…and I miss my coaching days
For a good part of my young-adult life, I coached high school football and baseball at several inner-city public schools in and around Los Angeles. These included Hamilton, Crenshaw, and Fairfax High...and all of the schools had fairly good athletic programs. Both Crenshaw and Fairfax routinely contended for the city basketball title as well as several state championships which was no small accomplishment in talent rich California.
Their football teams were pretty good too...and there were several years at both Crenshaw and Fairfax where we played for the coveted city title. At both those schools, I was a part of a small but close-knit staff that worked together for many years. I was fortunate to tutor under two Los Angeles coaching legends (Ron Price and Earl Smith), and over the years their teachings made it possible to my way up the ladder from a line position coach to become the Fairfax defensive coordinator.
Among these high school coaching giants, I was literally a boy among men. However one of the interesting dynamics of the group was that the senior coaches were all pretty permissive, so I was by default, the team disciplinarian. Now admittedly, I was petty old-school. Because I was an unofficial adjunct coach, I was also unrestricted (or thought I was) by any faculty rules which barred overly strict player enforcement. Though I theoretically barred the use of profanity by the players, I periodically cussed in a manner that would make a seasoned sailor blush. In a nutshell, I was the resident hard ass that detested what I viewed as an increasing sense of entitlement and the lack of respect too often exhibited by young players (and this was in the late 80s and early 90s).
Ironically, I wasn't particularly thrilled with the Bear Bryant role…but because I wasn't a real X and O guy (I had immense strategy help from Coach Price’s more cerebral two sons), it kind of made sense to have me be the bad guy. While wearing this hat, I routinely rode the players hard, and I was especially rough on kids that didn't appear to have much parental guidance. By today's standards, I was pretty much over the line. If kids violated any one of the golden rules (arriving late, missing practice, insubordination), I was usually unrelenting in my response. Essentially, if you didn’t practice, you didn’t play…and if you were a jerk, you better like offense or the bench because you weren’t playing on defense. There were multiple times that I did things to kids that would get you immediately fired today…not to mention a myriad of embarrasing headlines about physical and mental abuse.
One of the worst kids I ever dealt with was a physically and athletically gifted gangbanging inside linebacker thug named Tyrell Winston. We had some real scholar athletes on that team, but this kid wasn’t one of them. Tyrell had natural linebacker instincts, but to me he appeared to be dumber than lint and about as incorrigible as any one player or individual I’d ever coached. I felt the script to his life-story had long been written, and I often thought we’d be better served to put Tyrell in prison now, and save society the inevitable crime. The troubled senior player had been a constant problem and it seemed like a miracle that his grades were good enough to make him eligible. While he was a pretty good inside linebacker, my patience with all his baggage was increasingly wearing thin.
By 1991 we had strung together a couple of undefeated regular seasons at Fairfax, and were clearly one of Los Angeles’s best smaller inner-city programs. We were playing one of the city’s worst teams (not sure but I believe they had been winless over almost three seasons) one Friday afternoon at Fairfax, and Tyrell had given me some lip early in the first quarter when I informed him he’d blown an assignment on the previous series. Needless to say, I put him on the bench instantly, and put in an understudy with a much, much better attitude. As far as I was concerned, I was done with the Tyrell and I was looking forward to telling him to turn in his gear.
Amazingly, Fairfax, one of the city’s best teams, was losing 3-0 at halftime. Knowing our team needed a wakeup call…I was actually savoring the experience and lingered a bit on the field watching the excitement of the Narbone players as they prepared to go into the locker room with what was probably a very rare chance at victory. As I left the field to walk up the ramp to the Fairfax locker room, a clearly inebriated twenty-something looking thug exited the Fairfax bleachers next to the ramp, and began to verbally assail me about Tyrell being benched. Though I’d coached at the school for three seasons, and recognized most of those closely connected to the players and program, I’d never seen the abusive drunk before and I wasn’t particularly interested in his coaching advice. To be honest, I’m not certain I even heard much of what he said, but he followed me up the path and continued to profanely wear me out about sitting one of the team’s best players, while we were losing to one of the city’s worst teams. Finally, after having about enough, I turned to the drunk and said something like “who in the hell (I didn’t use hell) are you?” The guy looked at me as though he was amused, repeated the question several times, and then proudly fired back “I’m Tyrell’s daddy.”
To be candid, I cannot even describe the epiphany-like wave that literally engulfed my body. I had grown up in an almost “Leave it to Beaver” setting, and to have this drunken stranger give me crap about his son hit me like a freight train. I quickly excused myself, and promised the man I would talk to him later. I walked into the locker room, and in typical fashion, too-cool-for-school Tyrell was standing by himself in the corner of the room. I walked up to him, and I could see he was preparing for one of my verbal admonishments. I asked him to come outside, and once we got to the shade of some nearby Eucalyptis trees, I said simply this. “Son…I owe you an apology.” He looked at me as though he was stunned and asked what for but I told him it didn’t matter why…I just did. I told him he’d be going back in the game in the second half, and encouraged him to play up to his athletic and academic potential. Tyrell played a great second half that afternoon as he did for the most part for the rest of his senior season. From that point on, I looked at him and coached him, through a different set of lenses.
We ended up losing that game (the Narbone player celebration was fun to watch), but it certainly was no fault of the defense and one talented inside linebacker. I’m often haunted by the fact that I treated Tyrell based on my own experience, and wonder how much more I could have helped, if I had a better appreciation for his challenges. Thankfully, perhaps based on that experience, I try to approach things more by putting myself in other people’s shoes. I don’t do it near enough, but when I do, things seem to go so much better.
It’s Friday again, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend. As you deal with people, try not to repeat the same mistake I made with that young player. We never really know what crosses people have to bear, and there may be a very good reason why folks act the way they do. If you can, spend some time this weekend with the people and pets you love. If you can, you might want to spend a minute or two with someone who just needs you to understand.
Have a great weekend.
*The name of the player was changed.
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