Coaching

WORSHIPING AT THE ALTAR THAT IS FOOTBALL

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

IN HONOR OF A FOOTBALL SATURDAY

I am avoiding returning a phone call to a friend and former coaching and teaching peer. This is not a “Hey, how are you doing, whatcha been up to?” kind of call because we have been keeping up with each other. I know what it is. This is the fourth time that I have retired and for the fourth time someone is going to try and get me to UN-retire. “Why won’t you just let me slope off into the sunset and enjoy the cigar and beer?” Why do I keep saying, “Yes?” Not this time! It is enticing with all of the interactions: team building, being a part of something bigger, the comradery with the players and the coaches that you just don’t find anywhere else short of a foxhole…and those Friday night lights. I have always missed football Friday nights. There is something about that green field with sharply laid down lines that almost glow they are so bright. There is probably nothing better in life than taking the field for your first home game…Well maybe one thing but that was so long ago…. What I have not missed yet are the practices, especially those that begin on July 31st… in South Carolina. It looks like they are going to catch a break with temps in the nineties and lower than normal humidity. Oh no! The early week looks bad for them. I say they and them because I am finally going to turn someone down. Sorry, Robbie.

I’m not the first to compare football in the South to a religious experience but that is not going to stop me from talking about it or turning the job down. It is just different and better in the South. There are a few cathedrals to the gridiron gods throughout the rest of the country but those don’t compare. I just don’t think Buckeyes, The West Coast Condoms or Irish Elves can display the trappings for the football sacraments as well as those teams south of the Mason-Dixon Line and east of New Mexico. Tailgating, bands with majorettes, cheerleaders…welllllll, I might have to give the nod for cheerleaders to Oregon. I don’t like the Green and “Yaller” but they wear so little of anything there’s not a lot of it showing…colors I mean.

I began my worship of football at a Clemson game in the early Sixties when invited by a friend to go with his family to watch his 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. It was not the cathedral it is now but it 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 that featured him as a speaker. The man was a riot and I had a hard time reconciling that this Frank Howard was the same man I met earlier. I guess it was his pregame jitters. A different time in 1976, Howard told a joke on Willie Jefferies, a hall of fame coach for the predominately black South Carolina State University Bulldogs. Howard joked that he had attended a State practice trying to pick up a nugget of information that might lead to a victory and noticed that all of the footballs were painted dark green with lighter green stripes. When asked about them Jefferies responded with a question, “You ever seen a black boy drop a watermelon?” The laughter was lead 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 that there was but one color that mattered on a football field and that was the color of the jersey that 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 that this carried over into their lives after football, as well. Things that were 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.

To bring locker rooms into clarity, many activities had nothing to do with dressing and would not be considered religious unless we were talking about the Inquisition. Managers or younger players were sometimes wrapped like mummies and secured to benches with athletic tape. Cramergesic analgesic ointment was applied to heat hip pads or jockstraps of the unsuspecting. And the absolute worst torture known to man, was being told that Atomic Bomb was the best cure for Jockey Itch! Yeeeeeowwwwwwww! I coached a particularly salty group of young men that must have decided that Voodoo should be the religion of choice. Adopting the book Helter Skelter as their bible and Black Sabbath as their choir, this team employed hangmen’s nooses to hang dead birds and snakes around the locker room. A dead squirrel hanging from a noose was presented to the captains of one team to celebrate Halloween. I don’t know if they sold their soul to Beelzebub but they did win ten football games in a row.

I have memories galore associated with football. Most were happy and not blasphemous but there are a few…mostly revolving around practice… which to me were akin to the self-flagellation practiced by certain religious sects. On the practice field behind the gym where we did all of our drill work, morning worship began with the fog evaporating from a copious dew that transformed our heavy elastic and cotton practice gear into individual saunas as our exertions increased. After “Down-Ups,” “monkey rolls” and “Bull in the Ring” our practice uniforms were wringing-wet and ten pounds heavier. We were also a bit bruised. By the time practice was over, the field had dried out so “Sahara-like” that the only place more arid was the inside of our mouths. During those days there was no time limit to practice and water was withheld to make you tougher. Coaches can’t do that now and I am glad. We were kids who grew up without air conditioning and spent our summer days outside working or playing because it was actually cooler there than inside our homes. “You chaps get outside!” shouted by my grandmother was the order that kept me “acclimated.” If you did that to a kid today he would simply die from heat and dehydration. Even though we thought we were dying, it was just a form of heat “castration”…from sweating our balls off! I remember nursing on the edge of a bloody sweat-soaked towel in hopes of getting a single drop of moisture.

I believe the worst travesty ever perpetrated by a coach to his team was carried out by Bennett Gunter, our coach. On a particularly “crusty” day, he carried a bucket of water with ladle and covered it with a towel to keep the bugs out. It must have been the only thing we could think about because as a group we sucked. During the middle of practice he called us over to tell us that, and with the water bucket in the middle of our little circle, took the towel off, removed the ladle…and then tipped the bucket over onto the ground! As I watched the water-parched earth consume our water, I wondered how much trouble I might get into if I dove face first into the mud hole and tried to suck the liquid through my teeth.

During those August practices as soon as we had run our sprints, several of us would head to the boiler used by the cannery and drink the cold boiler water that seemed to be as frosty and tasty as a clear mountain stream, despite its metallic taste. I wonder what kind of health “time bomb” I have residing inside me from drinking that water.

I was fortunate to go to a small high school because fewer students meant that I got to play sports. Luckily, football, like most religions, accepts all comers, at least at the high school level. There were twenty-one bodies in my graduating class in 1968 and only ten were male. Of those ten, only seven of us played our entire high school career and that was a good thing for me. Timid, geeky in a non-geeky way, athletically challenged, clumsy in all other activities, and with an aversion to physical pain, I was not prime football material, at least early in my career. As a junior high player or even later, I would have earned the title “top water superstar.” Remember, cream is not the only thing that will rise to the top. Bobby Beechum, a seven-hundred and fifty-pound eight-foot-tall giant, taught me my first lesson. Throwing me like a bowling ball and making a 7-10 pin split, I learned that it is better to “give a lick than to receive.” I also remember running sprints one day when Coach Gunter exclaimed for everyone to hear, “Miller, I have to line you up with a fence post just to make sure you are making forward progress.” It could have been worse. A friend of mine who walked on at Clemson was told by Coach Howard that, and I quote, “Son, you are a wasted fuck!”

Most of my career I probably would have agreed with that assessment had it been made about me. With a series of injuries limiting my already finite abilities, I struggled through my freshman and sophomore years before getting “mostly” healthy. Still, my career up until my senior year might be summed up by my introduction to Pageland great, South Carolina standout and Hall of Fame Coach Al Usher. During a game my junior year we said our hellos at our five-yard line. I was high and he was low and leverage wins. Five yards later it was a touchdown for Pageland, just one of many that night that saw us embarrassed on our own field. During halftime, my coach RO Potts, slammed my shoulder pads and blew chewing tobacco breath into my face while yelling, “And you! How do you let someone drag you five yards into the end zone?” My brain reasoned, “Because that’s all he needed.” Luckily, I kept my mouth shut!

My senior year, hope sprang eternal, but it didn’t start too well. We made a road trip on a rainy night to Pageland, the self-proclaimed watermelon capitol or the world. Nothing good happens to me in regard to Pageland and, for some reason, I have had no success growing watermelons. I try to avoid Pageland at all cost. Driving rains kept both the worshippers and the offensive output down. Early in the game we drove for a touchdown but missed the extra point. For three quarters we moved the ball up and down the field without scoring. Deep in the fourth quarter and, in our end of the field, we lined up to punt, giving me the opportunity to break the football commandment – “Thou shalt not snap the ball over your punter’s head.” As the long snapper, it was my responsibility to spiral the ball to my punter. The ball was wet and heavy and my last thought was, “Keep your butt down and don’t snap it over his head!” I did neither. Our punter covered my errant snap for a safety and two points. The resulting kick from our own twenty gave them great field position and eventually a narrow eight to six two-point victory. I was probably at my lowest when “an angel fell from the sky” in the form of my coach. Coach Potts could have ruined me for life but instead placed his hand on my shoulder and said, “The game did not hinge on that one play. We had every opportunity to win that game and should have. We all share the loss.” “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” It is a religious lesson that I have tried to remember and live all my life.

Time limits, unlimited water hydration and lighter, less water absorbent uniforms are not the only aspects that have changed about football since I played and since I retired from coaching 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. Bull and the Ring along with Oklahoma drills have been outlawed as has using the head as a weapon since we have become more concerned about safety. Do I think our brand of football was tougher? Most assuredly! But I don’t guess “three yards and a cloud of dust” was nearly as much fun as the new version. Parishioners have embraced the new version and still cheer that “My god is better than your god!” no matter how many times the ball is thrown. Congregations have swelled at the cathedrals throughout the nation – not just in the South. Even our most conservative “ministers” are throwing the ball all over the field and the participation of “acolytes” has definitely increased. Still I find myself worshipping at the altars of Georgia Tech or the service academies that still run the option, at least when they are not playing the Tigers in the much improved cathedral known as Death Valley.

THE WRESTLER

/ cigarman501 / 1 Comment

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

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

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

/ cigarman501 / Leave a comment

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.