Meditations from the middle of nowhere

Worries and wonderings in preseason from a head football coach

It’s 6:30 a.m. Do you know where your football team is? You haven’t had your coffee, nor a chance to bond with your wife or girls, but already the questions mount. I mean, you were 7-5 last year and went to the playoffs and you’re supposed to be good this year. Still, you wonder. Will we be? Can we be?
Thoughts follow you to breakfast, nudge you while you sip your coffee, sit poised at the tip of your brain while you make small talk. The fence in your head is getting wider, opening the door for more agenda, more questions, more problems.
Get the copies to the coaches. Send Coach Railey and Green out to line the field. Work out the new offense with Coach Green. Pray to the Good Lord above nobody gets hurt.
Are the vans gassed up? Will the kids be here on time? Will camp go smoothly? Only nine more practices until we open. Nine! Can we really put in everything on time?
You’re an AHDD times 12 and you can’t help it. You kiss your wife; love on your daughters. You’re out the door. Words from a Jackson Browne song pop into your head: No matter how fast I run, I can never seem to get away from me.
Yeah, that fits.
It’s off to school. It’s 10:30 a.m. You better hope you know where your football team is.

What is it…Newton’s Law? When things go wrong, they can. Or they will. The copier isn’t working. You put the paper in and all you see is a picture of a wrench on the screen. “Call for service.” You sigh. You fret. You stew. You find another copier.

It’s 12 noon straight up. The kids and their parents are all here. You’re off to camp today for the next four-plus days – camp being THE most important part of preseason. Things must go well. The team must gel. Xs and Os must be followed down to the letter, down to the dotting of the ‘I’s and the crossing of the T’s. Much information must be crammed into adolescent heads. They must soak it up like a sponge on steroids.
Parents kiss kids goodbye. Kids, embarrassed, pull away. Getting kissed by parents before a football trip, after all, can be a bit uncool. They act aloof. Still, they smile and muster a wave. They say they’ll behave, mind their manners, listen to their coaches, all that.
Two very large buses and a van head for I-85 north – destination – Seneca, South Carolina, wherever that is. It’s in the middle of nowhere – and it’s been planned that way. Nothing but days and nights of football. Yeah, that’s it.

It’s 1 p.m. and your cell phone rings. One of the kids, it seems, forgot his equipment. Could they possibly pull over on I-85 and wait for the father to bring it to him? An executive decision, the first of a million-plus that will take place in the next three months – is made. You ask the bus driver to pull over. You wait. Your head is spinning. Exactly how many wind sprints will this kid have to run to make this up? What is a fitting punishment? It doesn’t work into your agenda, but such is life. Life is, after all, what happens when you’re making other plans.
Still, that doesn’t make things any better. You throw down your clipboard and you wait.

You just ran the Sunday night meeting. Captains were named – Jack Farrell, Connor Randall, Cam Loughery and Mo Green. You’re pleased with the selection. They’ve earned it. In a new spin, you let the seniors and the captains run the meeting. You want the players to have some control over the team, let them mature enough to handle things for themselves. Let the pride instill them, fill them, and blend onto that field come August 29th and beyond. Riverwood beckons, after all, as well as a region schedule that won’t quit. No rest for the weary, they say. Then again, exactly who are they?

It was Newton’s Law, wasn’t it? You’re in the middle of your first practice, not even the first X or O has been implanted in the young’s heads. A bee, without any particular agenda or knowledge of the upcoming season, stings sophomore Zac Scott. And stings him twice! Scott, as fate would have it, is allergic to bees.
Off he goes to find his epipen. You’ve never experienced this before, yet you are the head coach. He is, after all, your responsibility. You rush off to find Zac. He’s gone, to wherever his meds are and to whatever room he’s in.
You find him. You watch while the trainer does her thing. You’re relieved. Scott is okay. You’ve learned something. And now, the show must go on. Time waits for no one, even a football team that has a player with two bee stings.
You get back to coaching, and preaching, and teaching and motivating. You do love this line of work in spite of everything. You smile.

You put them through the two-mile run. All make it, including the coaches – Stillwell, Miller, Forrester, everybody’s getting into the act. All is smooth again – except for the fields. They are a dust bowl. It hasn’t rained up here since Carter was president. The lines are all straight – thanks to Railey and Green – but there is nothing but dirt out here. You’re blowing brown gunk out of your nose so alien they could make a movie out of it. It’s gross, sure, but it’s a part of camp. Like the flu, it invades your staff, the players. Still, you soldier on.

You give the kids a break. Let them go swimming. Let them bond. Coach Forrester slips down, bumps his head on the dock. You think he has a concussion. You’ve worried so much about the players you forgot to think about the coaches. Forrester – concussion – day-to-day. You’re even thinking in terms of injury reports already. Not a good sign.

Another day, another injury. You’re holding out Jay Curnin. He, too, got a good bump on the noggin and must sit. Injuries – from a coach or a player – isn’t anything to mess with. You don’t have to think long about implications, warnings from doctors and athletic directors, all those. He sits. It’s an easy decision. You hope many will be that easy. You laugh. You know they won’t.

It’s Tuesday. Man, what happened to Sunday and Monday? Signs of tempers are being shown. Players push and shove each other. The great Georgia Bulldog announcer – Larry Munson – refers to these as “chess matches.” Coaches intervene. Coaches actually expect this. After all, it is Tuesday. Tuesday is known as “The Wall” as far as camp is concerned. Marathoners have their wall. Why can’t football players?
You’ see good things from these kids. Very good. You see bad things from these kids. Very bad. At times you want to pat your coaches and yourself on the back. Until the next play. Then you berate, you get frustrated, you wonder. High expectations? Really? Did they just see that play? Would they understand? You blow your whistle. You tell them to line up and do it again, and for God’s sakes, get it right this time. Sure, you can get away with that on some dirt-filled field in Seneca, South Carolina. Back in Atlanta, though, there will be hell to pay. The score on the opposing side will immediately increase by six if this continues to happen. You fret. If you had more hair, you’d pull it. You take it out on your hat.
Practice goes on.

It’s the last afternoon practice. Tuesday has turned in to Wednesday. The players, when finished, will enjoy a cookout. They will perform skits. They will laugh, bond, enjoy, forget about life and August 29th and all it stands for. Let them be kids. It’s the one easy mistake coaches and parents can easily make: forgetting that they are, only 15 or 16 – prone to break out in song or a video game war or a hackey sack game or a game of cards. Or maybe a gossip session or a manic time of cell phone calls, minutes left be darned.

Taylor Hammond gets the biggest laugh. He impersonates Strength and Conditioning coach Peter Tongren. His imitation is spot-on. The players/kids/future adults appear at ease. The cookout and skit show has proven its purpose. All unite, enjoy, feast, slap backs in unison. It’s great to be a coach sometimes, isn’t it?
You enjoy the moment. After all, sometimes it isn’t.

It’s the last practice. That law again that we referred to earlier, yeah, you know the one. Connor Randall, your potential Division I football recruit, has tweaked his ankle. And it wasn’t even during a contact drill! He just rolled it, just enough to make you worry, just enough for that fence to open up inside your head, just enough for several like it to join in and take up arms. You look at your depth chart. You look at Connor’s ankle. You look at it again. You worry. Maybe you should’ve gone to med school after all. You were smart enough. Weren’t you?
You put Connor on the sideline. You send trainers and any form of medical help you can find to his side. August 29th is sitting heavy in your head. Like a cancer, it just grows, no chemo in sight.
You finish practice.

You try to make sense of it all. Yes, it was a good camp. Concussions, bee stings, lack of equipment, tweaked ankles, broken copiers and sinus problems notwithstanding, you got a lot accomplished. The kids, with not too many distractions, have been instructed, whistled at, yelled at, prompted, goaded, influenced, instructed, coached, congratulated, laughed at, and then some. How much more room is there up there in those crowded adolescent minds? Can they fit more? Will they?
You’re going back to Atlanta today, hopefully with all your kids and all their equipment. There’s an intra-squad scrimmage tomorrow. No rest for the weary. Camp was good, yeah it was. You’ll tell the reporters, if they ask, how much you got done, how well they played. It will sound so effortless when it comes out in print, so final, so A-to-Z without any hitches in the middle.
Words, summaries, what do they know? Would they understand unless they were here?
You don’t know, but you don’t have time to worry. You must pack. Load up U-Hauls. Clean up after yourself. Get the kids home in time. Get back to your family. Speaking of, your cell phone rings.
It’s your wife. You’re in charge of making dinner tonight. You must get home, get the kids situated, pick up your girls, spend time with them, do laundry, unpack and make dinner.
So many roles, so little time. So many Xs, so many Os. August 29th. Depth charts. Injury reports. Scouting reports. A scrimmage. And do you make lasagna or spaghetti? Are your girls ready for school? Do you have any more laundry detergent? Will your wife like your cooking? Will we play good tomorrow?

After all, it’s your last scrimmage. Only a few practices left before… Well, you know. You put down your cell phone and you smile.

After all, how can you not?


Dunn Neugebauer and Ryan Livezey
August, 2008
Pre-season football

Dunn's date report - Volume 2

So she’s sitting across the table from me – we’re at Hudson Grille at Brookhaven – she’s got a bandanna strapped around her head, blue jeans on and a tight shirt. She’s versatile – she could have walked out of the movie set from “Easy Rider” or she could fit in at a sports bar. Doesn’t matter.

Her face is smooth – a zit could never even think about taking up residence on that mug.

Me, my hair looks okay but my face looks like I spent last night blocking punts. I’ve got on nice shorts and a collared HIES staff shirt, tennis shoes and nerdy socks.

We’re talking and we find out that we both attended the same tennis camp as pups; she as a 12-year old and me 15. I wouldn’t have noticed back then; all I knew was that my backhand was okay but I couldn’t hit a forehand for shit.

We’re talking some more and we find out that we both hate onions.

“I didn’t think anybody else hated onions,” she says.

And, later in the conversation: “I played rugby at Mt. Holyoke and I was a hooker.”

Man, I’m thinking, this could be my lucky night!”

“No, no, no,” she says. “A hooker is a position!”

Oh, even better!

“I mean, a position in rugby!”

Damn!

She also tried out for crew, where they told her she had to be a coxswain. All I heard was cock, so my mind took off again.

“Gee Chuck, the date started out okay, then it went downhill in a hurry.”

But I’m on a roll. She’s laughing and leaning across the table. Now, according to the IHOS (International Handbook of Studs), if a girl leans across the table, this is excellent body language and might give you some hope of at least getting to first base. So I’m telling jokes and lies and more jokes and telling her about my job at HIES and about how loved and important and respected I am at my position as Head of School and she’s talking about her job teaching at Galloway and I’m thinking, “You’re hot, you’re hot, you’re hot.” I mean, her lips are moving but that’s all I’m hearing.

Finally, she asks, “Georgia or Georgia Tech? Which do you like?”

Oh shit, fifty-fifty chance. Don’t blow it, don’t blow it!

“Er…Georgia?”

“I HATE Georgia,” she says.

“Damn, and I was doing so good with you!”

She laughed. Another fifty-fifty down the tubes.

Anyway, we pay the bill and I take her home. This, as you might have read from a previous date report, is always the hard part. So to speak.

She invites me in and we’re sitting on the couch. We’re playing with her two dogs. She’s right next to me. I’m thinking I’m gonna plant one on her so hard I’m gonna feel like my face got caught in a tackle box. Go for it, go for it.

There’s a devil on one of my shoulder. I look to the other for comfort. Oops, another devil. To do it or not to do it? That is the question. I feel inept, sort of like Kevin on the Wonder Years. I can even hear the music, “What would you do if I sang out of tune…”

Holy shit, would you concentrate!

“I have to get up early so I guess this is good night,” she says. She stands up; I stare at her butt, then stand myself.

We walk out to the garage. It’s dark. She gives me a big hug. I can’t get Joe Cocker’s voice out of my head. “Get by with a little help from my friends.”

She hugs me, then drops her head, a big negative according to the IHOS. The hug, however was good, positive, embracing.

“We’re running Sunday, right?” she says.

Cool, a future date. Damn the IHOS and everything it stands for.

I go to the car, kissless, but with my face still intact. It could have gone better but still, tomorrow, as they say, is another day.

Editor’s note: It’s always a pleasure and a severe case of tragedy reporting my cases of inept-ness in the dating scene. Maybe I should’ve held on to my ex-wife. She didn’t like me very much, but she was rich and had one helluva microwave. “Hitch your wagon to a star…” Please respond with advice or ask me politely to quit sending you this shit. Just wanted to give you some brain-dead reading before school starts.

Still single but holding my own (so to speak),

Dunn
James Dunn