it seemed when I met him and his son Kaleb at the first parent and team meeting. You are kidding right? Are you old enough to have a fourteen year old and does this make me a “grand coach” of some type? I guess there was a little gray in his hair and goatee but not much. Brian had taken his love for people and kids and had coached or officiated most of the kids that I was getting ready to coach. He was a true sport’s father except one with brains who cared about all of the kids, not just his own. That is not a statement about Landrum specifically just sports in general.
I visited with Brian a few days ago. It wasn’t a good visit and I dreaded it as I drove the twenty miles to the Hospice House in Landrum. Brian is dying from lung cancer and there is nothing I can do about it. He was unconscious from drugs and I just could not get him to wake up to go out and play catch with me. I was struck by how strong Brian looked and fear that his battle will be long and hard on his family. I would rather he go “gently into the night.” His battle with his illness has taken me back to other players who are no longer with me. It has been a year since Tim Bright died of the same terrible disease and I again am struck with the unfairness of life. Children and former players should outlive me not the other way around. I have hopes that the list will grow no longer and that I will live forever but fear that is not going to happen.
As I walked this morning I thought about Brian along with Tim Bright, Heath Benedict and Jeff Gully. I know there are others who have left us, all too soon, but for some reason it Brian and these three, who force their way into my thoughts. I stopped at the cross located on the lake across from Lookup Lodge and asked for answers. There were none forthcoming, just the sounds of water, birds and the young people that populated the area this beautiful Sunday morning. These were the sounds of life when I was thinking about death and the hereafter.
I don’t know what happens after death, I have my faith and I truly believe that death is just another door to step through and there is something more. I joked with a friend about the laws of physics and Conservation of Energy and the possibility of “mingling molecules” or maybe “flashing photons.” This Sunday morning my concept of heaven includes a freshly manicured baseball field with sharp white lines gleaming in bright sunlight. Brian, when you step through that door and smell the sweet smell of freshly cut grass, look for a big blond guy with an even bigger grin, an even bigger, goofy guy with his hat a little off to the side and red headed smart-alecky outfielder who is looking for his next laugh even though he is now laughing. Introduce yourself to Tim, Heath and Jeff and tell them to play a little catch. I’ll be along in a bit and we can get the game started.

THE WRESTLER

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This is a story that should have been included in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING…but wasn’t. WINNING… can be purchased at goo.gl/dO1hcX
“Oh, sweet blindness, a little magic, a little kindness
Oh, sweet blindness, all over me”
“Sweet Blindness”-The Fifth Dimension

He stood with arms raised in triumph, the sweat of his exertion dripping onto the wrestling mat that he stood upon while his mouth curled into a slight smile. He had just won the Upper State Wrestling Championship in his weight class and was in the process of receiving a standing ovation from everyone in the gym, regardless of school affiliation. Well maybe not everyone, I doubt the friends and family of his vanquished foe were standing but you never know. As I stood and applauded, his coach sprinted to the mat and hoisted him into the air and I suddenly had a clarifying thought and felt more than just a little bit sad. Never having considered myself to be an emotional old softy, I still could not stanch the flow of tears that rolled down my cheeks.
In the middle 1980’s Greenville High School in upper state South Carolina had a large and modern gymnasium. The gym, named for the legendary Red Raider football coach James “Slick” Moore, had a problem. There were too many entrances and “hidey holes” that provided opportunities for many forms of teenage activities – the kind which were frowned upon by educators. I’ll let the reader fill in those blanks. Because of its seating capacity and configuration, the “double-decker” gym was host to many events including the Upper State Wrestling Championship. With upper deck seating and enough room for three wrestling mats on the main floor, James “Slick” Moore Gymnasium was perfect to host such an event. As the athletic director in charge of this facility, I found it to be imperfect because I had to administrate the whole shebang from the weigh-ins at dawn’s early light to the final heavy weight tussle at dark thirty. Thankfully, the area wrestling coaches were responsible for setting up and taking down the mats along with the other equipment needed to accomplish this event. I did make myself available for the pre-match set-up and post-match take-down drinks and “lie telling” at a local watering hole.
I first noticed the young wrestler at weigh-ins. I don’t know his name so I am going to invent one because he deserves to be referred to as something else other than “the young wrestler.” I’ll call him Marcus. Marcus wrestled in one of the one-seventy-something pound middle weight classes, traditionally one of the tougher weights to compete in. He looked just like the rest of the “ripped,” zero percent body weight wrestlers…except for the sunglasses that he wore in the pre-dawn light. He acted like the rest of the teenagers around him…except that his arm rested on top of his coach’s arm as he made his way to the scales. He wore the sunglasses and steadied himself on his coach’s arm because he was blind. Not totally blind, as I found out from his coach later. He could see changes in light but that was all. Wow, he could see if it was daylight or dark. I wondered if he could become confused if it was cloudy. I noticed that when he took his sunglasses off, his irises were not the dark brown that I would have expected but were light brown with bright yellow flakes that gave Marcus the look of a wild canine predator. I also noticed that Marcus’s eyes seemed to wander around without settling on anything. I suppose that when you are blind there is nothing to settle on. As he held out his glasses to be taken by his coach, I saw that the side pieces of his glasses had built-in hearing aids. Blind and, at best, he was hearing impaired. Even with these impairments he had a ready smile that made his yellow-flaked eyes become as bright as sunbursts. I use the word impairment instead of disability because he was, at least on a wrestling mat, anything but disabled.
Marcus represented the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind. He was the only wrestler representing the small Spartanburg-based school. In fact, he was the first of its students with whom I had had any interaction and he was the first student from SCSDB whom I considered NOT to be disabled. I had a great uncle who was both deaf and mute. A “dummy” was the term used to describe Claude’s impairment but, as we have become more aware of what is socially acceptable, thankfully, that description is no longer used. Later when I coached track at Landrum we competed against SCSDB and “Land O’ Goshen,” I found them to be as normal as any other teenager is capable of being. While standing next to a group of SCSDB track members cheering on a hearing impaired team mate, one black youth exclaimed in his best ghettoese, “Man, look at that N$%%@r run!” The youngster next to him said, “Now you know I’m blind and can’t see s@#t and neither can you!” Both of them just cackled over their joke along with everyone standing around them.
I don’t remember how many qualifiers were competing that day but, because of Marcus’s weight class, I know that he had to wrestle the full complement of “winner advances-loser goes home” matches before reaching the Upper State Finals. I know this because he was in the middle weights where all of the wrestling studs reside. As he advanced, the number of fans pulling for him increased as the word got around that he was almost totally blind and nearly totally deaf. Well, there is that saying that “everyone loves a winner.” I should point out that being blind is not necessarily a hindrance in wrestling. No really, by rule, when wrestling a blind person, physical contact must be maintained throughout the match. For Marcus it was almost an unfair advantage. In the first of three possible rounds, wrestlers face each other on their feet and work for what is called a “take down.” Because Marcus was blind, the wrestlers faced each other but with the palms of their hands touching, one palm up and one palm down. Marcus had perfected the art of grabbing his competitor’s wrist and when he came up with your wrist, the match was, for all practical purposes, over. None of Marcus’s matches had gone past the first period; most had not made it even into the second minute of the three-minute first round.
His final match would be taxing with both wrestlers evenly matched in desire, ability, strength and conditioning. Much to the delight of his cheering fans, early in the third period, Marcus reversed and held on to a victory by just a point or two. Who were his cheering fans? That would be everyone in the gym except for the opposing wrestler’s parents and girlfriend and I am quite sure they wanted to applaud for Marcus themselves. Both wrestlers hugged each other out of respect and admiration. As Marcus had his hand raised over his head in victory, the gym again exploded into even more applause and cheering. I suddenly had a thought that would cause chills to run up my back and explode onto the back of my head. Causing tears to form in my eyes, my thought was that because of his impairment Marcus would never experience the rush of emotions created by the applause and cheering – the same emotions that I was feeling for him. I know his coach’s embrace clarified his victory, however, I hoped that he could feel the vibrations and could somehow translate them into what a seeing and hearing person might experience. I questioned what he really felt until he walked off the mat and walked into the stands where people just reached out to touch him. At that moment, I knew he knew.

Again, though, his eyes found nothing to focus on and I found it impossible not to draw comparisons to Stevie Wonder. Marcus’s head had the Stevie Wonder “bobble” but he also had that huge Stevie Wonder grin. I decided that while we processed stimuli differently, Marcus had processed it his way and was both proud and happy. He would go on to win the state in his weight class. I am sure that there was plenty of applause and cheering that day, also. I hope and pray that there was “a little magic, a little kindness, Oh, sweet blindness, all over” Marcus at that moment and throughout the rest of his days.

Life is Like a Golf Match

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My wife and I attended a funeral this past Sunday. It seems to be our most recent form of social activity. I guess we have reached that age. This service was for a man that I had never met and if the ministers who held this wonderful memorial are to be believed, and I do, Mike Hawkins’s father was someone I wish I had met. Past his ninety-first birthday, Frank Hawkins had gone to the same church his entire life, had been married to the same woman for longer than I have been alive and earned a Bronze Star during World War Two. He also took it upon himself to carve out a playing field across the road from his house so that his sons and their neighborhood friends could play baseball…Yes he coached the team to. Mr. Hawkins certainly “walked the Christian walk.”

Linda and I attended the service to show our support and love for Mike, who was Frank’s second son, my best friend and a former classmate of Linda’s. I first met Mike some forty years ago on opposite sides of some forgotten athletic field but remember that it did not go well. I would get to know him better when I coached with him for twelve years. That period of time went much better as long as you avoid speaking of won-loss record. As the two ministers, close friends of Mike’s father, told stories about Frank I could not help but think how different Mike and his father were…except they weren’t. Frank was gregarious, enjoyed people and was a fishing maniac according to his preacher friends while Mike would rather undergo a root canal than get caught in a group of people, can be moody and cannot be still long enough to sit in a boat for longer than five minutes…except to take his dad fishing. It became apparent however, as the stories went on, that they shared the same passions. Mr. Hawkins was passionate for his religion, his family and kids. So is Mike. There is no more loyal friend than Mike Hawkins and despite his gruffness, no one cares more deeply for kids.

There were many coaches, former players and parents and even a retired sports writer showing their respect for Mike and his father. It was good to catch up with old friends and I thought of another former player and coaching chum, Bucky Trotter. I had seen him just a few weeks ago at a reunion of football players and coaches at Mauldin High from 1980 and remembered a time when we stood on a tee box at a local golf course. It was our annual golf outing and for some of us it was the only time that we played golf during the course of a year…and we played accordingly. Bucky became a bit of a philosopher after hooking a shot into the woods when he said, “You know? Golf is a lot like life. We start out together going to school or working together just like on this tee and then we hit our shots and go off on our separate ways just like in life. Sometimes, if we are lucky and don’t hit our shot too deeply in the woods, we manage to find our way back to each other just like getting back to the green.” I was glad to have made it back to the green to see the old Mauldin staff and players two weeks ago and it was good to catch up with people I had not seen for a while at the funeral. I feel for Mike and his loss but I think Mr. Hawkins would have approved.

A LOVE STORY

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An excerpt from WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING, a book about forty years of teaching and coaching. It maybe purchased using the following link goo.gl/dO1hcX

“You can’t always get what you want
but if you try sometime
well you might find
you get what you need”
“You can’t always get what you want”-The Rolling Stones

As you travel west on Highway 11 between Highway 14 and the Georgia State line, you will certainly understand why this particular highway is called the Cherokee Scenic Highway. Small mountains, water features galore, forested areas, parks and unfortunately, many golf courses cover the landscape around what was once a Cherokee trading path. Traveling is usually slow due to pulp wood trucks, bass boats being towed to and from Lake Keowee, or “Sunday Drivers” sight seeing on a Wednesday. I am fortunate to have lived on Highway 11 for nearly thirty years. Even after all of this time, Linda Gail and I still like to explore around Highway 11, looking for pig trails that might lead us on an adventure. Sometimes you get what you ask for.

Late one Friday, in the spring of 2001, Linda Gail and I were enjoying the evening while driving west in her Mustang toward the setting sun. We had eaten at a local golf course called The Rock and had turned west toward the sun instead of east toward home. I felt this was somewhat symbolic as I had made the decision before the 2001 baseball season to retire from athletics and ride off into the sunset. As soon as the baseball season ended, I began to regret my decision. While Linda Gail and I rode west, top down with the wind in our face, we talked about our careers, shared stories about former players and friends and discussed what I was going to do with those free hours I had not had for twenty-eight years. I did not have a clue but knew I did not like the size of Linda Gail’s honey do list.

I have often joked that if you drive far enough on Highway 11 you will reach the end of the world. If you turn left at the end of the world, you will find yourself in Salem. It is less than one square mile of mostly … nothing. The city of Salem boasts a population of one hundred and thirty five people according to the 2010 Census. The area adjoining it, Tamassee, is an unincorporated area whose name in the Cherokee language means “Place of the Sunlight of God”. It was named for an old Cherokee village destroyed by Andrew Pickens in the late 1700’s. There are a few businesses, churches and homes clustered around Highway 130 and what is called Park Avenue. There is also a fire department to the east and area’s namesake Tamassee-Salem Middle and High School to the west. This is where we found ourselves on that Friday evening with the sun setting behind the hill that the school sat on. The symbolism had not gone un-noticed as I joked, “I know what I can do when I grow up. I’ll come be the athletic director at Tamassee-Salem. They don’t have football or soccer. How hard can it be?” I have since re-thought the silliness of that statement.

As I looked at a South Carolina sports website the next day, I found a classified advertisement for a baseball coach and social studies teacher at, you guessed it, Tamassee-Salem. Once I got over the tingle up and down my spine I began to feel a strong pull toward the setting sun. I am religious but not in a recognized way. Even though I was publically dunked into the Baptist Church where I still attend, I lean more toward the New Testament Evolutionary Church of Christ according to Don. I even throw in a little Buddhism to add seasoning and for heat would like to combine it with some of the pagan activities that I have read about. For some reason Linda Gail won’t let me.

I still could not deny the feeling that I was being called to Tamassee-Salem. Like a moth’s attraction to an open flame or a siren’s call, the tug was unmistakable and strong. I discussed my feelings with Linda Gail but did not come to any clear decision. Linda gave me her normal “Do what you want” advice. The following Monday I continued to battle the feeling that I was being pulled toward Tamassee-Salem and decided that during my planning period I would call and inquire about the position. The telephone call was … well, interesting. Mr. Bill Hines, Tamassee-Salem’s principal, could not figure out why I wanted to come to Tamassee-Salem after my successes at Riverside. After the third time of being asked “But why do you want to come HERE,” I responded, somewhat testily, “I don’t know that I do, that is what I am trying to find out.” In Bill’s defense, he thought that I had committed one of the two cardinal sins of teaching or coaching that will get you fired faster than your won-loss record; diddling where one should not diddle or spending money that was not yours to spend. When I took the job at Tamassee-Salem a lot of my coaching peers actually thought the same thing. They could not understand why I was walking away from a successful program for one that had not even attained mediocrity. I wasn’t sure either but I told Mr. Hines that I was still a teacher in good standing at Riverside and gave him permission to call to confirm it. The next day he called back and invited me to come for an interview.

As I walked away from my interview, none of the allure for Tamassee-Salem had been displaced. I liked everyone that I had met and felt that the administration had gone out of their way to impress me which was quite flattering. (I am not easy but I can be had.) I also knew that athletically it would be a challenge, but I felt that I probably needed a new challenge. As much as I felt that I had “come home,” I was still in a conflicted state. I had many close friends at Riverside and had served in Greenville County for twenty-five years, but my biggest issue was with my wife. Linda Gail and I had spent over fifteen years involved with the Warriors. She was the junior varsity girl’s basketball coach and the varsity girl’s tennis coach at Riverside. Our support of each other athletically was part of our relationship. I was actually present when Coach Golden asked her if she was interested in the coaching position. Louie was trying to hire a body just to field a position and had not realized what he was getting into. This is something he and I share … the not knowing what we were getting into, not the body. Linda Gail and I had been intertwined with athletics and each other our entire dating and married life. I debated with myself the decision to change schools. Our intertwinement included friends, parents, students and former players in addition to each other.

When I returned to Tamassee-Salem for my second interview, it turned out not to be an interview but an offer of employment. I had decided to take Linda Gail with me and while driving around the community, I found her to be somewhat reserved. Anyone who knows my wife would never use that description, but she was on this particular day, which made me very uncomfortable. She realized that our lives were getting ready to change, something that had not dawned on me but quickly would. When I returned to my truck with the news that I had been offered the position she broke into tears which I found were not tears of joy. Linda realized that a large part of our lives together had “been torn asunder” and the man responsible was me. We recovered, as many couples do, when their unions were torn apart by seductive outside forces. Luckily my seductive forces were another school and not … well, take your pick.

My relationship with Linda Gail is and has never been an ordinary relationship even from its inception. Linda Gail and I disagree on when we actually first met but since this is my story I will tell it my way. I first remember seeing my future bride on Halloween of 1984. She had been in an off and on again relationship with my roommate and for some reason we had not met until that night. (She disagrees but I know that had I met her I would have remembered.) When I dragged myself in after practice that evening I saw both of my roomies sitting with sly grins on their faces. As I sat down and asked what was going on, two attractive young ladies slowly stood up from behind the wet bar, one had an inflatable pumpkin on her head, the other with a witch hat on. Linda Gail was the sultry, dark-haired beauty with the pumpkin on her head; Jeanie Reed was the pretty blond witch. They both made a positive impression.
I realize many of you might be thinking that since she was my roommate’s girlfriend that I might have gone behind his back and shot him out of his saddle. No, when he was shot out of his saddle it was a self inflicted wound. Linda Gail and I did not begin dating until after she and Jim had broken up and he had moved to another part of the state. Linda Gail had tried to “fix me up” with all of her friends, even the pretty witch Jeanie, and I think she simply had sympathy on me after she had run out of options. I am not saying that there had not been sparks early in our relationship, I had had plenty. Who would not have sparks for a short, pretty and well put together brunette with big ole … hazel eyes that tend to turn green with anger or mischief and a personality that reminded me of a humming bird on amphetamines? Over the next eight months or so, we became great friends, but that was all. Even after we could have begun dating, she had to make the first overtures and ended up asking me out … twice. Sometimes I am really slow to catch on. Once I caught on ….

The following Halloween found us not quite dating exclusively but close. This particular All Hallows Eve was on a Thursday and Greenville was playing Southside in a JV game at Greenville. I had to be at the game, while Linda Gail and Jeanie were going out to a costume party without me. Those two events should have been exclusive of each other but this particular night they became inclusive. It was raining and I had invited several of the booster club members to join us in the press box to stay dry. Booster club members being entertained in the press box was not an ordinary occurrence and had never happened before until this night. As the game went on, someone knocked on the door. My booster club president opened the door and found two pretty ladies opening their trench coats and exposing their somewhat revealing Halloween costumes. One was a vampire mistress of the night in a short black mini dress with lots of zippers and chains, the other a French maid complete with fishnet stockings, crinolines and a whole lot of cleavage showing … a lot of cleavage showing. I tried not to fall out of the press box window while everyone else was speechless. Utter and complete silence ruled until our booster club president paid them a left handed compliment and confessed that “If I had known it was like this up here I would have come up a lot sooner.”

Once Linda Gail and I decided to jump the broom I felt that I needed to cloister her away in order to keep her subtle way of expressing herself from getting me into trouble. She knows how to turn a word but sometimes lets emotion rule the day, which sometimes makes me rue the day. I did not want to turn her loose on some of my unsuspecting critics and decided to put her on the press box with my video guy. Ever the critic, even then she found a way to get her points across to me. Normally we graded our own video on Sundays before watching our opponent’s film and putting together a game plan. We rarely watched video with the audio on but for some reason this particular morning we did. I really was not paying attention to what was being said until Ray Riley, one of my assistants, asked if I had heard what had just been said on the audio. We reran the video and I heard the shrill and acidic voice of my beloved screeching like one of Macbeth’s witches: “Come on coach, why don’t you try running your other play.” Linda Gail was my greatest advocate but was also my greatest critic. For the past thirty years Linda has critiqued my every athletic decision which is the only type of decision she has ever let me make.

While she still coaches me, Linda Gail no longer coaches on her own court. I truly miss watching her coach basketball. I have never been a big fan of basketball because I was never very good at it and never coached it. Well there was that junior varsity girl’s team but that was Linda teaching me the day before I taught them. I once had a friend and fellow coach that described girl’s basketball in this manner: “There are three activities that should take place in private: “Prayer, couples involved in amorous activities and girl’s basketball.” While at one time I probably agreed with him, I had to take Linda Gail’s teams off of the list. Not because her teams were good, and they were always better than they should have been, but rather because of the way that she coached. Perpetually in motion, she coached everyone on her team for the entire game from start to finish, along with anyone else who could be reached by her voice; in other words, everyone in the gym. She also really looked good doing it. When Linda dressed for a game she wanted everyone to know that girl’s basketball coaches and players could be feminine. She was quite successful imparting this information. The worst rule ever enacted was restricting a coach to a coaching box. Why? It stopped me from getting to watch my wife, “dressed to the nines,” run up and down the out of bounds line yelling at someone other than me. The new rule also got her a technical foul or two because she just doesn’t like to be told what she can or cannot do.

My all time favorite memory of her and her teams involved one of her tennis teams. They were playing Clinton for the right to go to Columbia and face Myrtle Beach for the state championship. Because of previous weather conditions, the match had been postponed and both teams had to be packed and ready to go to Columbia immediately after the match. Riverside was supposed to win but sometimes tennis gods, like baseball gods, enjoy upsetting the ball cart. We lost. What do you do with a van full of girls, loaded with bags for a road trip? You invite them for a sleep over at your home. That is just what Linda Gail did. One guy in a farm house with seven teen age girls and a teen age girl want to be. Oh joy! It was a blast. We dined on pizza that evening, my breakfast that next morning and hiked all over the property that morning and afternoon. They even named our one legged and one eyed rooster, Boomer. It was a great way to get over a season ending loss.

Linda Gail and I have now been involved for nearly thirty years and I can still pick out her voice anywhere on an athletic field. The parents that help me at Northwest are in awe. “She coaches our kids, their kids, their coach and us,” one of my assistants exclaimed with a smile on his face. I find it comforting that she is still around to criticize my every decision as it relates to baseball. She even lets me make a few important non-baseball related decisions like, say, should I take out the garbage or should I walk down to get the mail. You know the really important stuff. The simple stuff, she takes care of, and that is just the way I like it.

And what about my second love? If I had a choice and could go back to any point in my career I would choose to go back to Tamassee-Salem. I felt at home and appreciated, maybe even loved there. The area hasn’t really changed and is still surrounded by great expanses of mostly nothing. Rumors are that she will close as a high school just as soon as new Walhalla High School is completed. My logical self probably agrees that it should. Greater choices of courses and services can be offered to the students now served by Tamassee-Salem. My illogical and emotional self disagrees with my logical self. Athletically most of the kids that play for Tamassee-Salem could not play anywhere else and the students would not get the one-on-one assistance available to them now. I guess that is no reason to keep a school open, but I did say it was my illogical self thinking. Unlike Odysseus, I am just glad I did not resist either of these siren calls.