"You can't have a good football team, unless you have good football players!" --- Frank Wagstaff, Huxley College, Class of 1932
Good Morning!
But you do need a coach.
Could you imagine being a bad coach, knowing you were a bad coach, and then seeing one of your players inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame on Saturday?
Of course you don’t mention the bad coaches, you like to leave those people in a locker at the bottom of your memories. Accessing them only when they can serve an illustration on how NOT to live one’s life.
Bad coach, the one who doesn’t care. This is the kind of guy who is with you when the day starts and then is done with you the second practice is over.
Practice with this guy consists of him teaching you one play, just one. If guys are screwing around he doesn’t care, he just wants you to learn that one play. When his two hours are up on Thursday, he blows the whistle, gathers you around, and tells you Friday’s game again conflicts with his bowling schedule. He won’t be able to make it.
(True story)
There’s no assistant coach and no transportation. So literally you are left begging someone’s mom to pile a dozen 11 year old boys into her car (No seatbelt laws in those days)…The quarterback (me) is put in the trunk with a flatulent offensive lineman (true story)…While the least talented member of the team “Jack” will meet you at your opponents field with “Ron, The Mechanic”, who has agreed to be your coach for the day.
The only catch to “Ron, The Mechanic” pacing your sidelines is “Jack”, who is incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time, has to become a featured player.
You end up playing a team worse than yours…They call you “Jerry’s Kids” as you unpile out of the mom’s Vega and reach into the shopping bag to pull out a tee shirt with a number on it.
(Note on Jerry’s Kids: While not cool to use that expression today, it was very common to reference a bad team as such in the 70s & 80s.)
Then the most unexpected thing of all happens…You win. Instead of calmly puzzling your way back into the Vega, your team cusses out and flips off the players you just beat. The rush back to the car looks like the last American helicopter leaving Saigon.
Rocks and other objects start pelting the four cylindar automatic and your teammate whose butt is partially hanging out the window. (True story)… Those safely behind the glass respond with a good luck in Hawaiian sign (middle finger) to the defeated opponents…
Monday’s practice starts…Coach shows up…Puts the whistle in his mouth…and you tell him you won at Potrero on Friday…His eyes light up; “Did you run the play?” We lie.
“I knew we would do well,” he says. “It was a good week of practice.”
He calls us “Men” that day at every turn then blows the whistle and says: “I have a bowling tournament on Thursday and Friday, I won’t be able to make it this week but keep up the good work. I’m proud of you.”
These coaches never make the Hall of Fame, not even in memory, but they stick with you.
Note to Coaches: The players you coach today, will coach your kids tomorrow…What will they say about you…what will they remember…It is something more than wins and losses, something more than blowing a whistle, something more than a game plan…It is a chance to influence forever in the positive the lives of those you come in contact with…
Do it…you may not make it to the Hall of Fame…but you will be remembered forever as a good coach…and a better man…
The Dude abides…
420
Fanview Lite appears most days Monday through Saturday
Contact Joe at joe@midvalleysports.com
Leave a Reply