Nobody in charge of youth activities today would get away with what he did in those days. You can still represent the ideals he espoused, but the methods and the madness he employed would put him well outside the employable mainstream. He wasn’t a bad person, then or now, but the expectations of the times, and the perceptions of community have undergone a sea change in the intervening years
He got away with most of the dystopic behavior he inflicted on students because he won football games. As the new coach in the new ‘replacement’ school, he inherited the losing sports record of the previous less-than-hallowed institution. He wasn’t about to inherit the stigma as well.
Nobody ever truly knew his background. Drill sergeant, penitentiary warden, abusive father issues–all were candidates to explain him, and believable. None went to the everyday personality he lived out of. He was just acceptably mean.
If you met him in the hallway, “Morning, Coach” might elicit a vestigial smile–if you were one of his star players. If not, the most you could expect as he passed (don’t make eye contact), was a self-absorbed impersonation of a confident man. “Meet Dr. Jekyll, but give him a wide berth,” was his unspoken salutation delivered in reverential silence.
It didn’t take an entire year of abusive physical treatment at his practices to expose the Mr. Hyde temperament he employed to complete the analogy of his existence. Egregious fault-finding, enraged bullying, berating, and general dissatisfaction were his go-to reactions. If that wasn’t enough, he invented a post-practice punishment routine he fondly labeled “chambers.” The honor of being ‘invited’ was for those deemed to have been ‘dogging it’ at any time during practice time. Chambers was not as bad as it sounded–it was much worse.
Ropes were strung in a grid pattern, about a foot off the ground between two logs. The entire assemblage was placed over the dustiest, thorniest spot on the playfield. At his direction you hopped on one foot or two, stumbled, tripped, and crawled your way through it. Maybe only twice if you were lucky. That was the only time during practice he was visibly amused.
It wasn’t all his fault. Parents, administrators, teachers, students- everyone in the system who had longed to erase the lean-victories years and the disparaging comments of an entire city, nay, region, were onboard. The experience was routinely referred to as “character building.” As long as there were no physical scars or observed personal striking by hands, nothing other than winning mattered.
He produced that. Before his last year, he had emblazoned across the practice jerseys distributed to the A-team, his terse philosophy of life: “Will to Win.” If you didn’t earn one of these jerseys, you branded yourself “Loser.” There was no middle ground.
When I was about to enter the Coach Ford era of my football years, I flinched. Bigger, more intimidating examples of teenage boyhood were plentiful. Even though, as the runt of the litter, I had developed a reasonable reputation as a standout player on previous school teams, that didn’t make the decision any easier. I rightly perceived that I was about to enter the arena as an odds-on favorite NOT to make to the A-team.
I longed to be there for some reason, so I opted for “junior team manager” to appease Our Lady of Perpetual Acceptance. There would be many real and imagined age-group and personal demons to face. The decision didn’t make it any easier to live in Coach Ford’s world. Why I wanted to be there is still a big question.
As you might expect, my self-inflicted position didn’t do anything to endear me to anyone, school-wide. Reputations at the school were built on your ability to play or talk a good game. “Junior Team Manager” was the lower-than-lowest platform in a world largely inhabited by Coach Ford wannabes.
Even so, I was on the team bus on Friday nights. I could rub up against the winners, belong to the mystique that I needed to inhabit for the immediate future. There were no expectations that the blessings that Coach Ford cast upon his anointed minions would ever grace my life. Masochistic tendencies aside, the election, my choice produced the expected amount of verbal abuse that might be received.
I earned some of this pain by nature of my kinder, gentler nature. “Take some water out to the dead guys,” was Coach Ford’s misunderstood command to offer relief to our team during one forgettable game. I thought I heard “dead guy,” so not only did I try to deliver water to the opposing team’s player who was currently prone and under medical care at midfield, but in the process, temporarily neglected to provide the same for my own parched team.
The bus ride home was a sea of derision up and down the aisle. My reputation was set in stone for the duration of the year. Oh, yeah, I also got to experience “chambers” personally the following week.
I lived through that era, somehow. I’m not sure how Coach Ford came out. His teams won nearly every game every year, but the last game of the year was always with the cross-region ogre “farmboy” rivals who beat us roundly. Was there a letdown by graduating seniors because there was nothing left to fear?
No one would admit the obvious. Rumors ran rampant that no player wanted to experience the abusive horror of Saturday morning practice after losing Friday night. Now the season was over for graduating seniors. For everyone else, the pain was a whole year away.
The winningest coach in school history never got that perfect record he so completely sought. He quit while he was still behind and then disappeared into the cobweb-covered schoolyear annals.
As for me, I played on the team for a new coach after he left. We lost half our games, but it didn’t matter. Everyone was happy just to be there.
Author: Al Tietjen
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