Coaching Can Knock Your Socks Off

I knew it was just grade school basketball, but it was pretty exciting for me. The fact that I was to coach a great group of students certainly helped. The adrenaline during a game is hard to describe and even harder to contain. For me every huddle required quick thinking, strategy, and hoping the players would execute. They usually did.

After each time out or stoppage a play, I had to quickly remind each player of what they needed to do. In less than a minute, they had to take a drink and listen to my excited instructions. As they left the huddle, I sat down and calmed down. Part of this routine involved adjusting my clothes, specifically pulling up my socks.

I did this without thinking, and it became a habit. When you teach or coach adolescents, they tend to note anything you do repeatedly. For me, some of the girls were keeping track. 

At the end of the season, at the annual basketball banquet, I received this gift. I never put them to use.

My life is not as exciting anymore, and I own better fitting socks.

Heroism often is refusing to quit

One of my heroes, actually heroine, emerged during the 1974-75 school term. Title IX, requiring equality for girls in athletics, passed in June 1972. The rule making following the legislation took a while. Implementation at the elementary and secondary level took even longer. In 1974 we experienced the first effects.

Often we fail to recognize that everything had a starting point. Even though people in education assume that programs that operated when they were in school have always been there, in fact they have not. That beginning often occurred because of individual courage.

Those who begin things often do it in an environment of criticism. Sometimes they are laughed upon or even harassed. Even more often, those in charge of the status quo, resist and attempt to stop those pushing the change. In this environment, it is the courageous who succeed. Determination to carry though while subject to unpleasantness and discouragement is a true measure of a hero. When this hero is an adolescent student the courage displayed is remarkable.

As with much federal legislation, the hammer was money already being provided by the federal government. Also like much legislation, additional funding to implement did not trickle down to the school. Without funds to pay for coaches, uniforms, referees, gym space etc. we failed to implement athletics programs for girls. We had plenty of excuses, but the girls we taught did not want to hear excuses.

Basketball at Albany Grade School was the king sport. Boys started playing competitively at fifth grade on the 5-6 level and continued though grades7-8. Both levels often had over thirty boys participate, and we didn’t cut the team. Parent support was exceptional as were local organizations who gave us money for all types of extras, but there was no money for the girls.

We had a great program going for the boys. Gerry and I were happy and successful coaches. Then in 1974, the girls said they wanted a share. A number of girls decided they would join the boy’s teams at the start of the season. With the force of federal rules behind them, we had to let them participate. We did not have the courage or foresight to support them. We wanted the girls off the teams.  

  

We always emphasized conditioning at the beginning of the season. We would run the boys for laps and wind sprints (which they called “killers”). That season we added more conditioning than usual. We wanted the girls to dropout. We wanted them to be cheerleaders not players. So we ran every night for the first two weeks.

One  of the boys who didn't want to play basketball decided to try for cheer-leading. The selection process was by popular vote for cheer-leading, so he was allowed to try and make the team.He was voted in. We probably thought of that as payback.

The six or so girls who joined my team quit. It wasn’t fun. The boys were not enjoying it either, but they had social pressure to stick it out. The girls had social pressure to quit. Gerry was a task master as well. All of the girls on his team quit, except one.

The basketball season began in October and ended in February. Practice was held every week night and over breaks. If you played basketball, it dominated your life for five months.

Gerry and I were serious about the sport. We were emotional about the whole thing and we demanded perfection. For five months she endured the drills, the late nights, and the pressure to quit. All the boys got in games before her, so she had almost no time on the court. Perhaps if she was a great athlete, she may have played, but we will never know.

She had the determination to stick it out. She set the example and she finished the season. Her courage led to change.  He also finished the cheer-leading season.

We knew we had to start a program for our girls, and so I volunteered to begin a program as soon as the boys’ season ended. In our ignorance, we actually considered that she couldn’t play on the girls’ team. She had finished a full season, and it was discussed that it would not be “fair” for her to get to play a girls season too. Fortunately we realized that this was a stupid position for us to take. She, more than anyone, had earned a position on the girl’s team. 

So this courageous young lady taught us all a lesson. She taught us that one did not need to “earn” equal treatment. She taught us that all students needed to be treated equal. Quite a lesson for a young girl to teach her teachers. She remains a heroine for me. Thanks LuAnn and Tim for being heroes when we needed them.

Hilary or Peter?

 Hilary or Peter?

The year was 1975. Connie and I were pregnant with our second child who was due in late May. I was teaching science to 6-8 students at good old Albany Grade School. I was also a basketball coach and track coach.

What else was unique was the implementation of Title IX. For those of you who were not around, Title IX required all schools receiving any federal funding to offer equal sports opportunities for girls and boys. For Albany Grade School, this meant basketball and track.

After several girls unsuccessfully (except for Lu Ann) joined the boys’ basketball team, I decided to voluntarily begin an early spring girls’ basketball team. As the coach, I found coaching girls to be a completely different experience from teaching them, but I will write more about that later.

What this did do was put me around the girls for more time every day. Since we lived in Albany we saw the girls a great deal. This caused them to get involved in the goings on in our lives, and they were quite excited about the coming baby.

Now back at that time, the dark ages of pregnancy, parents didn’t know what they were getting. There was the “ring test” , the “carrying high or low test” and “moody vs mellow” test”. These tests were fun, but not reliable. There were no ultrasound 3D photos and movies. There was no furnishing and painting the baby’s room before birth. More importantly, name selection involved both genders.

Our first child, Scott, was named Katie until he actually arrived. This second child also had some names, but I had not disclosed these to the gaggle of girls who were always super interested in the upcoming birth.

Never mind that I hadn’t disclosed our baby naming thoughts, the girls decided we were having a baby girl. Their suggestions can be viewed above. Of course, even though they were all sure the baby would be a girl, my students hedged their bet a little.

On May 21, looking very much like the Michelin man, our baby girl arrived. We were showered in baby gifts from the junior high girls, who were so excited that we had a girl of own. No, we did not name her Hilary.