Usually the Coach is the teacher...

I was a decent jock in our small-town school, and lettered in football and track. Our high school had the regulation that all jocks had to spend at least an hour a day in physical education, even in the sports off-season. For most, this was a goof-off period, usually at the end of the day. But I was involved in several other extra-curricular activities, in addition to sports, as editor of the school newspaper and President of the Student Council I was having trouble scheduling any PE period. This caused a bit of a hiccup, until my counselor personally arranged for me to use the period just before noon to satisfy my phys ed obligation. I was relegated to the Athletic Department Athletic Office to spend an hour each day in a non-organized class. It was just me.

Since the various coaches at our school all taught other academic subjects in addition to the sports, it turned out that the only one that was there on a consistent basis was the Assistant Football Coach, Tom Alexander. He taught math, at various levels, and I had had him as a teacher as well as a coach. He seemed a lot older but was actually not that much older, in his mid-twenties, with a very gruff exterior. That gruffness seemed to compensate somewhat for the fact that he was much shorter in stature than he wanted to be, at about 5’7”. Built like the proverbial tank, he was very muscular and husky in shape, with an amazing chest and incredible biceps. Hairy chest, a flat-top haircut. His legs were muscular…but short! He had a marine like appearance in his approach to coaching and teaching, alike. “Thomas the Tank Engine”, a childhood book title, always came to mind when I looked at him. He was straight as an arrow, married with kids and seemingly tough as nails.

He and I had an uneasy truce for a bit, since it was just the two of us, but we settled into a routine as time went on and his gruffness often melted away. Every day at 11:00, I would show up and we would plan the hour. Sometimes we would shoot some baskets, sometimes we would jog around the track, and sometimes we would work out with weights. I was a good student, and we got to the point where I would even assist him in the grading of math papers, and that turned out to be a fun event for us both.

As it started out, he would come across a name of someone he was not familiar with and he would call it out and ask me what I knew about the kid. “Dan Morgan?” And I would respond “Geeky rich kid, with a sister who is a cheerleader for the junior varsity.” He would chuckle. As time went on, we expanded on the little ritual and I was also allowed to call out a name and he would have to tell me something about the kid. “Ashley Vane?” And he would respond with some comment about the fact that he was never going to work up enough ambition or brainpower to graduate, and we would both laugh.

It started heading off into a definite politically incorrect arena when we started doing physical commentary. The first time it ever happened, I had thrown out the name: “Bob Smith?” And he responded with the fact that Bob had the longest foreskin that he had ever seen on any kid in the