Football

Confessions of a Coaching Fraud…

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My induction into a former high school’s athletic hall of fame has me flitting hither and yon over memories from forty-plus years of teaching and coaching.  For some reason, I don’t feel very worthy of the accolades.

It was great to see former players now conquering their own lives and being successful by any standard applied. Former students, coaching peers, and parents stopping by and pumping my hand or hugging my neck.  It wasn’t great, it was wonderful.

Still, I wonder in the back of my head, “Why?”  “How?”  “Am I a fraud?”  Sometimes things were too easy…except when they weren’t.

Dozens have extended congratulations and well wishes on social media and email.  Despite my pride and delight…I don’t feel worthy.

The festivities were poignant, my plaque sitting alongside Tim Bright’s, a player who passed too soon due to colon cancer.  A player who was, along with hundreds of others, responsible for my success.  I wonder what he might have accomplished had he not left us.  His family is so dedicated to his memory.  His charity is still doing great things for those who suffered as he did.

My wife…a former coach herself and far superior in my estimation.  As always, standing by my side.  Always supportive, always ready with a meaningful critique of the last game’s outcome.  Greatest supporter and greatest critic.  “Just let them play and quit bunting so much.”  “Why did you do….”  I do miss her voice distinguishable from anywhere in a stadium no matter how large or loud the crowd was.  “Come on Coach, run your other play!”  I am so lucky and so unworthy.

As I look back, it seemed too easy.  I know I’m looking through the sands of time and the time is becoming a sandstorm.  Still, great assistant coaches, great players, and great parents made my successes.  I just walked around being me.

I’ve heard so many horror stories that I never experienced.  There were just a few bad apples, just a few obstacles…maybe they weren’t bad apples…maybe I just did find the key to unlock their potential.  I do feel like the king of frauds.

There were laughs and tears but the tears were minimal.  When we gather and exclaim, “Do you remember…?”, the question is always about the laughs.  It is easy to remember the good times.

Through the magnifying glass of retrospection, even the bad seasons were good.  Seasons we knew we were bad but managed to get better.  Sometimes a seven-win season could be as rewarding as a state championship season.  Seasons you really didn’t know how good or bad you were.  Seasons you just put in the work that didn’t seem like work and hoped for the best.  I believe I always received the best they had.  I hope they received mine.

When I first began my coaching journey, I was terrible.  Some might say, “Nothing ever changed.” It is a fact I’m comfortable with because I believe I grew despite feeling apologetic to those early teams.

I grew and turned a corner of sorts after a bitter loss. I lamented to the offending coach. “I don’t know what to do.”  His answer was, “You love them.  Remember, you’re not coaching football, you’re coaching kids.  Win or lose you love them.”  I tried to apply his nugget through the rest of my career.

Names and faces blur over time but I can honestly and unapologetically say, “I loved them.”  I didn’t coach football, soccer or baseball, I coached kids.  Maybe I’m not as big a fraud as I believe.

It has been three years since I last stalked a sideline or a dugout.  I honestly haven’t missed the practices or the games.  Every time I think I might return to a grassy field my body does something to remind me of the beating it has taken over the years and those feelings pass.

What I miss is the comradery.  I miss the interactions with my players, the coaches and the opponents staring back at me from the opposing dugout or sideline.  Those were good times and I miss them.

I still feel like a fraud.  It was too much fun, it was too easy.  Great players make for good coaches.  I had a cornucopia of great players. Thanks for the memories guys, thanks for the effort, thanks for my successes.  Thanks for letting me be me and letting me be a part of your lives.

HOF

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The featured image was lifted from https://eic.rsc.org/feature/coaching-for-success/3010068.article.

The whistle is the symbol of the coaching profession.  I find it interesting that I rarely used one.

Super Bowl Sunday

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I watched the first Super Bowl.  I’ve watched all the Super Bowls.  I guess, unless I go blind, I will watch them all until the “sands in the hourglass” run out.

The first one wasn’t called the Super Bowl.  It was the AFL-NFL World Championship Game back then.  Not only has the name changed, but the game itself doesn’t resemble the first one.  More cameras than there are angles, scantily clad cheerleaders instead of pleated skirts, Bobbi socks and saddle shoes, commercials that were sometimes more interesting than the game itself, half-time extravaganzas instead of marching bands and different rules that the officials continue to blow.  Pretty much the only thing that hasn’t changed is me…laughing, are you?

My love for the game of football hasn’t changed…even though I don’t recognize it as the game I coached and played for three and a half decades.  It seems to be more fun-loving, a less brutal game than the original “three yards and a cloud of dust”version.  Much more fan friendly I guess.  Blame the old fun-loving, more offensive minded, pass-happy AFL, I guess.

As a young child, fall Sundays were reserved for church and a single football game on CBS.  That’s correct…one football game and nine times out of ten it was a Redskin contest.  We did have a thirty-minute highlight show of the previous Colts game.  I’m sure my father prayed at church that no one would decide to visit during the thirty-minute highlight show before the Washington Redskin’s weekly beating at the hands of anyone they might be playing.

Still, I became a fan…of Sonny Jurgenson’s lasers and Billy Kilmer’s wobblers.  It didn’t matter who was under center in the early sixties, victories were far and in between.  At least I had those replays of Johnny U and the Colts…but they weren’t very good either, except in ’59 and ’64.

Every Sunday, late in the game, my father would make the same observation about the Redskins, “I think they have shot their wad.”  For clarification, shooting one’s wad related to old muzzle-loading muskets and not…your dirty mind.

In 1960 a new kid dared to approach the NFL block…an always snowy new kid.  We would attempt to adjust our Sears rotary antenna to distant Ashville hoping the ABC affiliate and  AFL game of the week would come into view.  Click, click, click, “Whoa! That’s too far, go back!” It didn’t matter, early September or late November, the games always looked like it was snowing in black and white on the old RCA.  Later they would move to NBC, a channel we could pick up without snow.

These were the days of the New York Titans, Dallas Texans, Houston Oilers and a few names that would still be recognized today.  No, the Dallas Texans were not the forerunners of the Dallas Cowboys, but the Kansas City Chiefs.  The Cowboys were the first NFL expansion team and while briefly known as the Steers, they opened their first season in 1960 as the Cowboys.

The two leagues would eventually merge but not before the 1967 AFL-NFL World Championship played between the Bart Starr led juggernaut Green Bay Packers and the upstart Kansas City Chiefs with Len Dawson under center.  The score was close at half-time but a runaway by the end of the game.  Green Bay’s smash-mouth brand of football won 35-10 and began fifty-three years of futility as I repeatedly pull for the wrong team.

I’ve quit pulling for anyone…well, maybe I’ll pull against someone…like Brady.  It won’t matter.  If he were a religious figure, he’d walk on water.  Is that blasphemy or heresy?  I can never remember.

I’ll watch to the bloody end, maybe the commercials will be good.  I’ll watch and heft a beer and toast my father.  I’ll even use his favorite phrase when watching a fourth-quarter pass fall harmlessly to the ground…”Well, looks like they’ve shot their wad again.”

The only thing to be decided is who shoots their wad and how many of those beers I heft.  Go Budweiser Commercial!!!!

Further musings and a book or six can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

 

“You Deserve a Break Today…at the White House”

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Ordinarily, I don’t make two blog posts on the same day but…today is different.  I feel a-callin’!  Some folks have gotten on the wrong side of this old coach.

I’m a Clemson fan.  I hold a master’s degree from Clemson and no I didn’t drive by campus with the window open and have a diploma thrown through it as some from folks in the middle of the state might think.  I also hold a master’s plus thirty, primarily bestowed from USC East, but I’m still a Clemson fan.

I’m not a fan of the present resident of our White House nor am I a fan of McDonald’s.  I’m a Burger King guy if I feel the need to up my cholesterol count with fast food.  I tend to limit the number of Whoppers I consume to “once in a blue moon”…sorta like Gamecock victories over the Tigers.

Last night the Clemson National Championship Football Team was hosted to a fast food feast at the White House.  Big Macs, Wendy’s Hot and Juicy’s, Whoppers and pizza of an unknown brand were served on White House porcelain.  People have gone crazy over it.  Your craziness is misplaced!

Going to the White House to be recognized for athletic excellence has never been about what President happens to reside there at the time…unless you are a professional.  It is about the recognition of student-athletes…and reward…even if it involves “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame bun” served on official White House China.  I don’t like the sauce or the President but that is not the point.

I’ve lived in South Carolina for my entire life and find it tedious to explain why we rank low in areas we shouldn’t rank low in, or rank high in areas we shouldn’t rank high in.  It’s not tedious because I can’t explain it.  Those are other battles. I find it refreshing to have something to be radiant “orange” over.

Last night was a joy for me…and the team, coaches and support staff.  It was a joy for people wearing orange from all over the United States.  It was not about the President, what I disagree with him about, or what he decided to serve as a meal.

Last night was a moment to recognize young men who have worked hard to attain a goal and for a state to feel pride vicariously through them.  Give it a break!  There are young men who would never travel outside of a fifty-mile radius of the home they were born into were it not for Clemson…or U of SC football…or other athletic teams.  They would never in their wildest dreams expect to shake the hand of a United States’ President or sit at a table of honor in the White House.

Call me a hypocrite.  If I were in their shoes, I’d be right in line to get my handshake…I would use a hand sanitizer before I picked up my double meat Whopper, but I’d shake the President’s hand and consider it a lifetime moment.  This should have nothing to do with politics or what food was served…or if the President was using it as a positive “press” opportunity.  As quarterback Trevor Lawrence said, “It was awesome.”  I agree.

Image of Tiger players loading up from Sports Illustrated at https://www.si.com/college-football/2019/01/14/clemson-tigers-white-house-visit-mcdonalds-wendys-fast-food

For further musings, https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

 

Championship Emotions

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As I watched last night’s National Championship game, I seemed to drift to days of yesteryear.  Not that the game wasn’t interesting…well…anytime you pop the bully in the mouth it is interesting.  My memories were of young men competing on fields marked with white lines that seemed to glow with their own light.  Days when I still coached football, at a different level, in a different time.  But it was football.  I thought of an early spring evening at a coaching clinic held at Clemson University in 1981.

Danny Ford was my guy in 1981…still is my guy.  I miss his visage and demeanor on the sidelines at Death Valley.  A personable, country come to town, baseball cap pushed back on his head, a piece of grass stuck between his lip’s kind of guy.

Danny spoke two languages, football, and Alabama redneck.  He had a look that could freeze your heart or melt it.  He is still my guy.  Danny had recruited our school as an assistant, and our staff had developed a closeness with him during those days that carried over after he was named head coach.  Not that the present head coach isn’t my guy, Dabo is…its just different…despite being an Alabama boy too.

During those days I had dreams and aspirations.  Dreams and aspirations that never quite came to fruition.  I am now a spectator instead of a participant.  Sounds like I might be bitter.  Hmm.  Thoughts for another day.

Being young and foolish, our high school staff “closed” the clinic in the spring of 1981.  Late in the evening, sitting around a table were maybe a dozen of us “hardcore partiers”.  Ford knew how to throw a clinic.  After the football X’s and O’s were done, he served us beer in sixteen-ounce Hardee’s cups, pulled pork sandwiches with fixings and entertained us with a tree climbing hound dog while a bluegrass band played in the background.  The festivities had ended, the band packed up, with just a few of us sitting around a knockdown table.

In my world of coaching, I sat in the rarified air of coaching elite.  Successful high school head coaches sat close by while I thought it was smart for children and young coaches to be seen and not heard.  I admit to feeling somewhat invisible but listened intently hoping for a coaching nugget to stick in my brain.  Funny, Danny Ford was just two years older.

Normally jovial and full of country colloquialisms, this version was depressed and subdued.  Hat pulled down over his eyes, crying in his beer depressed.  Inside of a coffin subdued.  Clemson had just come off a terrible six and five season and he was feeling pressure from the administration and alumni.  A well-known, South Carolina High School Hall of Fame coach gradually drew him out before pushing a Hardee’s cup toward him saying, “Son, all you can do is coach ‘em up and love ‘em.  Other than that, what’s gonna happen is gonna happen.”

Something happened.  Clemson’s first National Championship was won ten months later as the Tigers beat Nebraska to cap the first storybook season.  The first of three storybook seasons…so far.

I ran into Danny recently…literally not figuratively.  I’m smiling.  At a small mercantile in the middle of nowhere, I walked into him as I exited the door with a package of cigars.  He was entering to get a pouch of Red Man and a hotdog.  Some things never change.  We both paused waiting as neurons slowly crackled in recognition.

Pointing a sausage sized finger at me, he drawled, “I know you.  You were with Lunceford and Bradburn at Mauldin.”  It was nice to be remembered.  I shivered a bit.

We stood outside, leaning on truck tailgates, reminiscing about times gone by and people we’ve lost, highs and lows, hemp farming, raising cows, grandchildren, and retirement.  “Whatever happened to….”  He seems quite happy to be out of the spotlight butI don’t think Danny Ford will ever retire.  Our meeting left me both proud and a bit melancholy, like what I am feeling this early, early morning as the talking heads analyze Clemson’s throttling of the Crimson Tide.

It seems we’re a lot alike…except I’m not a National Championship coach from a major university.  Neither of us misses the long hours but miss the people.  We miss the competition and prowling the sidelines on game night.  We don’t miss the practices held in hot and humid August and September.  I guess he is still competing in a way, now from astride a tractor, trying to resurrect a hemp industry while raising cattle.  At least the cab is airconditioned.

The memories we shared were warm, but I think we both fear there will come a time when memories are all we will have left…or maybe it is only my fear.  I guess I do miss “coaching them up and loving them.”  I also realize my time has passed.  Another reason to be melancholy.  The game has passed me by…but I’m not sorry.  I still have the memories and the attending emotions of young men competing on brightly lit green fields striped in white.

For those of you, not football fans, Dabo is Dabo Swinney, head football coach of the 2018 National Champion Clemson Tigers.

For further musings, https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The image is of Danny Ford being carried off of the field after Clemson’s 22-15 victory over Nebraska in 1981 National Championship.

A TURN OF A KEY

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Woolgathering doesn’t quite define it.  I wasn’t pleasantly lost in my thoughts…well…the triggering mechanism wasn’t pleasant.  Word came that a former player has died and then Aretha left us the next day.  Their deaths sent me down the metaphorical pig trails my wife often talks about.  I never met Aretha but Pat…Pat played for me and deserved better from his former coach.

I see him with his arms crossed over an ample belly, chin on his chest, his helmet cocked back on his head during a break in practice.  His head is cocked to the side as he listens to our diminutive offensive line coach pontificate.  They share a joke, both belly laughing and after a bit of back slapping went on about their business.  Seeing them in my mind is a prized memory.

He was a big youngster, playing offensive tackle, gregarious and fun-loving…except when he was trying to get in on the defensive side of the ball.  A pest with a huge grin enveloping his whole face, “Come on Coach Miller, I can do this.  I can make a play.”

He wasn’t the quickest kid, built for comfort not speed.  I tended to put runners on the defensive side, nasty folk who could fly to the ball…he wasn’t a runner…nor was he a bird.  He could be football nasty on occasion…and was.

Maybe I should have rethought my philosophy.  In a goal-line situation, we sent him in to add a bit of beef on the line of scrimmage and he came up with a fumble recovery.  I clearly see him running on to the field, chin and face mask jutting forward in determination, arms windmilling.  Smiling, I see him fist pumping in celebration as he took his place in what had become the offensive huddle.

His junior year we caught lightning in a bottle six times and had our hearts broken four.  The four losses were all heartbreakingly close and as their coach, I should have figured out a way to win a couple of them.  The last one cost us a trip to the playoffs.

Six and four was the best we could muster during my four-year tenure…back when I thought I was a football coach. There is much guilt, regret and now sorrow associated with those years.

He is gone, stolen from us in the middle of the night.  I’m still regretful…regretful I haven’t kept in contact. I forgot I coached kids, not football.  He and the rest of them deserved better because winning was never the only thing.

My pride was hurt and according to the Bible, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”  I don’t know about the haughty spirit, but pride made me push the memories aside.  My “embarrassments” were placed in a mental “lockbox” and stored in a far corner of my mind.  I turned a key and walked away thinking it would hurt less.   “Out of sight, out of mind” meant the good recollections and warm feelings were locked away too.

There are too many good memories to hide them away…and too many good friends…the coaches and players.  People I should still be in touch with.  There is too little time to allow bad memories to overshadow the good.

Pat, I’m sorry it is too late for us.  I’m sorry about your beautiful family and their pain.  I know they are hurting.  I know too, they will have wonderful memories to fall back on when they are ready.

The key has turned and the lid has opened flooding me with memories.  The bad ones are still there but overshadowed by the good ones.  Bad memories can be handled when you have so many warm ones.

Rest in peace Pat knowing you will be missed…and adored.

The image was stolen from https://www.escapeyourfateup.com/store/p3/Multi-Room_Experience.html

For more of Don Miller’s musings https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

The Super Bowl and the Politics of Losing

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It’s Super Bowl Sunday!  If polls are to be believed, I will join over one hundred million other fans watching the world championship of football.  Unless something disastrous happens before this evening’s game, I will watch my fifty-second game.  I’ve watched them all, dating back to the first one when the Bart Starr led Packers easily defeated the Len Dawson led Chiefs in what was not even called the Super Bowl.  It was the NFL-AFL Championship.  It doesn’t matter, I pulled for the wrong team…as usual.

The game has certainly changed…except for me pulling for the losing team.  I have actually rooted for the winner half a dozen times…maybe.  In some ways, it has become more about the concerts, half-time show and commercials than the game itself.  I must admit I have always enjoyed the commercials…especially the Budweiser Frogs and Clydesdales.  And there was the one featuring a scantily clad and pubescent Britney Spears dancing under erect Pepsi Cola bottles, which popped their lids in a foaming conclusion…after a Viagra commercial.  Very poor timing.

What I’ve not enjoyed, is seeing teams I pull for demolished.  As I look back, the line from the Steely Dan tune, “Deacon Blues”, comes to mind.

“They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues”

So just call me Deacon Don I guess.

On to the politics of the game.  Kneeling versus Standing…or Standing versus Kneeling, boycotting versus watching.  Because my father was a World War II veteran, I will…probably never kneel…even though I believe their cause is just.  Because my father was a World War II veteran I’ll never berate those who do, and I’ll never boycott.  It may be the biggest game of the year, but it is still a game…an expensive game but a game none-the-less.  It’s not life or death…and despite what they might say, it isn’t war.

I find it interesting people will wish failure upon others because of their political views.  Sure, some of the people playing the game are spoiled and I would say all are overpaid…just like in other businesses.  According to many, it’s just Capitalism.  The league and owners are getting rich and commercials cost way too much.  Just Capitalism… right?  Some of the players are criminals…just like in other businesses.  Some are not very loveable…just like in other businesses. I would also comment that an old white guy probably shouldn’t comment on the trials and tribulations young black men might go through despite what they make now because it’s not about money.

What really concerns me are the folks who make their livings off professional football who aren’t players, coaches or owners.  The groundskeepers, the guy on the street hawking knock-off t-shirts, the folks working in concessions, even the folks working in the Wilson factory producing the footballs for the game…over three hundred.  These people rely upon the game of football for their livelihoods.  Do we wish to put them out of work because of a political stand?  I don’t.

Art, and I believe there is an art to all forms of athletics, has always reflected the politics of the times.  From Dante’s Inferno to Common Sense to “For What It’s Worth” to present day Rap and in between.  Politics and social upheavals have fueled many art forms and people have used their forums to express their beliefs…and their protest.  They have the right, and we need to protect those rights at all costs…and yes, you have the same right to turn it off or change the channel.  I also reserve the right to believe wishing failure upon my friends and neighbors is stupid…even if I don’t know them, and even if they pull for a different team…or political party.

Above all, and most important…Gooooo Loser!

Don Miller writes on varying subjects…some might be considered interesting.  Please go to his author’s page and check him out.  https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

THE SIREN’S CALL

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A week and a half before high school football practice will begin and I am already hearing her song. The siren’s call of heat and humidity, the smell of freshly cut grass, the scent of over ripe athletic socks and ammonia from sweat soaked practice uniforms. As bad as it sounds, it is still the perfume of a sexy and sultry mistress from long ago. Our affair ended years ago but I still feel her caress on my skin and her call in my head. She tempts me today as she did all those years ago.

It’s been sixteen years since I broke off the relationship, in favor of family, friendship, and health. I hung up my rarely used whistle and shoved my over-used coaching shoes into a closet. I do continue to temp myself, watching football on TV or attending the occasional game. My senses say, “It can’t be that long ago that I last answered her melody, can it?” The calendar proves it is. Somehow, I can’t quite believe it…the desire to answer her call is just as strong today as it was those not so long years ago.

There is something seductive about the call, it’s more than the potential glory of a successful season. It is more about the people…it’s always been about the people. Relationships forged in the fire of competition. I miss those people, those I left behind and those I never got to meet.

There is something destructive about her song too. The unbelievably long hours, too little time with family. Arm chair coaches who have all the answers. My own loss of religion when plays or games go badly.

A week from this coming Friday I will face the day as I face all days, probably with an early morning walk or run. Despite my endeavors to keep my mind off my former mistress, her song will call to me. I will relive those earlier days and think about the young men I had the honor to coach. I will mull over great wins and heartbreaking losses. The pull will be strong but I’ll make sure Linda Gail ties me to the ship’s mast before I destroy my ship on the rocks.

HAPPY FOOTBALL SEASON to all.

Please take time to visit Don’s author’s page at https://goo.gl/pL9bpP or like his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/

THE RETURN OF THE RELIGION THAT IS FOOTBALL

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year…College Football begins this week. And what a week, games Thursday through the following Monday. I know there were this previous weekend, but this is the week the big boys “get after it” beginning with the West Virginny Mountaineers playing The Pittsburg Panthers. The weekend will conclude, for me, when the Clemson Tigers dismantle the Ramblin’ Wrecks from Georgia Tech.

I love this time of the year when Southern Baptist, Methodist, Catholics, Atheist, Buddhist, Muslims, and all other religious sects come together to worship at the altar of football. Instead of my God is better than your God, it’s my team is better than yours and the games get settled on the field.

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 as a religion. It is simply 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 now, I might have to give the nod for cheerleaders to Oregon. I don’t like the Green and “Yaller”, but the cheerleaders wear so little of anything there’s not a lot of it showing…Green and “Yallar” I mean.

I began my worship of football with limited prior knowledge of the game except for front yard pickup games, college football Saturdays and pro football Sundays and most importantly being picked last during recess pick-up games. Today it sounds like a lot of exposure to the game, but this was an era before cable and satellite receivers, internet connections and Wi-Fi hotspots. The only collegiate games were aired on a distant ABC channel that only came into focus when atmospheric conditions were perfect. Even with perfect atmospheric conditions, the teams were always playing in a black and white snowstorm.

The pro football game of the week, which truly was the only pro football game of the week, usually involved the awfully bad Washington Redskins until the playoffs began. Then I could pull for YA Tittle and the New York Football Giants. At least I got to see Sonny Jurgensen and Billy Kilmer play.

There were also syndicated play by play versions of games played by the then Baltimore Colts and the Fighting Irish. The Colt’s replays were hosted by Chuck Thompson and the Irish by Lindsay Nelson, whose voice still plays in my head and would explain why a Methodist boy from South Carolina became “somewhat” of a Notre Dame fan. The recess pick-up games are too painful emotionally to even go into, and I really don’t know how I avoided becoming a mass murdering serial killer.

I would become “football born again” 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. At the time George Sutton was the most celebrated football and baseball player to come out of tiny Indian Land and I wanted to see him play.

That is when I became a full-fledged Tiger fan and began to worship before the altar that is Tiger 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 even got to meet the “pope” of the gridiron Tigers, legendary coach Frank Howard.

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 at best akin to the self-flagellation practiced by certain religious sects or, at worse, hell on earth.

On the practice field behind the gym where we did all our drill work, morning worship began with the fog evaporating from the 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 us 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 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.

Time limits, unlimited water hydration and lighter, less water absorbent uniforms have changed the “sacraments” of football since I played and since I retired from coaching football. I think they are good changes although 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.

Was our football tougher? Most assuredly! But I don’t guess “three yards and a cloud of dust” was as much fun as the latest version. Parishioners have embraced the latest 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 increased. Still, I find myself worshipping at the altars of 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.

Good luck to all area football denominations, not just the Tigers and Gamecocks. The Paladins, Terriers, Blue Hose, Crusaders, and Indians…I mean Wolves. These, along with others, give us plenty of reason to celebrate and demonstrate our Southern gridiron faith…faith our team will complete the season successfully both in wins and over the devil himself…our in-state rivals.

For more unique life stories by humorist Don Miller visit his author’s page at http://goo.gl/lomuQf

FORTY YEARS AGO

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Forty years ago, on a Monday much like this one, I stood on a practice field awaiting the start of football practice. There would have been great anticipation and nervous excitement this particular morning as there always was great enthusiasm on the first day of practice. By Wednesday’s afternoon practice, bumps, bruises, muscle soreness and “dead” legs would strip the some forty or fifty players of their enthusiasm…but this was still Monday morning.

The practice field, freshly cut low was adorned with sharp white lines. The grass would be moist with the early morning dew, as it always was for twenty-nine years. Before the end of practice, the air would become uncomfortably hot and humid. For twenty-nine seasons hot and humid was always this way. Football in the South begins the last week of “hot” or the first week of “hotter still” and no matter where you are in the deep South you cannot escape the late summer heat and humidity.

This would be the first of two practices, the second would begin with even more heat and the humidity would continue to rise higher as practice went on until it finally concluded with ten perfect plays and ten perfect forty yard sprints. Blow an assignment or a snap count, we started over at one. Forty or fifty young men dressed in orange helmets and shorts, with short, light gray tee-shirts, now dark gray with perspiration. This is the fortieth anniversary of Mauldin High School’s one and only region championship in football. Maybe being the only one is why it is so special.

For those not familiar with the city of Mauldin, located in the upstate of South Carolina…or too young to remember, it was more rural than city forty years ago. The town was a strip of businesses and industry laid out along a crossroads navigated by people on the road between distant Columbia and nearby Greenville. There was no “named” main street and only a couple of signal lights on US 276 to impede their travels. The population was scattered from the outskirts of the small town of Simpsonville to the south and north to Interstate 85. It is part of an area now known as the “Golden Strip.” A couple of years would have to pass before it attained the moniker. Little was golden about the strip in those days, just a few business and a citizenry primarily located in suburban developments separated by large tracts of land farmed by families who had been in the area for decades. We were so rural it was easy to be viewed by our rivals as the “Southern Rednecks” of the county. I would say, at the time, we took this to be a compliment.

The community had embraced this “newer” school, beginning its fourth year of existence. Because of its youth, athletic success had been fleeting, especially in the area of men’s sports. Everyone…community, student body, faculty and administration seemed to be holding their collective breath as the season began. It did not take long for them to exhale and our team’s enthusiasm seemed to be a transmittable disease. As the victories piled up so did the fever pitch of our fan base.

Forty years ago we played old school football; “butt blocking, put a hat on ‘em, slobber knocking, knock his d!@# in the dirt” old school football. We didn’t know it was old school, we thought we were on the “cutting edge” of football innovation with our “acid soaked” tear away jerseys. Like most schools we were a run first, pass “when all else fails” or as my wife, Linda Gail, continued to point out throughout my career, “The forward pass is not a trick play.” For us it might have been. We weren’t a “three yards in a cloud of dust” kind of team, we were a finesse, run the “veer option and get the ball on the corner” kind of team and we did it well.

There was nothing finesse about our defense. We did our best to intimidate on defense…which we did quite well…and yes maybe we were a little dirty. We taught “eyes to the throat” and “run through the ball carrier till you hear glass break” tackling. We used the face mask as a weapon. It wasn’t we wanted to intentionally hurt people…well, maybe we didn’t want to hurt people. We did give a “skull and crossbones” helmet decal for the “Hit of the Week”.

The ’76 Mavericks were ten gallons of fun poured into a five-gallon bucket. It was inevitable some of the fun would spill out and it seemed much of the fun was agitated by one particular member of the team, Bucky Trotter. Any time I talk to a former team member, Bucky Trotter’s name comes up. Who else would deliver a Halloween gift to the opposing team’s captains? A dead squirrel hanging from twine fashioned into a hangman’s noose. I recently spoke with the Greenville High coach from those days and he remembers it well…and not happily I might add. An intimidating HELTER SKELTER chant after quick cals dissolving into something resembling a bar fight, a Wednesday night meal followed by a “fake fight” held in different areas around the community, one so realistic the police were called out. Thursday practice “war games” were followed by the coaches meeting at Jay’s for steak…for eleven straight weeks. Every Friday the coaches had to go to the principal’s office to rub a good luck charm we called “the little man with the big d!@#”, a small brass figurine with a big d!@#. These were a few of the rituals we employed to feed our superstitions and to keep ourselves amused.

Yep, more fun than a barrel of monkeys. Friends and former peers always ask if I miss coaching football. I miss the game night competition, I miss the bonds formed with players and coaches but I have not missed many practices. This group might be the exception because they made it fun. Everything was a competition, a chance to prove themselves. It didn’t matter if it was a game or practice, every play was a chance to excel or grow. I remember the daily linebackers versus offensive linemen board drills, three on three drills and the now banned Oklahoma drills. There was no going through the motions. Fun but also special AND NOT JUST TEN WINS SPECIAL.

I hope we have a reunion. I have put a few bugs in a few ears. A chance to rekindle old friendships and a chance to relive old memories. 1976 was a special year, in a special place with a special group. It would be fitting to have a special celebration.

Don Miller has also written three books, including “Winning Was Never the Only Thing…”, stories from forty years of teaching and coaching. They may be purchased or downloaded at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

CIRCLES

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I wonder how many YEARS of my life have actually been spent driving mowers and tractors in circles? In my own yard, on football and baseball fields? Finishing up where I started only to do it over again…and again…. I find that my mind drifts with the repetitive mindlessness of the job…until I run over something I shouldn’t or cut a clump of Linda Gail’s flowers.
This time of year, the hot and humid doldrums of summer, my mind “circles” to twenty-nine seasons as a football coach…despite not having coached football in fifteen years. It’s been that long? With the coach’s clinic this weekend I am reminded that the football season is just around the corner. The smell of my freshly cut grass, along with the heat and humidity, takes me to the fields of my past. Twenty-nine first practices followed by twenty-nine first games. Fields freshly manicured with sharp white lines almost glowing from the reflected light from above.

In some ways my twenty-nine seasons were a study in frustration. Eight seasons finishing above .500 and a small, very small, handful of break-even seasons. We have at least three coaches in South Carolina with eight or more state championships during their career. It gets much worse, five of those winning eight seasons occurred during my first nine seasons. Three winning seasons over the last twenty. My own tenure as a head football coach boasts one winning season, six wins out a total of thirteen over four seasons. What made me think I was head coaching material?

I spent this past Friday morning with best friend, former boss and Linda Gail’s former high school classmate, Mike “Hawk” Hawkins. I was lending “moron” support as we attempted to erect a backyard swing from scratch. The “blind leading the blind” didn’t quite describe it. More like the “blind leading the stupid.” Somehow with a bit of “cussin’” on my part and a lot praying on his, we got the job done. Maybe it won’t collapse in on itself. More importantly, being around “Hawk” reminded me of why I coached football for twenty-nine years despite the frustration. It was the people and the personalities surrounding high school athletics.

My last game coaching football was Mike’s last game as head coach at Riverside. No man could have put more into a program than he did but it wasn’t in the cards. My first five years as his assistant netted two winning seasons and a couple break evens but then the wheels fell off the jalopy. To quote Linda Gail and thousands of others, “You can’t make silk purses out of sow’s ears.” We had great kids who tried and worked hard but were “athletically challenged” proving that you could do most everything right and still not be successful. Weekly we found our X’s to be much smaller and slower than our opponent’s O’s. Tasting just a bit of success is what made my last game much sweeter.

I don’t know how many games we won my last year…it wasn’t many. It doesn’t matter because we won the last one. A playoff bound Mann team came to the River and our kids rose up and smacked them in the nose. Hawk devised what I have always called a “bastard” defense, throwing caution to the wind and our kids executed it. As the seconds ticked down a senior defensive end who, in a normal defense, would not have been dropping into pass coverage, did. Geoff Rigsby intercepted the confused Mann quarterback to ice the victory…my last victory. I didn’t know it was my last game at the time. I was living vicariously through “Hawk” who was being carried from the field on the shoulders of his players while what few fans were in attendance were bring down the goal posts…well bending the goal posts.

A friend who used to coach with Hawk and I, Rick Scott, once said, “Winning is better than sex.” I bit, “How is that?” “Sex only last a few minutes. A win lasts all week long.” Well! I would guess he is correct. I’ve enjoyed my last win for fifteen years.

For more humor by Don Miller click on the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM