The New Football Coach

I live in a small town. A unique, well-defined, little community in the shadow of a booming metropolis. First ring suburb, aging, middle class. Houses close together, all alike, one right after the other. You don’t even have to be paying attention, and sometimes, you can hear your neighbors discussing the new high school football coach.
Our town’s high school has never been known for its athletic prowess. Every so often, we’ll surprise the conference and play competitive games and maybe even win a district championship or two. In the 60’s, a few state championships were even secured. But we were never a serious, consistent contender. Never a dynasty in any sport. Every student knew it, every resident knew it, the entire state knew it. But it didn’t really matter. We always had academic excellence on our side.
But as mediocre as we are when it comes to sports, it was still hard to swallow five straight years of losing by our football team. Five straight years of winless football. We were a joke, the sure victory for any opponent, no matter how bad they were. Academic excellence aside, it was a wound into which salt was rubbed Friday night after Friday night each fall for five straight years.
My son was a football player in this dismal program, and suffered the embarrassment and indignity of never winning a game in the first three years of his high school career. He was chosen to serve as co-captain of the team in his senior year and that same year, the new superintendent of schools, recently hired away from the big city school district, lured the big city football coach, of the state championship winning team, to run our football program.
The fact that this new coach, and most of his staff, were African American, only added to the discussion worthy nature of this small town happening. These unsuspecting, championship winning, big city coaches were coming to run a program that historically had attracted mostly white students and repelled many of the good athletes. Most black athletes didn’t participate, and when they did, it didn’t produce the desired results, either for the individual players or for the team as a whole. Like the school itself, the potential of the diverse population hadn’t yet been realized.
When practice started in August, the new coach’s hard work to recruit any player who had talent appeared to have paid off. For the first time in years, the bench was overflowing and the faces of the team reflected the school’s diversity that had evolved over the last 20 years. Day by two-a-day, the team began to have hope that maybe this would be the year they would finally win a game. As the weeks of preparation went on and the players worked harder and had more expected of them than ever before, they couldn’t help but imagine a “worst to first” scenario that would create a stir, surely across the conference, and maybe even across the state. We parents, ever the realists, tried to manage expectations from the grandstands, but secretly hoped that the players’ dreams could come true. And we subconsciously hoped that the experience of this newly integrated football team and their potential for success would translate into the easing of the unresolved race issues that continually brewed at the high school.
When the team lost their first game of the season, it was heartbreaking for the players, the coaches, the school and the entire community. And when they lost their second game, disappointment threatened to turn back into the apathy that defined five years of football in our town. When the third game started, against a team much like ours, the stands were half full and hope was all but dead. Once again, we felt like a joke, the perpetual losers.
Which is why, when my son, a linebacker, intercepted a pass in the second quarter, it caught us all by surprise. When that interception turned into a touchdown, we were stunned. And when that touchdown looked as if it would actually turn into a winning game, we were all beside ourselves. By the end of the game, the stands were full as kids and parents called their friends on their cell phones, telling them to get down to the field to watch the team win. Towards the end of the game, the fences surrounding the field threatened to break down as students waited to rush the field once the clock ran out, victory finally in hand.
And when the game did end and the cheers finally died down, the most amazing thing happened. The entire student body, it seemed, was on that field, surrounding the team, and the coach as he did his post-game wrap up with his players. The silence was more deafening than the recent cheers of the crowd. There wasn’t a sound other than the soft voice of a man who had worked a miracle.
The team won a few more games that season, five in all, and lost some games, too. Certainly not a “worst to first” scenario, still not a serious threat to anyone. But it felt good to win for a change. And as far as improving race relations, let’s just say tensions eased a bit. All of the kids had something to share – the pride of having a winning team, and the realization that there was a place for everyone on the team.
Throughout the fall and winter following that memorable football season, the local cable access channel played that first winning game over and over again, and we would watch it every time it came on. My favorite part during every repeat was when my son intercepted that game-turning pass. The look on his face, the eyes wide open in surprise, the smile of excitement, the slight flash of fear, captured all the joy of accomplishment and the anticipation for what was coming next.
I live in a small town.