So get ready for some football...and some other stuff too

Most Mondays during the Coastal Conference football season at Fairfax High School in inner-city Los Angeles were pretty much the same. After working all day as an IBEW electrician in downtown LA, I’d jump into the Amelco Electric company service truck and dash down 8^th Street toward the West Hollywood campus on Fairfax and Melrose. As a young rookie defensive coordinator, I looked forward to getting started with the defensive scheme for the week. As a weak X and O guy, I wasn’t particularly adept at putting together effective defensive plans, but I was blessed with two talented fellow assistants (Steve and Chuck Price) who were among the best in the business at analyzing opposing offenses and developing strategies to stop them. What I could do fairly well is implement their often complicated (at least for the high school level) game plans…and after devoting my weekend to watching hours of opponent’s game film…I always looked forward to Monday afternoons and breaking it all down on the chalk board for the kids.

We’d often hold the Monday pre-practice chalk sessions in a classroom near the field, and I relished walking into the room full of expectant players to explain our game plan for the week.  Though I was only an unproven assistant to Los Angeles football coaching legends Ron Price and Earl Smith, their often permissive approach required me to be the resident hard-ass, and for whatever reason, the disciplinary role seemed to suit me well. I often think back to that crazy environment, and recall fondly how many of those kids literally craved the rigid discipline.

One particular Monday in 1990, we held the meeting in an old vocational woodworking shop…filled with mothballed tarp-covered machines like old lathes and drill presses that were holdovers from the days when the LA Unified School District prepared at least some kids for the inevitability of a job or career that didn’t automatically presume a college education. The room just looked tired, and it had also become the destination to store several items that were no longer or seldom in use. For some reason on this day there was an old upright piano in the room, and as the team made up of tough inner-city kids sauntered in for the afternoon meeting, I walked over to the piano, pulled up a folded chair, and lifted the lid to expose the keys.

 It must have been quite a scene, seeing their often profane, construction-working, cigar chomping, old-school coach sit down at the piano in Levi jeans, cowboy boots and a cutoff sweatshirt (I’d change into coaching attire after the meeting) because it didn’t take long for the rambunctious streetwise teens to start heckling with things like… “check out coach thinking he’s Elton John and shit” or “coach Billy Joel  is running the defense this week.” Unsure how the piano would sound but convinced the kids would think it was a trip, I decided to play and launched into a medley of 40s, 50s and 60s standards… none of which many of the kids had probably ever heard.

As expected the piano needed to be tuned, but I remember being struck by how good it sounded. Though the kids were merciless with their caustic but admittedly humorous caps when I began, they pretty much quieted down the more I played…if nothing else probably somewhat surprised by what they were seeing and hearing. As I continued working through my limited unimpressive repertoire, my defensive mentor Earl Smith strolled over and stood by the right side of the piano. Coach Smith still seemed like a giant of a man to me, and though well-into his 60s at the time,  as a former UCLA tight end he still possessed a rare combination of athletic prowess, good looks and a smoothness that most people only dream about. As I segued into a rendition of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” Coach Smith caught me, and the entire room off guard when he began to sing the lyrics with a deep velvet tone  that would have made Nat King Cole blush…and Johnny Hartman smile. As I struggled to accompany Earl continued to croon, and as the two football coaches worked through the classic number, I had a hard time actually playing because Earl sounded so darn good. Quite uncharacteristically the kids were almost silent, no doubt astonished at the surprising spectacle that was unfolding in this otherwise conventional football setting.

I didn’t know it until that day, but coach Smith had actually sung quite a bit as a youngster…and even put some time in with Johnny Mathis as I recall the story. As we wrapped up the tune the room broke into thunderous applause (and some additional insults…not the least of which was an Ebony and Ivory reference that still cracks me up). Always the educator, Coach Smith used the setting as a teachable moment, and as the applause and laughter died down, he reverted to his coaching role quickly with some profanity laden admonition that went something like… “let that be a lesson to all you narrow-minded dumbass jocks…just because you’re an athlete…it doesn’t mean you can’t learn to do other things.” Well, to be honest, I don’t have the talent or the words to adequately convey the magic of that moment. In all honesty, Coach Smith’s impromptu and memorable rendition of that Platters’ classic was unlike anything I’d experienced up until that time…or for that matter…any time since.

When I was a kid, I HATED taking piano lessons, but my unrelenting union electrician and WWII vet dad  forced me to sit there every day and practice for at least 30 minutes. Under the supervision of my mother’s watchful eye, I’d work through scales, exercises and various pieces for a torturous thirty minutes. Often, the excruciating practice sessions were made worse by the fact that the piano was in the front of the house…and I could usually hear my friends playing football out in the street. Some days there’d even be the added agony of some kid like Billy Horning coming to the door and asking if I could come out and join the game, only to be told that I wouldn’t be out until I was done “practicing piano” (you can imagine the reception I received when I finally made it to the huddle). On those especially painful days I could sulk with the best of ‘em, and I recall my father would say something like “someday you’ll be glad you’re the guy that can play football…and play the piano.” Well, the football player thing never worked out very well (search this blog for UCLA…it was ugly), but for a few years in the early 90s, Fairfax High’s football team was undefeated in the Coastal Conference and we contented each year for the coveted Los Angeles city title. As it turns out we were awfully good on the gridiron, and thanks to my dad (and Coach Smith), we weren’t bad on the woodshop piano either.  Dad was right again.

Have a great weekend and if you can, try to take the time to do something fun. If you need some evidence that there is indeed a god, college football begins in earnest this Saturday so there is no longer any reason to be a skeptic. Come to think of it, there may even be a good Michael Feinstein Sinatra Legacy special on PBS you can take in after a game.

Never ending love for you...