In high school, I was not the kind of athlete coaches dreamed of having on their team. I was late-developing, only marginally athletic, and way too quick to offer up a biting comment. Consequently, whatever attention I got from my coaches was more on account of the goodness of their hearts and their devotion to the duty assigned them than out of whatever I could contribute to the team.
Evidently, I had some coaches who could see through my shortcomings and found something worth investing no small measure of their own personal energy into. The memories I have of my high school coaches are, to this day, predominantly favorable. And, with each passing year, I am more profoundly grateful for what they gave me.
1. My high school basketball coach from my senior year respectfully accepted my decision when I turned in my uniform after the first weekend of games. He knew, and I had just come to fully realize, I would be, at best, a #9 or #10 man on a ten-man varsity. He gave me the dignity of naming me to the varsity team, but it would be a long season of scattered appearances when games were either decisively won or lost--a season of opportunities better invested in a freshman or sophomore who held some promise of someday being a significant contributor to the team. To this day, I remember that he let that be my decision, not his own. I am still grateful for that; I learned something important about being human over the days I pondered what to do with my last basketball season. But, it was what happened next that was magical, and the thing for which I most remember Coach Cain. I began training for track, but also accepted his suggestion that I do write-ups of our basketball games for the school newspaper. When a parent once complained about something I wrote in one article, Coach Cain moved decisively to my defense, though he had absolutely no obligation to do so. Later, he would pass my name along to the sports writers for the Alamosa paper, urging them to give me an opportunity to do some coverage for them.
2. Coach Scheffer cared enough, long before I was a starter on the football team, to throw a symbolic flag when I made a display of personal laziness. We had a standard of doing a dozen or so 40-yard wind sprints out of three-point stances at the end of practice. Late one October afternoon, I was tired, sore, and losing my focus. Honestly, I wasn't seeing the point of it all. As we all went down into three-point stances on whatever yard line was our starting point, I carelessly dropped down into a haphazard approximation of a stance. "Please, just get this over," was my one controlling thought. My improper stance caught Coach Scheffer's discerning eye. From the far sideline, he yelled something about, "What kind of stance is that over there?" I ignored it because I was pretty sure I didn't rate the wasted time for a censure, and therefore it must have been somebody important who was messing up. I was startled when a couple seconds later his voice called out, a little louder and stronger this time, "Versaw, is that you? We're not starting this until you get into a decent stance." I learned that day that my effort mattered to Coach Scheffer. I resolved never to disappoint the man again.
3. The spring of that year, Coach Scheffer was named the track coach. At that time at our school, it was, by default, a rotating position that nobody really wanted but somebody had to take. That year was Coach Scheffer's year. Honestly, Coach Scheffer could scarcely have cared less about track, but he did care about kids and made the most of the circumstance. The most memorable photo I have from my high school track career was one of me finishing the mile medley at the 1976 Alamosa Relays. Coach Scheffer is there, only a couple of feet away from me on the infield, holding a stopwatch and yelling encouragement to me. It was always that way with Coach Scheffer. He knew nothing of coaching without personal investment.
4. Mr. Hotz (pronounce that with a long o, please) wasn't a coach in the usual sense of the word, but he was at the controls of the clock for every home basketball game I ever remember playing in. Mr. Hotz was also my high school English teacher. And, since I went to a small high school (23 in my graduating class), I had Mr. Hotz for English my sophomore, junior, and senior years. Mr. Hotz wasn't much into literature. We read some of the classics of English literature, but Mr. Hotz had little patience for divination into the deeper meaning of literary works. He was, however, very much into grammar and usage. I remember diagramming sentences, careful distinctions made between complex and compound sentences, rules for punctuation, and the like. I hated it at the time that it was nearly impossible for me to get an 'A' in Mr. Hotz's class. More than once, I spoke angry words to my parents about the rigor of his grading, but to no avail. To this day, however, I appreciate his attention to detail and his steadfast determination to make each of us pay the same attention to detail in our writing. If you can think of writing as a sport, Mr. Hotz was my writing coach. And, though I never managed an 'A' in his class until the spring semester of my senior year (Thank you, Mr. Hotz, for never relaxing the standards--I remember that 'A' more than any other grade I ever earned in high school.), I did score exceptionally well on the English and writing portions of the ACT and SAT tests on account of his diligence. Since that time, writing has never been a dreary exercise for me, largely on account of the fact he cleared away the tangles of the underbrush and helped me to understand how the mechanics of writing worked.
5. Coach Crowder was an assistant coach in both football and basketball, fresh out of Adams State College. He had the uncanny knack of being able to see the humor almost any situation. Doubtless that skill served him well when he later became a long-time administrator in a nearby school district. Though I don't recall specifics of many situations with Coach Crowder, I do recall the ever-present smile on his face and his interest in all the many things I had to say. I always felt I got more attention, and the occasional teasing jab, from Coach Crowder than my athletic accomplishments should have put me in line for. At the time, I thought of him as simply as someone who was exceptionally pleasant to be around. Many years of perspective help me to understand the gift he was conferring to me.
Looking back on my high school experiences, none of my coaches were great technicians--save for Mr. Hotz--but they nevertheless made the high school athletic experience an enduring value for me. But, these men were great leaders, and Coach Scheffer did turn a moribund football program into a perennial contender in the three short years of his tenure. Each accepted me as I came to them, but none were willing to leave me as I came to them. Affirmation came, but never came on the heels of trivial efforts. These men were sharp enough to know that discomfort helps lessons to stick, and confident enough to act on those convictions.
A great deal of what I am today, I am because of Rocky Cain, Rich Scheffer, Urban Hotz, and John Crowder. I owe a debt of gratitude to each for being unwilling to leave me in my chosen comfortable places. Two of these men left coaching shortly after I was privileged to work and learn under them. I can't help but think that the short seasons these men spent as coaches were an important part of God's shaping hand in my life.