"Oh! Another play in Sports
Illustrated ten worst play of the year!" the coach exclaimed.
Naturally, I was nervous at the tryout. And no, the coach saying things such as this was if anything rather detrimental to me. He was constantly making fun of players, me in particular. It was my first season out of little league, on the school team, and even though I knew the majority of the players, the coach did not make it easy for me.
On the first tryout, he had me helping
the other students with their algebra.
"You're in ninth grade, you can
help them."
Unfortunately, at that point I was
still rather struggling with algebra myself, and was only able to say
"I don't know."
And his expression displayed his
thoughts clearly that he thought if I didn't know this, I should not
be in ninth grade.
There was one time that after we had
ended the- for me- terrifying experience of riding the school bus to
the field, that the batting helmets which were stringed together fell
apart when someone tried to pick them up.
"Who took them onto the bus?"
the coach asked.
"I did," I admitted.
"Look, just go home," he told
me. "Go home!"
Being terrified of him, I glanced
around me nervously.
"You don't have a humorous bone in
your body, do you?" he asked in a scornful manner.
"No I don't," I said, glad to
have something I could fully comprehend in my petrified state.
On the school bus to another game, he
started asking me about what I did in homeschool that day. At that
time, I was to the point where I was mainly struggling with algebra
and chemistry (Which to me, struggling was taking a few months to
start to understand it. And everything else I had already completed.
And sometimes I had to take a break from these two subjects I was
struggling with. But I did not want to say that I had not really done
anything that day, so I said the truth, that I had mostly done
science.
"Really?" he responded
disparagingly, "We have science day on Friday, apparently Tom
here has it on Tuesday."
Later, he asked me another question:
"What television do you watch? Do
you watch Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill..."
He went on to list of a bunch of
programs I had heard of in advertisements, that I said "no"
for each time.
"Hey everyone!" he exclaimed
to the entire bus of the baseball, softball, and track team, "I
found out Tom's favorite TV show, it's Sesame Street!"
At some points, I thought of quitting
because I was so uncomfortable because of him and the bus rides, but
I continued, and returned the next year.
The next year, I could realize what he
was doing. He did the exact same thing he did to me at the tryout,
sort of razing the youngest or unknown players, making them feel like
part of the group. This year, I was comfortable with his teasing, and
was able to tease back.
He kept picking on me for just barely
missing out on a perfect game by two walks in the third inning of a
game we won 20-0 in three innings.
"Why did you have to walk them? You cost us the perfect game!"
I made a diving catch where I caught
it, landed on my elbow jarring the ball up into the air, I rolled
over, looked up, and caught the ball barehanded. I walked back into
the coach in the dugout.
"I'm so sorry Tom," he said, "Sports Illustrated just left. Just left."
I made another diving catch at the end
of the year, and he said "Sports Illustrated was here for this
one Tom."
In one year I was able to understand
him better, and to really appreciate him. The other players said that
on the final test, he didn't want anyone to fail, so he gave them all
hundreds without looking at it. One player said how he only did the
first page of four, and the teacher gave him a hundred.
He had an unusual style of teaching,
and coaching, but he most definitely cared about his players.
This is very vivid, each anecdote adding its weight to the portrait you create. These are telling anecdotes, ones that are focused and undeniable in their import.
ReplyDeleteBut I must say that I disagree with you completely about your evaluation of the man and therefore must disagree with your choice of material--there's no way to transition from the cruelty and bullying of year one to the caring-but-teasing fellow of year two. You assert it, you tell us, but the second year stories sound nearly as bad as the first year ones.
Tom, you can't really think it's a good idea for a teacher to not look at tests and just assign an arbitrary grade! That's serious professional malpractice! It's practicing fraud on the people who pay you! It's pretending that laziness is somehow transmuted into 'caring.' It's saying that likable people deserve good grades, whether they know anything or not.
And it completely devalues the months you, TG, put into really learning things like science.
I just loathe and despise this man from your description, so the ending is a total turn off for me. That's not to say you have to agree with me or you have to change what's here, just that you should consider that for your audience there is a definite cognitive dissonance between what you show us about the man (utterly convincing) and what you tell us at the end (utterly unconvincing.)
I think that my problem was that I understand what he was doing. I did not at first, which was why it was difficult, but I understood later, but I don't think I could convey that into this. Normally I would try to make it work better, but I am not certain that I really could. Because I understood that he was making fun of everyone in a friendly way, but I don't think I could express what made it like that.
ReplyDeleteI think it's easy to convince yourself, to rationalize that what you are doing is motivating people. But, not to keep beating this dead horse, it just seems like cruelty to me.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is one of those things that are difficult to explain. I was in the situation and understood what he was doing the second year. But I don't think I could convey it to the reader.
DeleteYou can't tell your English teacher that X is just tooooo difficult to explain!
ReplyDelete:)
Holy hannah, man, 'difficult to explain' is what I make my living off!