By Spencer Michlin, 90.1 Commentator
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-481033.mp3
Commentary: Coach Brown
Dallas, TX –
On a recent Monday, I hauled my overweight body over to the Park Cities Y where I work out and was drawn to an open sided shade tent on the playing field out back. Beneath, about 30 grade school boys were sweating in their new football uniforms. The fourth through sixth graders stood the way they've seen NFL players stand, helmets on hips, shifting their weight from one padded leg to another, listening to a large black man in shorts and a white t-shirt alternately preach, scold, cajole and inspire. He didn't need the whistle around his neck for the world to know that this guy is a Coach.
A ridiculous number of years ago I was one of these kids, playing on that same field, so I stopped to listen. The coach lectured the boys for about 15 minutes saying the things coaches have always said and, one hopes, will say forever absolute and unconflicted instructions about teamwork and character, nutrition and conditioning, right and wrong, discipline and respect. He told it in a way that parents and teachers cannot, because a coach occupies a unique position in the life of a young person an authority figure, to be sure, but also a friend who loves the game just as much as the kid does and in the same ways. Inhabiting an unambiguous world governed by a rulebook whose clarity a parent can only envy, a good coach can make those rules palatable by presenting them in a context that kids can understand and accept.
This coach--his name is Noel Brown--caused me to think about the many coaches I've had over the years and how they were uniquely able to hold the attention and respect of a guy who's always had a bit of a problem with authority. One byproduct of hearing him was that I worked out a lot harder than usual that day. As I did, I thought about how many things had changed, especially the fact that the coach and his staff and a couple of the young players in this Parkie bastion were black--when I played Y football, Neiman-Marcus still had white and colored drinking fountains.
Even more, I thought about how much of the scene seemed eternal. The way the moms and dads listened outside the circle, smiling and nodding their approval at what they heard. The way the kids stood proud in their uniforms, ignoring their parents and hanging respectfully on every word Coach Brown uttered. The way he created a continuum, a brotherhood, between these young boys and everyone who ever played the game at any level. The way, in this football crazy part of the world, he conflated football and life, following the rules and self- reliance. That's not easy to do convincingly in a manner that doesn't insult adult intelligence, but Coach Brown brought it off because he emphasized, not the game, but the values that are the best, purest, most ideal part of all games. Sports is not life, of course, and God knows that sports itself often doesn't live up to its own standards, but whatever ideals many of us can still hang onto often began with a coach.
Most of all, I thought about how, of the, what?, couple of hundred teachers I had from grade school through grad school, maybe half a dozen stand out in my memories and in my heart, but how well and how fondly this relatively unathletic soul remembers nearly every coach. Thanks, Coach Brown.
Spencer Michlin is a writer from Dallas.
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