GAMES

When you leapfrog backward in time and come face to face with people you haven’t seen for so long you can’t recognize their faces; it’s more like a blind date than a reunion. Memory is fickle. It can be crisp and it can be fuzzy. It can dry up and go away. In 1968 I was a senior in college. That year our baseball team won the NAIA College National Championship. I played on that team in 1966 & ’67 only to drop out of school to work a job in the spring of ’68 and return to complete my studies that summer. Yesterday the college had a 50 year reunion for that team, celebrated between games of a double header with one of our old rivals. Amazingly, our coach and all 21 members of that team were there to be honored. 

By coincidence and events over which I had little control, I was not on that team. It was the right thing for me to do and I have no regrets but sometimes, between melancholy and bittersweet, I’ve brooded over not playing ball my senior year, not being part of that team. The college put on a great celebration. Sitting up high in the seats behind home plate I watched as each player was introduced, their accomplishments and stats from the championship series were detailed. Great plays, and there were great plays, were rehashed and retold. Seeing overweight old men with bad knees retell sliding head first into 3rd, stretching a double into a triple; nostalgia isn’t all bad. But 50 years takes its toll and they had been on their own journeys, as had I. Then, you can only squeeze so much honey from the jug and memories pale; you can’t slide into 3rd any more. Kids are playing our game now. 

I spent a lot of the afternoon with Fred Merrill, an old friend, another baseball/football alum who graduated several years before me. He called me in 1989 to see if I would coach 9th graders for him at Shawnee Mission South High School where he was head football coach. I did that for 3 seasons, without a doubt the best, most rewarding coaching experience of my career. He called me out of the blue: Wow, life changer. Sitting there, I was comfortable in my own skin. This was where I was supposed to be, not on the field with the ’68 team. My baseball experience with those guys was before we were world beaters, preparing for one game at a time and then for the next biology exam. I don’t know how their championship season changed their lives but I don’t think it could have improved mine. Had I stayed and played, who knows where or how I would have turned out. I wouldn’t change anything, my life has been that good.

I’m reminded, it doesn’t take much to deflect the path of an object in motion. I can put my finger on seemingly insignificant, random events that changed my course, sent me off in a new direction. Watching a particular movie after getting fired from my job in 1958 resulted in my transferring from the Navy Reserve to the Regular Army. Wow: that was a life changer. In 1973 I was driving a tour jeep in Colorado. A last minute change of driving assignment sent me on a route I seldom drove. One of my passengers asked about my real job. After a long conversation he offered me a job that moved my family to Michigan. Wow: a life changer. Is there a way to anticipate little twists of fate that alter what seemed to be a foregone conclusion: I don’t think so. 

Fred and I enjoyed the program and a wonderful conversation from the bleachers. We paid attention to the kudos on the field but there was plenty of time to rework a long standing friendship. In our coaching relationship I realized even then, his trust and high expectations brought out the best in me. My take-away for the day was much more about what we shared than my connection to a championship team that neither of us played for. We had crystal clear reflections on our mentors, back when we were student athletes. Long dead now, their names adorn the fields and stadiums where we used to play. What we learned from them was: It’s not about winning, it’s about preparation, it’s about the struggle. I don’t know if they teach that today.