Coaching

GAME, SET, MATCH!

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I don’t much like birthdays. I more or less celebrate mine as another year avoiding the alternative. “One more trip around the Sun!” It seems to be too hard to get people together to celebrate and then there is the memory of a heart attack on the birthday I survived in 2006. This is the first birthday after my “complete” retirement. Age does not look good on me! Even when you look up historical events occurring on April 9, you find out it is pretty dismal. Lee surrenders to Grant, the Battle of This, the Battle of That, Babe Ruth is rushed to the hospital…I wonder if it was too many hot dogs or too much beer?

This birthday was a little different. I got a letter on April 6th three days before my birthday. It was addressed to both Linda Gail and myself with a note on the back instructing us not to open it until April 8th. Really? That is almost like waving a red flag in front of a bull. I consider Linda Gail to be the stalwart person in our relationship when it comes to following instructions like “DO NOT OPEN UNTIL….” But out of her beautiful mouth came the question, “Are we really going to wait until April the eighth?” We did with much difficulty. I knew it wasn’t birthday wishes to me or someone was confused about my exact birthdate. It turned out to be just that…birthday wishes…just not mine. It was still one of the nicest birthday presents I could get.

The return address included only a last name, Bryson, from Charleston. Who do we know from Charleston named Bryson? Mandi Copeland now named Bryson! Mandi was turning forty on April 8th and had taken the time to write and thank everyone who had had a positive effect or influence on her life. Despite my disbelief of a forty-year-old Mandi, I was honored to have been included and her recognition of my contribution made both my day and the next, the tenth anniversary of my heart attack and sixty-sixth anniversary of my birth. It was a beautiful tribute, not only to us but also to her.

Mandi Copeland was one of my wife’s tennis players and a student trainer who graduated from Riverside in the mid-nineties. Mandi was MORE than just a player and a trainer. She had all of the outward signs of a happy-go-lucky extrovert, which she was, but her huge smile covered a competitive streak “river deep and mountain high.” She was a bull “in a china shop” in the way she approached tennis, playing in a manner more in tune with one of my defensive linemen than the “Quiet Please” tennis crowd. With her powerful serve and overhand it was “ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK” and if that didn’t work she would revert to “ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK” AGAIN!

As a student and player, Mandi’s career at RHS was very successful. The tennis team went to the high school version of the “Final Four” all four of her years and played for a State Championship. They should have played for another one but sometimes the “little gods” controlling sporting events throw monkey wrenches into the gears and the team was upset by a Clinton team they had defeated handily just weeks before. The weather “gods” had also gotten involved and the semis had to be postponed requiring both teams to be prepared to travel to Columbia as soon as the match was completed in order to play the finals the next day.

What do you do with a packed van filled with weepy young tennis players? What else, you bring them to “Casa de Miller” for a weekend of “wound licking” courtesy of Coach Porter-Miller and her loyal “Indian companion” Tonto, I mean Coach Miller. I knew something was up just by the way Coach Porter-Miller approached me. How could I say no? No one could ask for a better coach’s wife and I was bound and determined to be a good coach’s husband.

An evening filled with games, gossip and pizza followed by sleeping pallets on the floor, if we slept at all. The next morning a true country breakfast that might have included Hardee’s biscuits was served before a morning spent hiking up and sliding down the “gently rolling” ninety acres of land around our house. I don’t know who had more fun but I am sure the wounds had been healed by the time they all departed. I also don’t know who the brains of the team were but I know Mandi was the heart and the foundation. By Linda’s own description she was the “rock upon which the team was built.” When Mandi graduated and went off to Florida State it was almost like losing a family member. You may be gone but you certainly are not forgotten.

Mandi would become the first person I NEVER wanted in my dugout…a female. I had withstood request to bring on “batgirls.” Once I had even taken “applications” for batgirls but at the last moment chickened out. Girls in the dugout equal major distractions for teen aged boys. I know I used to be one. With the changing landscape of athletics, I did not have a choice when it came to trainers. Trainers and student trainers WOULD have access to your teams regardless of their gender. It turned out that it was a good thing, something I got used to quite quickly and later wondered what the big deal was about. Mandi made it possible because of her maturity and her professional attitude. It did take some getting used to…for the head coach not the team. I also had to mind my tongue, something I needed to do but only had moderate success in doing. A nickel for every time I turned my head, whispered an “expletive deleted” and followed it with a “Sorry about that Mandi.” Usually she would say, “It’s okay Coach, I’ve heard it before.” Yep, probably about a minute ago.

Mandi was one of the special ones, one of many special ones who would define what Linda and I did for most of our thirty-year marriage. For me it would take retirement to realize that I had coached kids and not just a sport. Linda Gail realized it much sooner. Not having kids around due to our retirement has been challenging…until you get a letter from “a Mandi.” Mandi who has followed us into athletics herself, not that Linda Gail and I take credit for it. We are just happy we didn’t screw up and kill her desire.

The Mandis of our life made teaching and coaching worth the long hours for not enough pay. It is usually many years before a former teacher or coach finds out what effect we had on someone’s life and in some cases it is too late when we find it out. Thanks for letting us know before it was too late. I would say it arrived at exactly the right time.
We both love you.
Coach Miller and Coach Porter-M.

For more FEEL GOOD non-fiction by Don Miller go to http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

MEMORIALS

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Memorial: something, especially a structure, established to remind people of a person or event.

I was approached over a year ago about tonight’s memorial and until a week ago I was able to keep all my memories locked safely away in my secret little lock box in a corner of my brain. Until a week ago…and its Michael Douty’s fault. Looking for a hat, the hat we wore in his memory the year after his death fell out of the armoire and into my hands. Upon seeing the number thirteen on the back there was an immediate flood of memories, most of which made me smile.
In my first attempt at writing badly, “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…,” my aim was to write a collection of humorous stories related to my forty years of teaching and coaching. It was Michael Douty’s fault that my purpose changed with the first story I actually sat down and wrote…his story. Michael’s antics were humorous and my intent was to begin the book with his story.

Unfortunately, his death wasn’t very humorous. No matter how I rewrote the story, it always ended badly, as did the endings to stories involving Tim Wilder, Heath Benedict, Tim Bright and Jeff Gully. While writing Michael’s story I found out Tim Bright was battling Stage IV colon cancer and realized my book was not beginning well. I ended up writing about them all, more about their lives than their deaths and the sweet memories they left for me. Later, after I had published the book, I was forced to write another story with a bad ending when Brian Kuykendall left me. All were former players and Brian gets the double whammy of being a former player and the father of a former player.

Jeff and Tim are joining Michael tonight. Plaques are going to be dedicated and theirs will join Douty’s plaque behind the backstop on the field they played on not so many years ago. I believe in ghosts and wonder if their spirits will visit our old field of dreams…I know they still visit me, especially on dark, moonless nights. For the last week, nightly they have also invaded my dreams.

I have an unshakable belief there is something more than death, that life simply just does not end. During a depressing early morning walk I came to a reality of sorts and found a bit of peace and comfort in a strange, cold and unlikely place…science. I came to this truth while standing in front of a cross. There is a scientific law that states “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Energy can only be changed.” I have taught Conservation of Energy thousands of times, but this cool morning it became more of an anodyne than just a cold scientific law. Call it heaven, Nirvana, a “wheel inside a wheel” or crossing the River Styx, their energy does not die.

I do tend to think of them on dark and clear nights when the stars seem close enough to touch. I described Tim’s light as the “brightest star” in the sky, Jeff as a photon flying in and out of our lives at light speed. Douty? I never described you. You would have to be a comet streaking through the sky, showing his tail in the reflected sunlight. There may be a hidden meaning behind that description and I am sure I just heard you laugh in the gusting wind. Gather them all together

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: LOUIE GOLDEN

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I have been fortunate to have had great relationships with all but just a few of my administrators and athletic directors. Most of my administrators were great people. Louie Golden was one of the great ones but I had to mature and develop some wisdom to see it. When some of these stories were taking place it did not seem so. It was never smooth sailing and some people might have thought Louie’s first name was either “f@#$%^&” or “g#$%^&n” as in that “F@#$%^& Golden!” You might have thought I had the same first name.

For those who do not know who Louie Golden is, he began his career as a head basketball coach at Beck High School during the days of full and token segregation. In 1970 at mid-year, full desegregation was implemented during semester break and Louie lost a basketball team so good its players were purposely split among four area high schools. All four schools made the state playoffs and a previously mediocre Wade Hampton team went on to play for the State Championship. Louie went on to win state championships at both Riverside and Southside High Schools. If you count his days at Beck, Louie retired with over seven hundred victories, five state championships, and another four upper-state championships. In 1993 he was inducted into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame. As an athletic director, Louie started the program at Riverside from scratch and retired with nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the athletic account. He was a success by any standard of measurement.

Because I had been in the area for about fifteen years, I was familiar with Louie. I had also heard many stories about his obsession with saving money, his eating habits and the accusations of recruitment. Money and eating I can attest to but will not go into the recruitment of players because I don’t know for sure anything illegal took place. Despite all of the stories that I had heard about “Big Boy”, nothing in my life or any other life prepared me for him. Three or four inches taller and a good and conservative seventy pounds heavier, he reminded me of a big brown jovial bear. When you talked to Louie you got the idea he wasn’t the brightest light on the tree. It was an act. Louie cultivated his sometimes laughable persona the same way John Wayne cultivated his trademark walk. Louie’s attitude about spending money or the lack thereof, grew as a result of his childhood. Louie had grown up in St. Mathews, outside of Orangeburg, and like most black youths from the area and the time period, he grew up poor. Growing up poor would cause an economic philosophy to develop that could be said to be miserly or downright frugal. His wife Betty will swear it wasn’t just about spending school money.

When he became athletic director at Riverside, Louie was given an athletic budget of zero “monies”. No equipment, no uniforms and no start-up money. Louie had to go into debt up to his eyeballs and as he told me later felt he had been put there as a “token” who was expected to fail. The “Greenville County Way” was to pay coaches stipends and to put down fertilizer on fields and not much else. At Riverside, topsoil was bulldozed off of what would become fields, fences and a press box put up, stands erected and that was it. You could not play a football game without a whole lot of equipment. Somehow Louie was able to get it. Louie begged, borrowed and went into debt but somehow kept his head above water. There was an unconfirmed story that he gave the golf team a dozen balls that were labeled “Fished from the Finest Lakes in South Carolina.” I would say Louie fooled the powers that were and became the success they were not expecting.

Because of Louie’s childhood and Riverside’s indebtedness, to say Louie squeezed a penny is like saying a two hundred and seventy-pound hungry anaconda is giving you a little hug. You never got anything from Louie without a battle. The process seemed like begging and forcing you to beg for money was Louie’s way of finding out how much you wanted something. It was tiresome and more than just a little demeaning. I have this mental picture of Oliver asking “More Please.” I don’t know how many times I heard “Miller you likes to spend too many monies.” That is the way Louie said it. “Monies” with a face all scrunched up like those gross little babies in a bottle. Some people quit asking, some people went to raising funds to support their own programs, some people seethed in anger, while others openly battled him. As far as Louie was concerned the first three actions were great. They did not cost him anything. If you opted for battle he was going to make you give up a pound of flesh.

As a basketball coach he was extraordinary. He could teach the game in simple, uncomplicated terms, was a great game manager and motivator. Louie also understood people and knew which buttons to push. The late Steve Kahler told a story about Louie cutting his C team. Kahler had so many kids trying out he needed help. Louie came in and brought the kids trying out together. He asked who the best seventh grader was. Fingers pointed at one of the kids. Then he asked the eighth and ninth graders who could beat him one on one. Hands went up. Louie turned to those who hadn’t raised their hands and said: “You’re cut!” That took about thirty seconds and took care of too many kids to work with. Louie did not get one phone call from a disgruntled parent.

After a bad scrimmage, instead of the normal film breakdown, Louie loaded his team on a van and told them they were going to get fitted for shoes. He drove them toward Duncan lecturing them about running the flex offense, playing with hustle on defense and not working hard enough to be in shape. Five miles out on a rural highway between Greer and Duncan, Louie pulled the van over, ordered them all ot of the van. He told them they better be back for the official start of practice and anyone who didn’t was cut. All of them got back and they went on to win another state championship for Louie and Riverside High School. I do not think he could get away that in today’s legal climate.
Humor aside, you have to give Louie credit for what he accomplished. He took kids at a predominantly white, economically entitled school and was successful. He then went to predominantly black, economically depressed school and was successful. Louie even took a girls’ team that had not won in over a decade and took them to the playoffs. Why? Obviously he knew basketball. Most importantly, he coached kids and never put the game ahead of them, which is a testament to his character.

This is an excerpt from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing” which can be purchased at the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

IT AIN’T BRAGGIN’…IF YOU’RE DABBIN’

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I am old school…although I “fully” admit to be having embraced my “hippy” gene in my old age. Despite the discovery of this hippy gene, I am sure my former players and coaching chums will be somewhat surprised to read the view I am going to express. “Act like you’ve been there before” was a mantra I used or have heard used a thousand times that had been expressed by the immortal Bear Bryant. If you are in athletics you understand, “Act like you’ve been there before,” is an old school statement about celebrating…a score, or now, even a first down. Old school was all about anything other than “self-expression.” “There is no ‘ME’ in TEAM!” Whether it is the “Ickey Shuffle,” “Lambeau Leap” or “dabbin’,” I still would like to see them score and just hand the ball to the official but we are in a “hey look at me world,” in a game that should be about having fun. What’s so bad about that?

Cam Newton has re-defined the definition of “having fun” …and the position of quarterback along with the word “polarizing.” Loved by Panther fans and hated by everyone else, I would predict that he could care less about those who use detractions like, “showboat,” “braggart,” and “classless,” which are some of the mild ones I have seen. In fact, by his own admission, he uses the detractors as motivation. With the frame and strength of a linebacker, a strong arm and better than average “pro” speed, he is the “freak of nature personified” and probably does not need any more motivation to be successful. With good looks and a “million dollar” smile, I do admit to a bit of a man crush.

Do I wish Cam would just hand the ball to the official when he scores? Once I did, but seeing the faces of the youngsters who have received his game ball “gifts”, I have to agree with his particular brand of “having fun” even when he goes into his Superman pose. I once described a very good high school baseball player as having a “little league” mentality. This description was not a putdown. I was remarking about his ability to “have fun” in the same way as a “wide-eyed” little leaguer despite the pressure to receive a college scholarship or becoming a draft pick. He received both and had a career in the major leagues, both as a player and as a coach. I see Cam the same way, as in playing as a youth league player. There seems to be a “child-like” wonderment along with the “million dollar” smile. Yeah, he makes a boat load of money playing a child’s game but I would bet “his” money that money is not his primary motivation.

I try to live by, “Judge not, lest ye be judged,” or at least keep my mouth shut and only “sin” in my mind. With many of our sports idols and “role models” I find myself asking, “What were you thinking” when it comes to some of their “off of the field” activities. As Johnny Manziel is finding out, Social Media is not your friend when you, yourself, are your own worst enemy. When one Google’s Cam Newton, there is very little “smut” to dig up. No arrests, no drugs, no spousal or girlfriend abuse. Yeah Cam had the wreck with many assuming incorrectly it was drug or alcohol related, and there is an “out of wedlock” child that he recognizes and takes responsibility for despite the lack of wedding band on his hand. He brought some baggage with him from Auburn, but was it his fault or the fault of an overly involved father or the climate that is college football? Not as tame as Tim Tebow but a far cry from Johnny Manziel. More importantly is his foundation for disadvantaged kids and his many activities giving back to the Charlotte and Atlanta communities. Not only does he provide money but he also invests his time. Gee, I hope he is a good guy…did I forget the “Santa Cam’s Surprise Sleigh?”

Professional athletes have the opportunity to do much good and it is heartwarming for a retired teacher and coach to see a young man who GETS IT and DOES IT. Johnny maybe you should go talk to Cam about what you might do with your time. Is Cam perfect? No way! Most twenty-six-year-old men will have skeletons in their closet that, in twenty or thirty years from now, they will wish weren’t there. I am sure Cam will be no different…than I was.

Viewing this year’s Super Bowl will be interesting and a win-win for me regardless of the outcome. I will pull for the local Panthers and their brash young quarterback but can’t help but pull for “old school” Peyton Manning and hope he gets to ride off into the sunset with a second ring. I will be disappointed whichever team comes up short and I guess I will be pulling for both offenses.

When I watch Cam Newton “having fun” I think of a brash pitcher from the 1930’s who was once quoted to have said, “It ain’t braggin’ if you can do it.” Dizzy Dean had predicted that he and his brother would combine to win forty-five games in 1934. He was wrong…they won forty-nine. Win or lose on Super Bowl Sunday, Cam ain’t braggin’…but I guess we will have to wait and see how the game plays out to see if he is dabbin’.

Don Miller has written and self-published three books that may be purchased through or downloaded on any device with a Kindle app.

Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING by Don Miller #1.99 on #Kindle goo.gl/DiO1hcX

“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu

“Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

LIBERATION

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I read that the Buffalo Bills have hired a new assistant coach. Ordinarily news like this would not find its way out of the city of Buffalo but today it is nationally news worthy. And why would that be? Their new, full-time, specialty teams, quality control coach is a female and the first of her kind. Kathryn Smith is the first full-time NFL assistant coach. This comes on the heels of Jill Welter’s internship as she served as an Arizona Cardinal linebacker coach during the summer. Back in April of 2015, Sarah Thomas became the first female NFL official. I guess these would be major steps in women’s rights. It doesn’t seem that long ago women newscasters were arguing with the league for access to the side lines and, GASP, the locker room. My guess is, once the furor and the abusive and stereotypical comments die down, they will be successful in this bastion of testosterone. I do find it interesting many men still believe that “A woman’s place….”

I have been involved with many firsts when relates to Women’s Rights. I taught for the first female principal in Greenville County, South Carolina, coached the first female to be allowed to play high school soccer and the first coed to play football at the varsity level. I was looking for none of these firsts and had the media not made an issue of it I would not have known. Title IX now that’s another story.

I wrote the story “Liberation” for the book FLOPPY PARTS and with the news of the day decided to dust it off. I hope you enjoy.

LIBERATION
Even though Charlotte, NC was close by, we were sheltered from the rapidly changing outside world. It was a long twenty miles to the Queen City on a two-lane blacktop and, by the way we grew up, possibly a decade in time removed. We had gone through the duck and cover drills that assured us that any textbook would protect us from a nuclear attack provided we took all sharp objects from our pockets. We were raised to be stoic and to be seen and not heard. In some ways we were raised to be “un-included.” Words like duty, reverence and respect were a part of our vocabularies. We still believed in the “American Exceptionalism” of the post-World War Two United States despite the warts we tended to ignore. We were decidedly Republican and my grandmother openly worried more about having a Roman Catholic in the White House than a democrat.

Still, being typically male, I was more aware of my floppy parts than world affairs, and, beginning in the late Sixties, they both got tied in knots.
Even though any available female was fair game and a target for our raging hormones, we had been taught to respect women. It was okay to pursue, but you didn’t lay a hand on a woman. You gave up your seat to women and you opened doors for women. As males, we did this not because we viewed women as weaker but as a sign of respect, the same way we were taught to say “Yes, Ma’am” or “No, Ma’am.” Most importantly No Meant No and not maybe. It was easier in those waning days of the Sixties because the girls had been taught the same way… and they didn’t have The Pill. I admit I may be looking through “rose-colored” glasses because I had been surrounded by such STRONG female role models. I believe with all my heart that women who grew up in rural settings during the depression and World War Two were taught to be stronger than their urban counter parts. I remember asking my grandmother to describe the changes she experienced during the Great Depression. She laughed and said, “We were farming on the lien and it was so hard already we never noticed.” That would be that she was out in the fields with my grandfather doing hard “man’s work.”

Regardless of my beliefs, all of them began to change as I welcomed the new decade and my address changed to Newberry. There were many movements spawned by the period. Native American Rights, Gay Rights and environmentalism were a few that joined Civil Rights during the “Age of Love”. Also, there was my favorite – Women’s Rights. There was one positive about the Women’s Liberation Movement – bra burning. Whether they were wearing a bra or not, women deserved to have the same rights as men despite the chauvinist argument “I don’t know why they want to climb down off of their pedestals?” After watching MAD MEN I wonder how high that pedestal actually was and who really had the power. I am sure this portrayal was “exactly” the way it was in the Sixties.
Liberation was a battle ground where if you picked sides you were either labeled a eunuch, if you agreed with the cause, or a chauvinist pig if you didn’t. Most of the Newberry coeds were southern gals (Is my chauvinism showing?) and had grown up under the same Biblical tenants as mine. The “times they were ah changing” and it wasn’t unusual to hear discussions about “Who should pay for the cost of birth control?” or “Who should make the decision about getting an abortion?” Fifty years later I still avoid expressing opinions on those questions because to do so would be to spoil for a fight.

Women’s Lib finally tied me in knots in the early Seventies. I remember walking up to the campus library door and seeing the reflection of a coed approaching me from behind in the door’s polished glass. Her reflection was dressed in bell bottoms and a pea coat, fashion staples of the period for those individuals who took political positions somewhere left of center. I also had time to notice her really short dark hair and the narrow, hawkish shape of her face. Nevertheless, I paused and opened the door for her. Smiling, I nodded my head and then got my ears pinned back. With a face that truly had turned hawkish she spat, “What are you asking me to do? Inviting me into to your male-dominated world? Baby Dicked Chauvinist Pig!” If you are waiting for my snappy comeback, hell may freeze over first. I still don’t have one. I should add, she still managed to enter the library ahead of me through the still-opened door but then so did the next fifteen people as I stood with jaw “slack and agape.” Baby dicked? Where did that come from?

Despite wearing khakis, oxford cloth and penny loafers during most of my adult life, I find myself embracing my “Old Hippy” side with flip flops, blue jeans and tee shirts to accommodate my move to the center left of politics as I have retired. Hawaiian shirts are a far cry from bells and pea coats but I wear them proudly. I believe in equality above all else. Equal rights, whether racial, gender, sexual, religious or economic, should be our goal as a country or as a people of that country. Women should have the same opportunities to succeed or to fail as men and it should be for the same pay. I was again sheltered when I chose teaching as my vocation. Teaching opportunities and pay were always equal and, as far as pay was concerned…Sorry, wrong movement. Now, I don’t know about upward mobility into administration but I do know that if I were ranking principals, women would take the top two positions as the best of the many I have had. The best one asked me during my interview in 1974 if I would have a problem working for a woman. She kind of leaned in as if she were going to tell me a dirty joke when she asked me. I thought, to myself, “I want this job so badly I would work for an orangutan.” To her I simply answered, “No problems whatsoever, I love women. My mother was a woman.”

I think there might have been a price for the equality so deserved by women. I read more about the rise of attacks against women or spousal abuse and see that doors are not opened and seats not given up nearly as often as they used to be even here in this hotbed of Southern chivalry. I guess I should add despite a little hawk-faced witch from 1970. Could that be the price that women pay? Maybe they did knock themselves off of their pedestal.

During the late Seventies, athletics were equalized due to Title IX legislation…except it wasn’t, at least in the school district in which I toiled. Rather than add resources to girl’s athletics, resources were taken away from men’s athletics which left a bitter taste in most male coaches’ mouths. I remember being told that, as a baseball coach, half of any money raised by my baseball team could be spent by the softball team whether they participated in the fund raiser or not. Luckily I had great relationships with my softball coaches and this never happened. Everyone didn’t have those great relationships that I fostered with malice and forethought.

While sitting quietly in a graduate course that included a study of the distribution of monies for athletics, a young female coach commented that it did not matter. “God Football” gets it all and until they fire all of the football coaches, girls would get nothing. At a break I could not help myself and strolled over to advise her that, while her feelings might be warranted, expressing them in an open forum might not be the best idea, especially if she were looking for a job. I also pointed out that football paid the bills and probably was what allowed her to have a job. She said something about having to “audition instead of interview” and that she was not “giving up the cause” just to get a job and that “maybe I should wait until my advice was asked for.” Her bell bottoms and pea coat were showing and no good deed goes unpunished. Several months later as we were looking for a girls’ softball coach, I received a call from my principal informing me that he was sending a prospective coach to be interviewed. Yeah, it was her and the look on her face was priceless. No, she didn’t get the job. Instead, we hired a softball coach who was also an offensive line coach. To her credit, she didn’t back down either, but then I am sure she knew she was doomed from the start. Does this make me a chauvinist? I don’t think so… but I do admit to being a realist.

If you enjoyed this story you may download it and other “STUPID MAN TRICKS” in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu

PERSPECTIVE

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Facing my first baseball season after retirement I began thinking about players I had coached and coached against. This story from “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” is about the best player, in my opinion, I ever coached against and a very special baseball team.

“Two, three, the count with nobody on
He hit a high fly into the stand
Rounding third he was headed for home
He was a brown eyed handsome man.
That won the game; he was a brown eyed handsome man”
“Brown-eyed Handsome Man”-Chuck Berry

The 1992 Riverside baseball team began the season hotter than any team I have ever coached and finished the regular season ranked second in the state just behind Belton Honea-Path. With playoff brackets already drawn, everyone circled the second game of the upper state series. Riverside would host Belton in the second round winner’s bracket game if the baseball gods saw fit. Unfortunately, sometimes the baseball gods get a kick out of not allowing things to happen as they are supposed to. In a game we could not have played any better, we lost to eventual state champion Lugoff-Elgin, one to nothing in extra innings. Riverside still got to host Belton but it was in the loser’s bracket. Belton had also gone down to defeat in its respective first round game. I could hear the giggles from above.
Belton was a perennial upper state power we had faced in the playoffs my first year at Riverside. I was almost tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail when I opted to put their best hitter on with the bases loaded, even though it walked in a run. I did this rather than risking a grand slam homerun with the score six to two in our favor in the seventh inning. Six to three sounded a lot better than all tied at six. As I retreated to the safety of our dugout I was serenaded with a chorus of boos, accusations of cowardice and a couple of descriptive terms or phrases questioning my canine parenthood or when exactly I might have been conceived as compared to my parents’ wedding date. The hitter I had walked, Chad Roper, might have been the best high school hitter I had ever seen and in 1990 was just a sophomore. We escaped with a victory although BHP got their revenge later in the playoffs. Roper had the game winning triple in that revenge game and pitched BHP to a two to one victory.
As a senior, Chad stood about six foot one, weighed two hundred pounds and in addition to his ability to hit, had sprinter’s speed. On the mound Chad was also a pro prospect. He truly was the total package. Unfortunately, for him, a freak preseason horse riding injury had limited his innings on the mound. Prior to this 1992 edition of what became a mutually respected, if somewhat one sided rivalry, I had made the decision we were not going to allow Chad to beat us with his bat. We were not going to give him an opportunity to hit anything good. What should have been sound logic turned out not to matter at all. He hit two solo home runs on pitches that were well out of the strike zone. One low and inside pitch was golfed over the left field foul pole, the other pitch thrown up and way away was hit over the trees beyond the left field power alley and into orbit…around Pluto. (I spoke to several of my pitchers from this era and no one will own up to being the guy who gave it up) When I decided to intentionally walk him, he stole second, then third and scored on a ground out. We played well; he played better, eliminating us from the playoffs. We went home for the summer while he went on to win the State AAA title. I guess I should have said BHP went on to win the state championship, but they would not have won it without this rare player.
I have always had mixed feelings when a season has ended. You are sad that you lost your last game, on the one hand, and question yourself on what you did wrong and congratulate yourself on what you did right. On the other hand, you are a little glad because the hard work is over until you realize spring football practice has started so your own work goes on. After the great season we had just completed, I was a little sadder and questioned myself even more about what we could have done differently. As I puttered around the dugout, picking up gear, speaking to parents and waiting for the field to clear, I picked up a box that was supposed to be full of unused game baseballs and found it to be empty. I knew we had not used that many balls. We started with one and one half dozen baseballs and I could account for six we had used. I am not a mathematical genius but calculated quickly twelve baseballs were missing. As I looked around, I found twelve of my players in a huddle around Chad Roper. They were getting him to autograph the baseballs. There was also a lot of joking and laughing taking place between Chad and my team. That brought more than a little clarity to the importance of losing a baseball game. Mad at first, I suddenly found myself smiling as I realized how young people could put the minor bumps in the road into perspective so quickly. As disappointing as losing is, baseball was and still is a game to be played and not a life or death situation. Most of these young men would not play baseball past high school but would be successful in so many ways. My third baseman William Patton comes to mind. He was offered a full scholarship from NASA and it was not to play baseball. He was unable to find Chad’s home run ball either though I understand he sent several unmanned space probes out to try.
Chad was drafted in the second round of the Major League Draft in 1992 by the Minnesota Twins and spent ten seasons kicking around the minor leagues never rising above double A. He seemed to be one of the unlucky ones who were unable to overcome the obstacles life sometimes places in your way. Sometimes success is the biggest hurdle to overcome. I am sure some people would say he was a failure because he never got to the “Big Show.” I believe those people were wrong and narrow minded. Chad got to do something he loved to do for ten years longer than most of us and got paid for doing it. Professional sports are professional sports at any level, and it takes a special talent to get paid to hit or field a baseball wherever you play. How was that a failure? I believe it was pretty special and would have given up a reproductive body part to have had the same opportunity. My biggest regret from that particular day was not getting him to sign my baseball.
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING by Don Miller #1.99 on #Kindle goo.gl/DiO1hcX

“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in Don Miller’s FLOPPY PARTS $.99 on Kindle http://goo.gl/Ot0KIu
“Baby Boomer History” in Don Miller’s PATHWAYS $3.49 on Kindle http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

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Excerpt from the short story “Be the Rock” contained in “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…”
Strangely, while I was watching the Rose Bowl last night, Christian McCaffrey’s effort’s triggered a thought process that led me on a pathway from wondering who were the best players that I had ever coached or coached against, something that I still haven’t answered, to kids who needed sports more than sports needed them. Everyone enjoyed Christian’s effort, especially Sanford fans, but what about players that don’t have Christian’s skill set? For some reason it brought to mind a young man from Tamassee-Salem who had no skill set but all, a fact that did not prevent him from enjoying the game of baseball or me enjoying him.
Of all of the kids that I have ever coached, I think Justin Chandler epitomizes what it means to be a “rock.” When I say ever, I mean Newberry, Mauldin, Greenville, Landrum, Riverside, Tamassee-Salem, Greer Middle College, Legacy, and Northwest. Damn! That’s a lot of schools and no I did not have a problem keeping a job. Well, just at one. If you listed our forty or so players, varsity, JV and middle school by ability, Justin would rank last. Not because of want to because he had more want to than most. Not because he wasn’t tough, because he was one tough piece of gristle. Justin had to be tough because he suffered from Cerebral Palsy. Justin had two arms but only one of them worked the way it should. The other arm and hand were drawn and a bit withered, while a somewhat immobile elbow joint did not give him the flexibility that allowed him to extend his arm when batting. Add to those afflictions a foot that was slightly turned inward, paining him at every misstep, Tamassee-Salem may have been the only school where he might have played. He gave me another reality check when I realized Justin also epitomized what it meant to PLAY baseball. It is a game that requires you to play and work hard to be successful, but as I sometimes forget, it is a game to be enjoyed or you should not be doing it. Justin enjoyed playing baseball despite his disability and worked hard to overcome it. At times he made it easy to forget he had a disability. When playing JV or middle school ball he twice made plays to save or win games. In one, a line shot was fielded cleanly and after a transfer from glove to throwing hand, which was the same hand, Justin delivered a strike home to retire a sliding runner and preserve a win. In the second game, with the winning runner at third, Justin executed a suicide squeeze bunt to score the winning run. If he wasn’t carried off on his teammate’s shoulders, he should have been.
The complete book, “WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING” BY Don Miller, can be downloaded on Kindle or purchased in paperback using the following link: goo.gl/dO1hcX
Coach Miller’s other two books, “FLOPPY PARTS” AND “PATHWAYS” can also be found at the same link.

GET AFTER ‘UM TIGERS!

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I am a long time Clemson Tiger fan, albeit a bad one. I actually pull for the Gamecocks when they are not playing the Tigers. I have just had too many former players who opted to play for the “dark side” not to pull for USC East. Tiger friends, please forgive me.

I began my worship of football at a Clemson game in the early Sixties when invited by a friend and his family to go and watch my friend’s brother play at Death Valley. I guess that is when I became a full-fledged Tiger fan and began to worship before the altar that is football. Memorial Stadium was not the cathedral it is now but Death Valley sure did beat the heck out of Indian Land on a Friday night.

I got to meet the “minister” of the gridiron Tigers, legendary coach Frank Howard, and could not help but remember our introduction later when I went to a coach’s dinner featuring him as a speaker. The man was a riot and I had a hard time reconciling this Frank Howard with the same man I had met earlier. I guess it was his pregame jitters. A different time in 1976, Howard told a joke on Willie Jefferies, the hall of fame coach for the predominately black South Carolina State University Bulldogs. Howard joked about attending a State practice trying to pick up a nugget of information that might lead to a victory and noticed all of the footballs were painted dark green with lighter green stripes. When asked why Jefferies responded with a question, “You ever seen a black boy drop a watermelon?” The laughter was led by Jefferies, a black man himself with tears rolling down his cheeks.

My playing days were different from my coaching days. I never played with or against anyone who was a different color. When I coached I found out there was but one color that mattered on a football field and that was the color of the jersey you wore. An avowed racist of any color would help, hug, stand up for and drink after members of the other races during their entire careers. I hope this carried over into their lives after football, as well. Things said inside of the locker room might get you beaten severely or worse if they were said to anyone other than your teammates outside of that locker room.

I found myself in rarefied “coaching” air in the spring of 1981 while attending a coaching clinic at Clemson. Those were much different times to. The NCAA didn’t care if you had a coach’s clinic featuring the Clemson staff that ended with BBQ and beer served in sixteen ounce Hardee’s cups. They also didn’t care if food and libations were brought to your seat by very attractive Tiger cheerleaders or “Rally Cats.” Beer and BBQ! I would guess these were a Danny Ford party staple. There was even a “good old boy” comedian with a “tree climbing” coon dog for entertainment.

The clinic and entertainment portion was over and we were sitting around a table shooting the bull. I had managed to seat myself by the right hand of one of the “soon to be” Southern football gods, Danny Lee Ford, head football coach of the Clemson Tigers. To be honest I was more in awe of Jim Frasier. Seated across from me, he was the head football coach of the T.L Hanna Yellow Jackets. I didn’t know Coach Frasier but I had gotten to know Danny when Danny had been our recruiter at Mauldin during the Charlie Pell years. Danny had taken over for Pell in 1978 and was still just as “down home” as could be despite his new title. In his first full season in 1979, after a Gator Bowl victory completing Charlie’s tenure, Ford went 8-4 with a Peach Bowl loss. In 1980 the Tigers had a dismal 6-5 season and this was the subject of our conversation as we sat sipping at least one beer past too many. Had Danny been two or three beers ahead of me, he might have been in tears. He was lamenting being on the proverbial coaching “hot seat.” I remember Coach Frasier peering over his sixteen ounce Hardee’s cup, his eyes struggling to focus on Ford…or maybe it was my eyes struggling to focus on Frasier. “Boy” he said, “You helped recruit ‘em, all you can do now is coach ‘em up!” Danny and his staff must have done a pretty good job of “coachin ‘em up.” The rest they say is history. A story book 12-0 season and a National Championship during the 1981 Orange Bowl were realized and Ford went from “hot seat” to Southern football “Sainthood.”

This year’s 13-0 version is also “story book” but still two victories away from a National Championship. I cannot help but think about the differences and similarities between the two teams and their coaches. Actually, on the surface, there seems to be more differences when discussing the coaches. Aside from both having played at Alabama and “dismal” second full seasons, Dabo Swinney, this year’s “Saint-in-waiting”, would seem to have little in common with the Danny Ford I knew. Dabo is certainly a better speaker and Ford would not be caught dead “whipping it.” Despite a difference in styles, deep down I would guess there are many similarities when it comes to attention to detail and motivation.

With today’s finesse offenses it would be easy to say Ford coached a much tougher game. Strong offensive running attack and “snot bubble” knocking defense…WAIT! NOT SO FAST! It would appear you could make the same statement about the 2015 version.

Much has changed during the past five decades I have worshipped at the alter that is football. For the most part I think they are good changes even though it is sometimes hard to recognize the game today as the one I played as a boy and coached as an adult. Do I think our brand of football was tougher? Most assuredly! But I don’t guess Ford’s “three yards and a cloud of dust” was nearly as much fun as Dabo’s new version. One thing that has not changed is our pride in Southern football. “Go Tigers, Beat Oklahoma! The Orange Bowl is still ours!”

If you enjoyed this story I have written three books that maybe downloaded on Kindle or purchased in book form using the following links:
“Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” goo.gl/dO1hcX
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A LAST GAME—A TRIBUTE TO A COACH

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This past Friday it ended. At least I think it did. My best friend coached the last game of his forty plus year career. That equates to over fifty years involved with the religion known as Southern football. Everyone who knows Mike Hawkins, Hawk as he is known wide and far, would have bet he would continue to coach until he drew his last breath. Then, having been carried off of a football field straight into the mortuary for cremation, would have his ashes scattered to the “football gods” over some yet undetermined football field “heaven.” I thought the same thing until I talked to him during the week prior to his “last game.” Mike has mellowed…A LOT…and seems to be at peace with his decision. Saying such, would I be surprised if he didn’t retire? Not at all.

As I begin this writing, I haven’t contacted him yet. I’m afraid to. I’m sure he has met this Saturday morning with a jumble of feelings although I am also sure he would never admit it. If I were writing a book, Mike’s season and career would not have ended on a late field goal during the upper-state championship. If I were writing the ending the Spartans would have blocked the field goal, returned it for the winning touchdown and gone on to win next week’s state championship game. It just goes to prove something I already knew. God could care less about who wins a football game because a win was sure something I prayed for… along with world peace. I still hope to be one for two.

Mike and I were introduced to each other some forty years ago on an athletic field that has dissolved into the fog of time…along with the introduction itself. We would spend the next dozen or so years looking at each other across athletic fields as we attempted to beat each other’s brains out at various sporting endeavors. During those years we probably broke even but who is counting…and it doesn’t matter anyway. Playing a game against each other doesn’t insure you will get to know someone either and Mike is as open as a giant clam. “Quare” is the Southern term I would have used to describe Mike. In the late Eighties I would find myself interviewing at a local swimming pool for the opportunity to coach football and baseball at Riverside and over the next twelve years would learn “Quare” really didn’t describe him at all. As I attempted to write a book on my teaching and coaching career I admitted to a former player that I was trying to write a story about Mike and was struggling. The player commented, “I don’t know why, you should have enough material to write a book.” The player was correct and the amount of material WAS the problem.

Being a bit odd is just a small part of his personality. Mike, despite his hard, old school exterior, has a heart like a marshmallow. Especially for kids…or animals. If you are in dire need Mike will move heaven and earth to help you. That includes friends or enemies alike. He is going to do what is right…well what he thinks is right. Generous and giving is a much larger portion of his personality than his “quareness.” I will always remember catching him sneaking food to the “stadium cat” and “roping off,” with crime scene tape, a killdeer’s nest so we would not run over it while cutting the field. There was even an impromptu celebration when we saw momma killdeer being followed by three minuscule chicks. After my heart attack in 2006 I had a stint surfed into an artery that saved my life. As I came back to the world of the living in CCU I knew I had not died and gone to heaven because the second face I saw was Mike’s. I knew I wasn’t in hell either because Linda, my wife, was the first face I saw. I just appreciated the fact they were both there.

For nearly thirty years Mike and I have coached and taught together, laughed together, cried together, watched each other’s children grow up and had grand-daughters within months of each other. Mike gave me the opportunity to get over a bad time in my life and I would not trade it for gold. I have tried to help him through his own bumpy roads and pray I have helped with his healing…it’s what friends do I guess. We both lost coaching jobs we believed we would never get over and ended up winning state championships with other programs, something that never would have happened had we remained where we had been. Sometimes lemons do make lemonade and I am just as proud for him as I am for me. Mike has been a winner in every definition of the word at every place he has ever been, on or off of the field. A winner with kids, his peers and his friends. I can give him no higher tribute than to call him Coach Hawkins, my friend.

I don’t know what chapters are left in our “book,” I just hope we write some of them together and that they are as memorable as his career. Enjoy a well-deserved rest Mike. It will take a while but you will get used to it. Love you Man!

“RIGHT MEN”

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I sat in a large lecture room during the summer of 1993 listening to the guest speaker during our annual state association athletic clinic in Columbia, S.C. Fresh off of a perfect season and national championship, Alabama head coach Gene Stallings was the speaker. I was impressed at the somewhat quiet, yet solid, demeanor of the Crimson Tide coach. His speech was a low Texas drawl I was sure could turn into a loud growl if necessary. Something in me believes it was rarely necessary. I was amused at a story he told about being embarrassed. In front of millions of viewers, a camera perfectly framed a reaction to a play that included an “F-bomb” expletive perfectly formed on his lips. One of those viewers was his youngest daughter, Martha Kate, who took him to task over the language he used.

You just knew Gene Stallings was a good man and there is nothing in his Bio today suggesting otherwise. One could not be hard-hearted enough not to tear up when Coach Stallings spoke about his son, John Mark. Coach Stallings teared up, I teared up and about a thousand others did to. John Mark was born with Down syndrome and was the light of his father’s life…along with his wife and four daughters. As you can tell, Coach Stallings spoke more about life than he did about football.

I never had the opportunity to sit down and hear Mark Richt speak in person. From clips, comments and sport’s stories I have read and viewed, I would say there is a lot of Gene Stallings in Mark Richt…except for the National Championship thing…but then again I am speaking about life. Richt, the former Georgia coach, now Miami coach, could have been bitter about his firing at Georgia despite two SEC championships, six SEC East championships to go with one hundred and forty-five victories to just fifty-one losses over a fourteen year career. Unfortunately college football is a “what have you done for me lately” profession. It’s about championships I guess.

Richt could have been bitter but made a profound “life” statement instead, “Life is about people, not rings. Rings collect dust.” While not the coach Georgia needs now, they think they need the rings, he is a man the world needs. Richt walks the “Christian Walk,” and has been a positive role model both on and off of the field. Along with his wife, the Richt’s have adopted two Ukrainian orphans, one with proteus syndrome, to go with their own two kids. This is something most people are very unlikely to know, Mark Richt plays everything close to the vest. One thing that he can’t keep close to his vest is the fact that he is a good man.

I wrote a book entitled “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” It was about kids, peers, family and fans, along with memories of teaching and sports, all more important than victories, championships or passing test. I wish I had come to their lesson sooner. Is it more important to win championships or to produce up-standing, disciplined players? I know you can do both but which is more important? Good luck Mark Richt, I will be pulling for Miami to win championships when Clemson doesn’t. Interestingly, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney played football at Alabama. His mentor and head coach…Gene Stallings. He too is one of the “Right Men.” Theirs’s are legacies that are far more important than sports.

If you are interested in reading more by Don Miller his books may be purchased on Amazon or downloaded on Kindle at the following links
“Winning Was Never the Only Thing…” goo.gl/dO1hcX
“Floppy Parts” http://goo.gl/0Lt0O8
“Pathways” http://goo.gl/6yB5Ei