Swan Song XXXIV--gym rat

No faces rise from the pages of this old scorebook.  The names are here, game after game, and an embarrassing tally of final scores--we lost far more than we won.  But the simple fact that I don't see a one of these players of mine when I read their names, not a single face, is the real story.  

Once upon a time, more than anything else in the world, I wanted to be a coach. When, as a college freshman, I met the professor assigned to be my adviser, I put down history as a major, not because I was all that interested in the Civil War but because there was no physical education major at Dordt College in 1966 and the only way I was going to get a chair in a high school gym's coaching office was to have some kind of major to go with the whole coaching thing.  I did my high school years in a gym, wore a jock more than underwear, and  wanted more of all of that life.

But after two seasons of college basketball, the physical truth became imminently clear--I wasn't as good as I once thought I was.  I played baseball for all four college years, however, and when I graduated there was still enough gym rat in me to be thrilled to coach freshmen basketball at Black Hawk High School, South Wayne, WI.  

We didn't win much there either. I'm not sure we won at all.  And an odd thing happened--I realized I cared much more about A. E. Housman, about "To an Athlete Dying Young," than I did about breaking a zone press.  Basketball was fun, but I was no fanatic. That life had simply fallen away, like snake skin.  

I once shook hands with an opposing coach while I coached hoops in Phoenix.  The guy eyed me as if I was some boxer about to climb in the ring with him. I knew what he was doing--he was working at intimidation, and I laughed because I knew at that very moment that I'd never coach again.  I just didn't care all that much.  

When I found this old scorebook in a file drawer, when I pulled it out and paged through it, no more than a half-dozen memories arose, ghost-like, from its pages. Greenway High School, Phoenix, Arizona--my freshman basketball team. 1975.  

Here's one story.  I don't see his face anymore, but I remember that one of the kids was tough. He looked tough and he was.  Once upon a time in a ball game, a ref called a technical, pointed to him, and then came over to tell me that he just didn't like the kid's looks.  I swear that happened.  I didn't scream because it probably made sense--the kid did.  

Once upon a time I called that his father because I must have needed his help. I don't remember having a ton of trouble with the boy, but I probably had enough to call home.  Here's what the kid's father said:  "Good luck--I haven't been able to do anything with that kid for the last three years."  

I loved teaching in the city, but that story became symptomatic of a malaise I attributed to our time and place and public education and Western civilization.  How on earth is a teacher supposed to control a kid his father quit on three years ago?  

And then there's this. We lost a ton of games, I remember.  In fact, when I page through this scorebook, I'm surprised we won at all.  After a loss somewhere, we climbed on the bus--we were one-half of the freshman basketball team; there was another team too--the green and the gold--and another coach, a friend of mine who taught history.

We lost and I was mad at the world.  Or just sick of it--I don't know which exactly.  Think of it this way, I was un-talkative, maybe even a little surly, just plain tired.

My friend Sam was a good guy.  We got along because both of us cared more about the classroom than we did the gym.  Anyway, Sam was in the seat behind me, and he started talking to me, not loud, just talking, the guys behind us in the bus jabbering away for fair.

"You know, Schaap, here's what I think--think of it this way," he said, his arms draped over the seat.  "The way I see it sometimes when I feel like that is that you just gotta' remember that there's somewhere close to million people in San Diego, California, who don't really give a shit."  

That line will stay with me when this book is long gone.  San Diego will always be there when I tell myself that things can't get any worse.  Life-long therapy.

Things you don't learn on the court.  They call it a classroom.  Maybe it is--or was.