Thanks for returning for another chapter of the Mayfield trilogy. I was amazed to learn that a couple of you have gone back reading some or all of the first two stories. It was humbling to learn the story had that kind of an effect on you.
This chapter is about a group of seniors who are torn by angst. On the one hand they were confident that they would have a talented baseball team. On the other hand they had the deep seated fear that just talent wouldn't be enough for them to live their dream. But, we also take a look at Marty. The person he runs into at a meeting brings up some of his deepest fears—fears he either can't conquer or doesn't want to conquer. Enjoy.
I can be contacted at thehakaanen@hotmail.com
CHAPTER 52 FEARS
<Tuesday, October 17>
The senior baseball players headed to Coach Sanders' classroom as soon as they finished their lunch. The Coach didn't mind the seniors coming into his room at lunchtime, but he wanted them to eat in the lunchroom. Of course, he also wanted a little down time for himself as well.
Eric was the first to enter the room. "Hi, Coach."
"Good afternoon, gentlemen. I know exactly why you are all here."
"Of course you do," Noah said. "You know it is because we appreciate your gregarious personality and the lively wit of your conversation."
"Or, it could be because you wanted to learn what I found out about the meeting of the State Athletic Board."
"Well, there is that," Noah admitted with a smile.
"I haven't received an email yet."
"It can't be that tough a decision," Danny said. "It shouldn't take them very long to decide."
"Danny, the board has more things to discuss than just where the baseball State Tournament will be held," Coach Sanders said. "Especially since they should have decided it last spring."
Danny blushed with embarrassment. He knew he had just made a fool out of himself and had looked stupid in front of his peers.
"It's okay, Danny, we all know the location of the State Tournament is the only really important business they have," Eric said. "No doubt, that is what you meant."
"Exactly," Danny said. "No doubt."
A muffled chime rang on the coach's computer. "An email from somewhere has arrived," Coach Sanders said. He jiggled his mouse to stop the screensaver and peered into the monitor. "It's the minutes from the Athletic Activities Board," he announced.
As he started reading through it, the gaggle of teens in his room hounded him to give them the decision. "You're not looking through `War and Peace' after all," Noah said.
"Like I said, they discuss a lot at the board meetings," the Coach told him. He couldn't help but be amused by the childlike impatience of the older teens. "Ah, here we are." He made a big show of reading the screen. "Hmmm, very interesting."
"What does it say?" Kraig asked.
"It says they decided to pick the third classification at random," he said.
"Who did they pick?" Lars asked.
"Nobody. They tabled it until the January meeting. They want to further study the ramifications of having three tournaments at Safeco on the same weekend, as well as the problems with last minute changes that would need to be made in the baseball schedules within that classification."
"Bastards," Hunter said. "Oops, sorry Coach."
"It's okay, I coached Connor and Marty for a few seasons," Coach Sanders said with a chuckle.
"Let's see, they are worried about their late decision having a deleterious effect on the spring schedule, so they decide to table the issue and make their decision even later," Noah said. "That makes a tremendous amount of sense."
"You have to learn how committees work," Coach Sanders said. "Quick decision making is not one of their strengths."
"Okay, gang," Eric said. "More will be revealed. Now we have to wait for three months while they make up their minds."
The group didn't leave the classroom, however. The remaining time in the lunch period was spent talking baseball. Coach Sanders noted that the seniors sounded confident—they exuded much more confidence than he was feeling about the upcoming season.
<Saturday, October 26>
The annual Halloween Dance was a big event at Mayfield High. It was always a Saturday night dance and costumes were the order of the evening. The costumes went from very sophisticated to simple makeup. Being teens, most of the participants were eager to judge their peers, while saying they didn't care what anybody thought of what they were wearing. In truth, everybody liked to have their egos stroked, even the students who came simply dressed.
But once the DJ got the music started and the dancing began, nobody seemed to care as much about who was wearing what. What did get everyone's attention, from the freshmen to the adults to the faculty at the dance, was who was dancing with whom.
The gay partners were not at all shy about dancing together, whether it was a slow dance or a fast dance. Some were asked by girls to dance, and they accepted. Some asked girls to dance with them, and those invitations were accepted as well. There seemed to be little animosity towards the gay students—the Mayfield student body had gotten used to seeing boys holding hands in the halls. This was not the first time boys had danced with boys at a Mayfield dance, but it was the first time somebody, either a student or a chaperone, didn't make a barbed remark of some kind,. The door that had been cracked open by the Donkey and the Dawg was wide open now.
The couples who danced were Eric and Noah, Hunter and Kraig, Lars and Kevin, Justin and Toby, and Chandler and Korey. Even some of the "straight" boys joined in as Danny and Carl did one dance together and Danny danced with both Eric and Kevin. Mikey danced with Chandler and with Korey. There were two girl couples as well; Linda and Holly, who were sophomores, and Krista and Anne, who were seniors. It was okay to be gay at Mayfield High School.
Dallas attended the dance, but was not in costume. He danced with a couple of girls, and was asked to dance by a lot of the gay boys, but he declined. For all of his bravado, Dallas still had some fear and uncertainty about his sexuality. He could admit he was gay in private, but couldn't bring himself to let the world know.
"With you two having all of those dances together, does that mean you are officially declaring yourselves to be gay?" Danny asked Korey and Chandler. The two sophomores, while having come out to their parents, had been coy about their relationship, even with Korey's twin brothers.
"Korey and I planned to be the best gay couple of the dance," Chandler said. Chandler was dressed in a black cape with a plumed hat and a black mask over his eyes. Korey was dressed as a cat, complete with a tail that managed to find ways of tripping him up.
"I guess that answers that," Kevin said. "Congratulations on having a great boyfriend, bro," he said to Korey.
"It's a good thing Keith is straight," Korey said, referring to their older brother, "or mom and dad would have totally freaked out long ago. But remember this; I have had intercourse with more girls than you have."
"How many do you claim?" Kevin asked.
"Just one would beat you, but I claim two and Chandler claims three."
"Are you sure you guys aren't just bi?" Danny asked.
"Positive, although pussy does have some positives."
"Name one?" Kevin asked.
"Don't need lube," Korey laughed. "Want to dance with me, bro?"
"I'd be proud to," Kevin said. Kevin was dressed as a policeman, which seemed to fit his often controlling personality.
The two brothers did a fast dance together; both of them deciding that doing a slow dance with each other might be pushing things a little.
Chandler did a slow dance with Linda, one of the sophomore lesbians. He and Linda were friends, and she was one of the three girls he'd had sex with. They were both fourteen when they did the dirty deed. It was something they felt was important to them, the two young adolescents testing their gay feelings, experimenting to see if maybe they weren't gay. After having sex on three different occasions, they both admitted they preferred their own gender. The two of them went their own ways sexually, but they became very close friends in the process of their experimentation. Chandler never tired of saying they had practiced safe sex.
Everything did not go as smoothly as it looked on the surface, however. The Monday after the dance Mr. Wilson, the high school principal, had to deal with a couple of parental complaints regarding members of the same sex dancing with each other. A parent was upset because one of the boys had danced with another boy and then had the audacity to dance with his daughter. Mr. Wilson felt like telling the parent he should be happy she was dancing with a gay boy; she was in no danger of being seduced and impregnated after the dance. But he kept quiet and said all the proper, diplomatic things, while making it clear that same sex dancing would not be prohibited at school dances.
As he told the principal of Monte High School on the phone later, his job would be much easier if he only had to deal with the students and could tell the parents to take a long walk off of a short pier. "I never heard any complaints or issues from students at the dance," he said. "But we have some parents who have difficulty moving into the twenty-first century." Not that it mattered, for Mayfield High School was almost a model in that part of the state for the tolerance of diversity among students. Mr. Wilson had a lot to do with the forward thinking at the school.
<Senior year, November 30>
Marty was the driver as he and George Bednarzyck headed to the Saturday night meeting in Centralia. Marty talked about all the preparation that a college baseball player went through in the offseason. He talked about his classes and his grades, which were all B or better. He talked about the meetings at the college and the other recovered and recovering alcoholics he'd met and befriended. His big news was having been a speaker at the campus Speaker Meeting.
"I think my story went over pretty well," Marty said. "This dude from Spokane said he wants me to talk at one of their speaker meetings after the first of the year."
"You do a great job of speaking and of presenting your story," Mr. B said. "I can see you talking in other venues as you get more sobriety. You don't know how proud I am of you every single day, Marty. I truly have three of the greatest sons a man could wish for."
"Even when the Hurricane is a Force Seven storm?" Marty asked with a chuckle.
"Even then."
It was birthday night at the Centralia meeting and the meeting hall was full. George and Marty found a pair of seats together. Marty was pleased to see Dallas a couple of rows ahead of him. He called out a greeting and Dallas turned and waved, giving Marty a big smile. The Schnoz was sitting next to him. "Milton took me to dinner at Parker's Steak House. Was that cool, or what?"
"It is cool. Milton's a good sponsor."
Dallas got up and walked the two rows back to Marty's seat. "Milton is to me what Sparky is to you," Dallas said. "Without you and Milton and Sparky I'd be homeless and under a bridge somewhere, probably drunk and stoned and passed out. I love all you guys."
"And we love you, Dallas," Mr. B said.
"Amen to that," Marty added.
The meeting started on time with the Serenity Prayer and then went through the usual opening readings and business. The birthday chip chair opened up the two boxes of chips and started his countdown. He started with 24 hours, which was a way for somebody brand new to pick up a chip. The chair then said, "Who has 30 days...one month of continuous sobriety?" A lady Marty didn't recognize walked up to the front, collected her chip, and told how she'd made it through her thirty days.
"Anybody else with 30 days?" the chair asked.
A man a few rows ahead of Marty got out of his seat. Marty hadn't noticed him in the crowd, but when he started to stand up Marty knew who it was. As soon as the man stood, Marty grabbed George Bednarzyck's arm.
"Oh, fuck," he whispered. "I don't believe this." The man he saw walking to the front of the room to claim his chip was Lewis Carlson, Marty's father. "I totally do not fucking believe this."
"Maybe I should have told you, but I decided it would be better if you saw it for yourself."
"Or maybe you thought I wouldn't come to the meeting if I knew he was here."
"That thought did cross my mind."
The two stopped talking as Marty's father collected his chip. Marty's mind was spinning so fast he didn't hear a single word of what his father had to say about how he'd kept sober for 30 days. Even if Marty had heard his father's share, he wouldn't have cared. As far as he was concerned the gray haired lawyer sitting to his left was his dad, not the redneck in jeans and flannel shirt standing at the front of the room uttering lies about his sobriety.
After the meeting, Mr. B was quite cognizant of how Marty and Lewis did their best to pretend they weren't in the same room. There was no happy father son reunion with the two of them gushing about the wonders of sobriety. There was still a lot of healing and growing that the father and son needed to do, whether they had 30 days of sobriety or almost five years.
<Senior year, December>
<Saturday, December 21>
[NOAH]
The four McCall boys sat in the living room engrossed in the movie playing on their big screen television. "We are all alone, you know," Noah finally said. "It seems nobody else wants to bring that fact up." Their parents were at a party and Lisa was at Jerome's house.
"What's wrong, Noah, are you afraid of the dark or something?" Shane asked.
"No, but we did talk once about having a little brotherly bonding before we all grew up totally and went our own way."
"We did?" Glenn asked. He had arrived that afternoon and would be staying until the day after Christmas. Glenn was twenty-five and finishing up law school at Gonzaga University.
"We did," Shane admitted. "We talked about having our first and last circle jerk together."
"We've all done things individually, or even in twos and threes, but never the four of us in the same room," Noah said. "Shane, Nicky, and I all thought a brotherly circle jerk would be something special."
"I'm game," Glen said. "I doubt the chance to do something like this with any of you will ever come up again."
"Oh, awesome to the possum," Nicky said as he pulled off his t-shirt, then kicked off his sweats. His was naked before any of the other three brothers could blink.
"Maybe we should do this upstairs," Glenn said. "We don't want to offend Lisa if she should come home early."
"Oh bullshit. Seeing her brothers naked and jerking off would not offend Lisa," Shane said. "Besides, I doubt that she will be coming home tonight."
"You mean she's going to sleep with Jerome?" Glenn asked.
"They all but lived together at college. I think by next year they will be living together," Noah informed him.
"I guess I've been away from this family more than I thought," Glenn said.
"Come on, everybody, get naked," Nicky said. The thirteen year old was already playing with his hard, four inch, cock. "Check out my hairs, Glenn. I'm getting more every day.'
"Impressive," Glenn said as he stood up to remove his lounge pants. His three brothers gasped as they saw his seven plus inch cock spring to life.
"Holy shit," Shane declared. "That thing is huge. I don't think I've seen it since you were fifteen or so."
"I saw that big thing before," Nicky said. "Don't try to suck that thing, you'll never get your mouth around it."
"The idea tonight isn't to give anybody a blow job, it's just to jerk off and shoot our McCall seed," Noah said.
"We should mix the cum of all four of us in a dish," Nicky suggested.
"I like it," Shane said. "Then we can get a brush and put it in Lisa's vagina. Nobody will ever know which brother got her pregnant."
"That sounds like something a Kentburg kid would say," Noah laughed. "Maybe after mixing it we could each eat the concoction."
The four of them were naked and stroking. Noah had placed a large bowl in the middle of the floor. "Our cum bowl," he declared. Twenty- five year old Glenn, nineteen year old Shane, sixteen year old Noah, and thirteen year old Nicky, were stroking on cocks of seven, six, five, and four inches respectively, give or take a few quarter inches.
Nicky surprised his brothers by walking on his knees to Glenn's chair and placed as much of his oldest brother's cock in his mouth as he could.
"Nicky!" Noah said.
Nicky pulled off, telling Noah not to worry, he wasn't going to swallow any of Glenn's cum. "That can wait until tonight in his bed," the thirteen year old said with a leer. "I just wanted to see how much of it fits, now that I'm thirteen and not eight."
"You sucked Glenn when you were eight?" Shane asked.
"He was a horn dog even then," Noah said.
"That he was," Glenn said.
"You guys sure kept that a big secret," Shane said.
Satisfied, Nicky went back to his own chair and resumed masturbating. The four naked brothers quit talking and concentrated on their stroking and on watching each other. Spit and precum was the lube of the day. Soon the fists were flying, and the requisite grunts and moans were being uttered.
Nicky came first. He kneeled over the bowl, let out a high pitch squeal, and shot his cum in and around the bowl. Noah had the foresight to put a large towel under the bowl, so missing the bowl wasn't a big issue, so to speak. Glenn couldn't help but remember how he got sexual with Nicky in Montana when his little brother was only seven.
Shane shot next, his mature cum mixing with Nicky's light, clear crude. Noah was a minute behind Shane and was soon followed by the oldest McCall brother. Nicky used his finger to stir what was in the bowl and then licked his finger clean. The other brothers followed suit. Noah couldn't help but think how he and Eric had become cum brothers. This time he was with real brothers who were mixing their seed and sharing their brotherly love.
"That was real," Shane said.
"Real? It was wonderful," Glenn told them. "Thanks for the idea bros. I don't think anybody will ever forget tonight's little adventure."
Nicky was in Glenn's bed long before their parents got home. The sex in bed was all about fellatio rather than masturbation. Their brotherly seed was shared directly. Nicky found he could get enough of Glenn in his mouth to make it feel good for his brother without making it uncomfortable for himself. He swallowed Glenn's entire fountain of cum.
<Tuesday, January 22>
Just like they had in October, all of the baseball seniors were in Coach Sanders' room as soon as they finished eating lunch. Blaine and Chandler, who shared the same lunch period, joined them. It was a coincidence that the ten seniors all had the same lunch period. Since the majority of the seniors had first lunch, however, it wasn't real surprising.
"Any mail yet, coach?" Eric asked.
"Not the mail you guys are looking for," the coach answered. "The way you are all reacting to this, it almost appears you think you have an automatic entry into the state finals."
"We know better than that coach, but we know we have a good team and a chance to get there," Eric said. "You can't fault us for being excited about the drawing."
"No, I can't—if they even have the drawing."
"You said the classification that goes to Safeco would be picked randomly," Kevin said.
"Yes, I did. And I also said that would only happen if they decided that three classifications would have their finals at The Safe this year. The chances are they will, since the grant they received has to be spent within five years."
They heard the ding of the coach's email. Coach Sanders took a look and said, "False alarm. It's from Mr. Wilson."
They didn't have to wait long for another ding. "That's the one we're waiting on." Coach Sanders started scrolling though the long email, looking for the information his team was waiting for.
"This better be good," Blaine said. "I was eating with a pretty hot chick."
"Eating with, or eating out?" Noah asked.
"Noah, keep it clean," Coach Sanders admonished.
"How did you end up eating with a girl? Was the girl's table full and somebody had to sit with you?" Kraig asked. Blaine, who was a junior, was apparently following in the footsteps of Rodney, and his teammates never let him forget it.
"I found what we want," Coach Sanders said. "The motion to include a third classification for the next three tournaments held at Safeco passed." That elicited a loud yell from the players. "The drawing was held to determine the third classification."
"And?" almost everyone asked at once.
"This year's third classification will be Class A." The cheer almost rattled the windows. "Followed by 2-A and then B within the next three years," the coach finished, as if anybody cared.
Coach Sanders let everyone have their fun. The excited buzz was good for the players. There was less than a month left before turnouts started. He would bring them all back to earth then.
<Wednesday, January 30>
[MARTY]
It was birthday night at the campus meeting. I proudly collected my five year chip. I received congratulations and hugs from the other members at the meeting.
With five years, I was one of the senior members at the meeting when it came to long term sobriety—at least at the student meetings. I've met a few faculty members at some other meetings who have been sober forever.
I didn't realize how much I missed the wisdom of some of the old timers at the Centralia and Mayfield meetings. I realize now that I liked what they had to say, members who had twenty, twenty-five, and thirty or more years of sobriety. I also went to a couple of Saturday meetings in Spokane with my friend Keegan, who had almost four years. They had been worth the long trip north from Pullman.
As I walked back to my dorm room, I thought about all that had happened since Rich and I had arrived on the WSU campus. Of course we had to turn down some party invitations, but we knew we would have to do that. I'd started attending the campus meetings and found good sobriety there. Rich was going to meetings for friends and relatives of alcoholics so he could learn more about the disease and those of us who suffered from it. Rich and I went to the baseball workouts with the team. And now, actual baseball practices had started. I had a full ride scholarship and Rich was planning to tryout for the team as a walk-on.
The last thing my mind turned to on my walk home was running into my father at that meeting during Thanksgiving. I couldn't believe the asshole would admit he was an alcoholic, let alone hang around long enough to collect a 30 day chip. My mother told me about his DUI and how he was court ordered to attend the meetings. I was positive he would quit going to meetings once his court obligation was fulfilled, but mom had told me a couple of days ago that he would be collecting his 90 day chip this month.
Whatever, sober or not sober, he was still an asshole who fucked up my childhood. He can get all the chips he wants, but that doesn't mean I have to talk to him. Then, as it so often did, Mr. B's voice spoke to me. It reminded me that I was supposed to forget the expectations I had and rid myself of my resentments. It said that I was supposed to love the son-of-a-bitch, and I was supposed to remember he had done the best he could.
I knew it was important for me to stop resenting my father, and to start loving him. I had to accept him for who and what he was. I knew I needed to do that because it was important for my sobriety and my growth. I also knew it was fucking hard to do, which is why I avoided meetings as much as I could while I was home for Christmas. I did run into him one time after that birthday meeting, but I did my best to ignore his ass, and it looked like he didn't want anything to do with me either.
That was probably best for both of us. It was best because I knew deep down that I was full of fear. I was afraid that if I stopped to say anything to my father, he would turn his back on me and ignore me. The thing I feared the most, however, is that if I stopped to say something to my father, he would grab me and hug me and tell me he loved me. The book talks about one hundred forms of fear and how they are behind our drinking. I didn't care—I could hate the bastard and not drink at the same time. I had almost no doubt about that—but the fear that I was wrong sometimes haunted me.
<Friday, February 15>
[ERIC]
Tomorrow was the first day of baseball practice. Tomorrow was the real start of us reaching for the second part of the dream we had, the dream of winning two straight State Championships. I should have been excited about tomorrow, but I wasn't. Instead, I was afraid.
Noah was in bed with me. Like he did so often, he sensed my mood. It was uncanny how he was able to do that. "What's bugging you, my love?" he asked.
"I don't know. It's stupid."
"You dealt with my stupid stuff; I think I can handle yours."
"I just don't think we're good enough to win it again."
"That's not what your public persona says."
"I guess that makes me a lot like Coach Sanders. We all need to believe we're good to have any kind of a chance at all."
"What makes you think we're not good enough? You thought we were pretty good back in sixth grade when you shared your dream with us. We do have a pretty good pedigree when it comes to having winning teams and winning championships. We are defending State Champs after all."
"That's the thing, Noah. Our good teams all had the guys who graduated last year on them. They had Marty, and Rodney, and Jerome, and Rich starting for us. There was one player who got a full- ride to a Pac-12 college, and two players who will be playing ball at small colleges. Then there's Connor, who was a great fill-in at first and in the outfield."
"So? Every team graduates good players," Noah said. "Not every team has nine returning juniors from last year like we have. That is a lot of talent coming back."
"I know. But we were also 4-8 as eighth graders in middle school. We had a hard time winning half of our games last summer. We haven't proven we can win without those guys that graduated. That's what I'm afraid of."
I knew I was in whining mode again, but what I was saying was true. We really hadn't proven anything. When I was in sixth grade and we won the JV championship, I got all excited about us being great right into high school. But, we had Marty and most of those guys who graduated, on that team. When we had our undefeated varsity at the middle school, that same group was in the eighth grade. When we had our great summer league team, same thing—it wasn't me and the players in my class who led the way. And we all knew who led us to the State Championship.
"Look, Eric. We have great pitching, decent hitting, and better defense than anybody. We are together as a team. Remember, back when we sucked in eighth grade, we had some outside issues. And last summer we needed to learn some things about ourselves. By the end of the summer we were a whole different team."
"True. Summers seem to do that to us...teach us things that is."
"Eric, you can't let this stuff get you down. You're the one everybody looks up to."
I could tell Noah was getting revved up to put me in my place. He didn't do it often, but when he did it was difficult to argue with him. The problem with his lectures to me was that he was always right.
"I'm going to leave you with this thought, and then let's get to sleep." We'd already had some steamy sex, so sleep did sound like a good idea. "The reason you feel this big loss is not because the graduating seniors were great players. We have great players, too, and we'll fill the gaps. What you really miss, and what we'll all miss, is their leadership."
"We've got good leadership, too," I protested. "We've got Kev..."
"Hear me out." I shut my mouth and listened. "We do have good leadership. Yes, we have Kevin, and we've got you. Danny and Hunter have leadership qualities. But what nobody on this team has is the outgoing kickass leadership of a Marty or a Connor."
I asked Noah what he meant, even though I was fairly certain what he was talking about.
"Marty and Connor had no problem chewing out people's asses. They had no compunction about cussing us out. Marty in the dining car is the prime example of that, but he and Connor would often tell us to quit feeling sorry for ourselves and to get our sorry asses into gear. If somebody didn't hustle, they didn't mind saying that being fucking lazy didn't work on this team."
"So what are we suppose do to, start tossing the `F' word around?"
"No, that isn't your style. Kevin might be able to get away with it some, but that's not how you operate. Blaine is the one who has the personality for it, but he's a junior. Juniors don't go chewing senior ass."
"What should I do then?"
"Number one, get off your pity pot. Number two, be yourself and do what you've always done since sixth grade. Lead by example and lead by communicating with everybody. You do that, and it will all work out."
I gave him a kiss. It was time to get to sleep. We'd already had our fun in bed after trading gifts and cards. "Happy Valentine's Day, my sweet," I said. I looked into his eyes, which always mesmerized me when he wasn't wearing his glasses.
"That was my point number three," he said with his delightful smile. "Happy Valentine's Day."
I wanted to believe Noah was right about everything working out. Like I said, he usually is. But this time, I wasn't sure.
[COACH SANDERS]
Our first practice is tomorrow. It would be my first year as a head coach without some of the best baseball players to ever play for the Mayfield High School Mustangs. Considering the baseball rich tradition here, that is saying a lot.
The torch has been passed to the current seniors. This senior class is talented and an absolutely great group of kids. I knew this season was going to be a pleasure to coach. What I didn't know was how good we would be. The seniors are the group to start the dream of winning a State Championship. That dream was fulfilled in part last spring. But their dream went farther than one title. Their dream was winning them back-to-back, a rarity in the history of the state, and something the Mustangs, for all of the championships they'd won in the past, had never accomplished.
The present seniors have never proved themselves. Sure they were winners and played on championship teams. But in each case, they played a secondary role to the graduated seniors. Now they were the leaders.
Eric and Kevin were the strongest leaders on the team. Hell, without Eric, the drive to win the state titles would have never happened. It was his getting the Go to State Team off of the ground that put us where we are. It was that effort that found me as the head coach of the defending state champions. Without those kids upsetting the apple cart, Coach Collins would still be heading the baseball program. And while one of the State Championship trophies in the trophy case belongs to him, I never had a lot of respect for him as a coach. If there was ever an example of a coach living on his laurels and on his ability to kiss the collective asses of the community and the school athletic booster club, it was Coach Collins.
But, no matter how I got here, I am here. I am the head coach. This is my team. I can talk all I want about senior leadership, but in the end it is my leadership and my teaching and coaching skills that will be the key component to us winning.
Are the players who will be showing up for practice tomorrow good enough to go all the way again? I am afraid not, at least not how they stand now. They showed last summer that they were a talented, but inconsistent team. They were a team that would do well and be in the top half of the league, but not an elite team that could go to the highest level.
Does all of that mean they can't go all the way? No, it doesn't. I have no doubt the talent is there to do so. I am just not sure that the kick ass and take no prisoners frame of mind that they need is there. The seniors are nice kids—really nice kids. Good kids, kids who are maybe too good to go as far as they would like. They need a bad boy or two, like Marty or Connor.
I related all of my concerns to Phil Miller, the summer coach, as well as my partner. We were still digesting our dinners after having eaten out at Parker's Steak House in Centralia.
"'Nice guys finish last,' is what Leo Durocher said," Phil told me.
"Are you implying that we're a last place team?"
"His statement most likely implies nice guys without talent. The fact that these nice guys have a coach who doesn't mind kicking the asses of said nice guys precludes their finishing last."
"That is comforting to hear."
"But, it remains to be seen if they have the leadership to kick their own asses. Good ass kicking can't all come from the coach, as we learned with the departed seniors. What happened in that dining car on the way to California had little to do with us and everything to do with them. And what happened in that dining car had a great deal to do with the State Championship trophies they all have on display."
I wasn't completely sure that what was right for the previous seniors was right for the current seniors. "That team going to California was in big trouble. There were a lot of personal and morale problems that had to be dealt with. This team doesn't have those issues."
"I guess we'll find out whether or not that is a good thing, won't we?"
"I was hoping for some answers," I said.
"The answers are yet to come."
He was all too right. Even though the idea of playing at Safeco Field was future tripping of the highest order, I wanted to be there as much as they did. The big question that needed to be answered by this team was if they had the perspective to do what was needed to reach their lofty goals. I was sure of the talent level on this team, I was sure of their dedication to hard work, and I was sure of their positive attitudes. What I wasn't sure of was if that deep down drive to win was a part of their makeup or if that drive had always been provided by the graduated seniors.
Next: Lost...