Go Teach … and Make Friends with the Coach

               Go Teach … and Make Friends with the Coach

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/10/18

            The high school I was teaching in was doing well in basketball, mainly because of a single player who could not be stopped by any opposing team’s defense.  He was, as they say, a hoss.

            This outstanding player was a senior, an humble, quiet lad who struggled in my senior English composition class.  I admired him because he stayed in the struggle and never gave up.  He wound up being a good writer, but more importantly, a stellar example for his classmates who viewed him as the athletic star that he was.  Happily, he took advantage of the positive pressure placed on him to do well.

            Jarvis was one of the few black students in the school.  His coach and I had the same lunch period and discussed him often.  We knew he wanted to go to college but would not be able to without substantial financial help. 

The coach and I knew about a junior college in Mississippi with a reputation for both academics and high ranking basketball teams.  One day at lunch we made a decision and a deal.  Since the coach had always wanted to visit this junior college, and since I had not visited my home state in over a year, we decided we should take Jarvis to check out the college and fulfill our ulterior motives at the same time. Coach would drive his car and buy gasoline.  I would pay for our overnight lodging.

            Leaving with Jarvis early on a Thursday morning, we stopped for breakfast just before reaching the Georgia-Alabama line.  It was a truck-stop that serves the kind of breakfast Southerners can’t resist.    

We chatted with Jarvis during breakfast.  Or tried.  The coach, like all others I have ever worked with, exhibited the skill of getting a timid youth to relax and talk.  Jarvis began to open up.   We consequently learned more about his family and how he had helped support his family since he was 12.  Mixing this new knowledge with the character he had displayed in my class, I admired Jarvis even more.

            I already knew that the coach thought highly of Jarvis himself, not just his athletic prowess.  As Jarvis related an amazing story of fatherlessness, poverty, and a strong, struggling mother, I watched as the coach arrested a tear that almost escaped his eye.  Our respect was fast turning into deep affection for this young man of character.

            Walking to the car, we were hailed down by a young white man who had exited the truck-stop a few yards behind us.  When we turned toward him, he blurted, “That’s a mighty cute black boy you got there.  You gonna let him ride with ya?”

            Something came over me.  I blurted back, “Yeah, we are.  But you better be careful ‘cause he don’t like rednecks.”  Full disclosure: I’m an educated redneck.  I respect good rednecks, but this was a bad one.

            To my surprise the coach and Jarvis reacted to my retort with looks of fear, and so did the redneck who snorted something unintelligible as he rushed to his pickup.

            Inside the car, the young coach who would never call me by my first name said, “Mr. Hines, what you said scares me a little bit.  That dude might follow us and do no telling what.”  He was right.  I was hasty.  That dude did follow us closely for several miles but finally exited the interstate. 

 Over a decade older than the coach, I admired him for challenging an older man’s action.  I admired him more for following up with Jarvis and helping him get the athletic scholarship he badly needed.

            This coach’s concern typifies all coaches I have worked with.  In two states and in five schools, coaches have been my study.  Motivators, encouragers, and generally people of joy, they have set many a Jarvis on the right path, not all of them athletes, just youths at the school who need direction or help.  The one bad apple I’ve known never represented or marred any of the other coaches I’ve known.

            Schools need a mix of both young teachers and old.  I wish more people approaching retirement would consider teaching as a second career.  It’s a tough work, but getting to know  the coaches will help.  They will infuse, delight, and inspire.

            I hope coaches are getting some summer rest, but I know what their minds are on and I suspect that, actually, they are incurably restless, but in a positive, productive way.

Roger Hines

6/6/18