By Neal Wooten
There’s a lot of debate these days about coaches and how they interact with children and student athletes. Some people believe that a win-at-all-cost mentality can be traumatizing to a young person and not allow them fair playing time. Others believe that this approach prepares them for real life where most of the time things actually aren’t fair.
To be honest, I don’t have an opinion. I can go either way. So my purpose here is not to defend one side or the other; I am just going to tell you about my coaches, and I had a lot of them. I had many baseball coaches over the years, but the two that really stick in my memory are Eddie Johnson and Michael Jones.
These guys loved to win as much as anyone. It’s human nature. But they always made sure that everyone played, no matter their skill level or the score. I remember one game when we were in the last inning with runners on and a chance to win and the worst player came to bat. They left him in and he actually hit a single and drove in the winning run.
And the baseball coaches never got upset when we did something stupid, which was often. My football coaches… well, that was a whole other ballgame. Pun intended. I feared those coaches the way I feared the school principal and the way I feared my dad. I didn’t fear for my safety, mind you; I feared letting them down and them letting me know.
Clinton Graham coached me in pre-juniors football and in basketball. He noticed right away the talent I possessed on the court, which is why I mostly rode the bench. But I was his go-to running back in football. Coach Graham had a strange coaching style: he was always polite, encouraging, and supportive. I know, weird, huh?
But if you look up “football coach” in the dictionary, there should be a picture of my junior football coach, Johnny Edwards. He surely looked the part. He had no neck to speak of; his head just seemed to sit atop massive shoulders. I always thought he looked how a bulldog would look if changed into a human. He was tough, but we all loved the guy.
All of my varsity coaches were the same. Coach Drinkard, Coach Thomas, and Coach Kirby were all tough but it was obvious how much they cared. All of these coaches, however, pale in comparison to the toughest coach I ever had. That dubious distinction belongs to my math coach — Tonie Niblett. Math team practice is where I could have really used a helmet and pads.
