NATIONAL COACHES DAY ‘24, A STUDY IN BLACK AND WHITE OF WHAT YOU NEED: Yesterday, October 6th, was National Coaches Day. I’m intentionally late in posting on October 7th, but we’ll get to that. Coaches do so much that no one sees, no one appreciates, their effort will never equal the paycheck, & the moment you fail, well folks will bail on you faster than a Baptist will turn on the new preacher. Football coaches in Knoxville & Tuscaloosa found out that awful truth over the last weekend. The top photo is my favorite of Miss Julie’s coaching career & this Friday, we’ll celebrate 38 years of her coaching with my last name. Thirty eight years of early practice & late dinners, of cold winter days keeping the pool running & one hot summer when a pandemic left a 350,000 gallon concrete hole, 38 years of the success of a swimmer finishing first or just finishing. There is no indication in that photo from the 80’s of a win or a loss, no idea if the result was a PR or DQ, just a coach giving a swimmer what she needed. Which leads to the bottom pic of a much younger me & my coaches gone way too soon, Doug Moser (left, who we lost in 2019) & Paul Careathers (dec. 2017), two that gave me what I needed with a visit in the aftermath of May 25, 1978. Aftermath resulting in a plaster encased leg of torn ligaments & twisted joints, & an athletic career gone awry. They haven’t stopped giving. Coach Mo stressed fast break offense & man-to-man defense. His defensive mantra, “NEVER give up the baseline, turn your man inside where your teammates can help”. There have been some big boy darker days since May of ’78, I’ve given up the baseline a few times but every time I turned trouble inside, teammates named Faith, Friends, & Family were there to help & defend. Coach Careathers, well, I’ve used his advice on other big boy days that I’ve been less than optimal. One night proudly wearing my blue #5 jersey, I decided to be a hero & snatched a 38-6 victory from the jaws of a shutout. As I returned to the field after our opponents kickoff caused by my misdeed, Coach threw his left arm over my shoulder, his right hand patted the breastplate of my shoulder pads & after whispering the play call in my ear, he looked in my eyes, & followed up with, “…don’t be a dumb@$$ this time…”. Not the motivation I expected, but definitely advice I needed. Lately, the Purple Knight of Alzheimer’s has been denting my caregiver armor & causing some less than stellar performance. Every morning, I start with a conversation with my Maker, some mornings after coffee & over toothpaste, my second talk looks into the same eyes Coach Careathers did, consists of his motivational words, & I draw Excalibur, armed for the Purple Knight. Coaches, no gray areas offered, just the black & white of what you need…and now, from 2021, a piece (Moser- “Pine tar..” & Careathers “October…”) dedicated to each of these men


PINE TAR & TENNIS BALLS, LET ME TELL YOU A STORY: Insomnia has raised the curtain at 2:37AM & taken the stage between my ears with the thespian Memory & begun their play. Two years ago tomorrow, as a construction superintendent waiting on subcontractors to begin the day, I got news of Coach Moser’s passing, that’s him, back row on the right end. On an emptied, upturned drywall mud bucket, in a 15 minute fury of memories & tears & words I had a writing experience that Hemingway described as “…sit at the typewriter & bleed.” I began:

VANISHING POINT: I was in the first class Doug Moser taught at Elbert Long School. It was art, one of those nine week exploratory classes. I was no artist but I still remember what a vanishing point is. It’s the place where a painting fades into the horizon. With yesterday’s passing of Coach Mo, every man not named Dad or Grandad that impacted my youth, is gone, my life imitates art. They have all crossed the horizon…

My words that followed were more general, less personal as I completed my tribute. Two years on, it’s time to get personal, time to bleed again. It starts under that basketball rim. Coach opened the gym in the summer, I strolled in one day to work on my free throws. As I stepped on the court, dribbling a Wilson Jet, I noticed my baseball bat, my 33″ Jackie Robinson model, it’s thick handle coated with grip aiding pine tar precisely applied by me, leaning against the wall on the opposite end of the gym. Under the pictured goal, stood Coach Mo, glove on one hand & a supply of tennis balls at his feet. I had finished the just completed season with a less than stellar 0 for 26 slump, or as he put it when I asked what was happening, “you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a boat, we’re going to fix that.” I guess we did okay. Somewhere in a box is a trophy & in a scrapbook a photo stuck to a page with the yellowed patina of adhesive tape, recognizing my being the All City 2nd baseman the next baseball season. One truth, the trophy & the face in the picture should be his. He put in the same amount of work as me. The other truth, the effort to be Coach to his players was never ending. He was a constant star in my constellation & I’m confident he was in others, whether times were bitter or celebratory. There is no testimony without the test. When a spring football injury put me in a cast for a summer, he found time to leave his new job at his alma mater (a job that would result in a state basketball title) & visit me in the hospital. Through rehab, college, to my marrying your grandmother, your dad & uncle’s births, reunion lunches with teammates, sharing sad hugs when his first wife & your Great-granddad passed, comparing March Madness brackets, a note after a house fire expressing his belief in my ability to have a personal comeback & lead a family in one with a Benjamin added for anything I might need, becoming friends, he was, from that little art room to his grave, an important part of my life. As you get older, I’m sure you’ll get tired of hearing about that crackerbox gym & the people in it, but here’s why their stories will stay alive. Before your Great-granddad passed, I asked him what made that school, that gym often feel more holy, more consecrated, than our church just a quarter mile up the road. He never hesitated when he answered, “unlike most of our houses of worship, half the folks in a locker room ain’t faking it.” In the case of Coach Moser, he couldn’t have been more accurate. Somewhere, there’s a pine tarred bat & tennis balls to testify…



THE OCTOBER BELIEVER: Circumstances of this week have sent me on a confusing trip down memory lane. I’ve laughed at the times I cried & wept at the times of joy & laughter. Today, chasing a rabbit down the hole of YouTube, I stumbled across the October 20,1973 University of Tennessee vs Alabama game. Those two guys pictured were in the backfield that day. Almost three years after that game, 45 years to the day I write this, October 7, 1976, the guy wearing 32, Paul Careathers, showed me what a powerful thing believing in someone can be. We at Elbert Long School were playing the Irish of Notre Dame that Thursday October 7th. In the first half, I attempted 3 passes & completed all 3…to the Irish. Our halftime custom was that Coach Careathers & I would trail the team to our mid game huddle & have a quick strategy session. His words that day were short & cutting, with his arm over my shoulder & 7-0 deficit on the scoreboard, he said “I appreciate those guys were open, but they’re wearing white shirts & we’re wearing blue”. I spent the rest of halftime preparing to get the hook & my backup taking snaps. As I was making a few warm up tosses before the second half kickoff, he approached & my stomach churned anticipating the worst. He slung his arm over my shoulder again, leaned his mouth close to the ear hole of my helmet & whispered, “…there’s one guy that can bring us back & I’m talking to him”. At that moment, I would’ve signed up if he had said we were assaulting the Gates of Hell with water pistols. The Trojans came back that day, I even completed some passes to guys in blue jerseys & got one of those interceptions back playing defense but what I learned most was that words & belief in someone are robust entities. My Catholic friends & family will say that the patron saint of hope & faith is St. Jude. I would argue that his name was Paul & he wore 32 for the Big Orange…