Friday, October 19, 2012

Week 7 Profile

He stands, an authoritative figure, and looks down into the dugout at the player. The player was a new one, who all of the others proclaimed a "Crazy kid," who they all liked however.

"One question Coach," the player asked, "Did he go?"

A rhetorical question such as this required careful thinking, the coach knew. He stood staring at the player for a minute. Then, he moves his arms in a 'safe' motion.

"No he did not."

The coach came up from Pennsylvania, where he had played college baseball as a pitcher. One thing that he always seemed conscious of, to the people around him, was that he was young. He was starting a new college baseball program, which is a difficult task for anyone, let alone that he was 23.

It is hard to be an authoritative figure when some of the players on your team are older than you, but he accomplished it, by always being mindful of his role as a figurehead for the players. He rarely unbent too much, though would talk about his music preferences and such. Otherwise, he volunteered no personal information except when asked about it. The players viewed him as a bit of a mystery, and a very good coach. It was difficult for them not to be a little bit in awe of him, as a group. His heavy brow, and highly confident air put himself apart from anyone else.

But he cared a lot about his players. One time, a player at a practice ran back on a line drive, leapt in the air for it, and it went just under their glove and hit them in the face. He was right there to diagnose it, and lead them to the bathroom to wash the blood off of their face and out of their mouth. From his experience, he could tell that it probably would not need stitches, though it was still bleeding heavily.

He also showed faith in his players. Unlike many coaches, he was almost reluctant to take a struggling pitcher out of the game. He just always said "Come on babe." Sometimes it hurt his team, as he would let the pitcher walk the bases loaded with a one run lead with two innings left before making a change. But sometimes, this would work out for him, as once, after a player walked two batters in a row and gave up two hits, he left them in, and they pitched another two innings without giving up a hit, run or a walk.

He was not just a manager, he tried to make the players as good as possible. When he saw an unorthodox or improper stance, for throwing or for hitting, he helped them out. He would open up their stance, work on them snapping their wrist better in throwing. He would work individually with each player, and tell them what they needed to work on to be a better player, to play more, to help the team more. He was always there to help his players with anything he needed, if they could get past his foreboding appearance.

And he found, in just two semesters, the pieces to put together a good baseball team. Good enough to beat the reigning champions of the division, and to make the playoffs. Which for a first year team, was pretty impressive. And a good part of it was purely because of his coaching.

3 comments:

  1. Straightforward, clean prose, material the audience senses you are in complete control of as you write: there is emotion in there, but it's always held in check, which to me is a virtue while writing a profile of a relative stranger.

    Part of that control seems to be a conscious decision to minimize the 'colorful' material, the immediate moments, the game crises. We are told, not shown, and while the usual deal for writing teachers is 'show, don't tell,' I find the restrained tone and style of this material completely persuasive.

    I only question one thing, the 'show' moment, which is very nicely done, but--what is the player talking about? Is 'did he go' a question about a checked swing, a balk, what? That continues to puzzle me, and I'd be obliged if in a response (not in the piece itself necessarily) you cleared up that little mystery!

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    Replies
    1. I don't really have an answer for you on that. The other players mainly call him a crazy kid because he will say utterly random and strange things for apparently no reason.

      One of them is "Did he go?" he will suddenly just ask someone that, and they will say safe or out, once they figure out what he is going for. He also started a trend of saying "You're gone" to people, and "Your warned."

      There's no reason to it, except that he started doing it, and has continued doing it, but that was when he actually asked the coach.

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  2. Ah, I get it. I was thinking you meant 'crazy' in a general way. But you mean he's calling out random catchphrases and puzzling people. And the coach found the way to deal with him successfully....

    Okay, that wasn't quite clear, but the rest was luminous.

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