My son Kennedy warming up for his first game last year on a first and second grade team which I helped coach. Coaching first and second graders is like herding cats but more enjoyable. The key, as one my colleagues told me half into the season, is “no lines and no waiting.”
In my last post I discussed the disappointment and subsequent emotional hurt I felt when I did not get moved up to the varsity lacrosse team at my high school (Croton Harmon) for sectionals back in 1979. So why didn’t I get brought up to varsity my sophomore year? Somehow the topic came up in a talk with my mother years after I had graduated from high school in 1981. I shared with my mother just how hurt I was, especially after excelling in the sport thereafter (Keep in mind, I was the first player from my section to be a U. S. National Team player (1990). Here’s the story, I played football my freshmen year in high school for coach Nick Padula, who taught history, freshmen (and then the next year JV) football, and varsity lacrosse. During a tackling drill I hurt my right football when a teammate grabbed my big toe on which I had a very painful bunion (up until then, I didn’t know what a bunion was and would go on to have surgery in college on both feet to remove them due to the excruciating pain they caused). Coach Padula never called home that night to check on me, because of that my father, without me knowing, went to the school in a rage and verbally lit in to the coach-they may have almost fought for all I know. My mom knew about this but never told me what happened. Years later she told what happened and explained my Dad’s reaction. I talk about that tomorrow
