Coach Wilson, My Father, My Anger & Me
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On February 20, 2022, I heard my wife say, “Oh, no,” sadly from the living room, “Coach Wilson died.” It was the kind of “oh, no,” that is elongated and sung from people that didn’t know him well, but knew him some and knew enough to know the world will be a little darker, a little less. That’s a life. To generate a reaction with just your name and reputation. He was my high school basketball coach, back when I lived in a world that had much more structure, living a life that had an entire future ahead of it. She knew he meant a lot to me, but I had never told her the story of why.
COACH WILSON
I didn’t know him well, that is to say, I knew him as my coach for a short time in my life and not as a full realized human being. His presence in my four years of High School, though brief, was very defining as we shared a couple of moments that forever shaped me. At one point in my life I was in love with his daughter, at least as much in love as a high schooler can be coming from a home without any fully functioning adults guiding and advising. During the time we dated I only had one real conversation with Coach Wilson about this predicament. I had him for History class and one day I stayed after and asked him if he was going to be OK with me playing for him and me dating his daughter. Now that I’m a father, when I think back on this moment, I can’t help but laugh at the difficulty of a father navigating that situation. That would be hard. He said, “She’s strong, she can date whoever she wants.” That wasn’t really what I was asking and he could tell I wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “You want to know if it’s going to effect you playing for me?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “We’ll see,” with a smile and I laughed and said “OK” and then walked out into the hallway and thought that he may not be kidding. That still didn’t really answer my question and in fact, may have lead to a few moments of paranoia.
Coach Wilson’s laugh was more of a yuk than an actual laugh. It would start as a little smirk and crescendo into the big yuk like he was waiting for you to catch up or maybe he was just waiting to see if you understood the joke and most the time we didn’t, but when we did laugh, it was never as big as his. He seemed like a man that laughed the appropriate amount of time throughout his life, all business when he needed to be with some humor thrown in from time to time. He had a little hitch in his step like he was wearing spurs walking into a saloon or maybe his hips had been injured when he was young and it made him move a little slow, unless he was fired up and then he could really move like a wild stallion hoofing at the ground. His hoof left many a divot on the hardwood floors of the various gyms he visited. During these times his gray hair would wildly drop to the side of his face and he’d instinctively swoop his hand sideways, pushing it back up into position, so as to not let it interfere with his coaching.
One thing we all knew for sure, his practices were hard and he took them very seriously. They were a process and he made us do the drills over and over and over again and they fit in perfectly with the offense that we ran. I loved watching him break up our plays into little sections and we would run those tiny details over and over until it was second nature to us. He taught me that the end goal doesn’t matter if you don’t pay attention to the small things.
And we ran… a lot. Suicide wind sprints or just “suicides”, as we called them, always awaited us at the end of every practice. If you are unfamiliar with this form of torture, let me explain. The team would line up on the baseline. On the whistle you would run to the free throw line where you had to reach down and touch the floor and if you forget that little detail of bending over and grabbing the line, you would have to do that part of the relay again. You would race back to the baseline where you would immediately hit the line and sprint back to the half court line, touch it and run back and then the three-quarters line, touch it and run back and then the full length of the court, touch the ground and sprint back. They were one of the most difficult things to do and we always did them at the end of practice when we were exhausted. Making free throws was our only way out and when you missed your opportunity, you felt the weight of it as you and your team ran them again. Having teams in great shape and being able to make free throws when you were tired was a point of pride for Coach. I wasn’t always the fastest but my anger fueled me to where I could go the distance.
He was a brilliant strategist. How do I know that? Because he coached for 47 years and retired with a record of 1,006 wins and 384 losses at small towns like Fair Play, Osceola, Walnut Grove and Willard. He took The College of the Ozarks to Nationals 15 times and was runner up 4 of those years.
OUR FIRST WORDS
In 1986 I was a freshman at Willard High School. I came in like most freshman with my feathered hair, acne, ignorance and fear leading the way like an entourage. The only thing I had going for me was that I was a decent athlete and at this time I was the best basketball player on my freshman team. Trust me when I tell you that it didn’t stay that way. Most of my teammates grew out of their awkward, taller bodies and into their more athletic taller bodies later in school and then became better ball players than me, but I had four advantages as a freshman.
Advantage 1: I was short which kept me close to the ground. Most big men would catch the ball from a pass or a rebound and instead of holding it over their head, they would make the mistake and bring it down to my level where I made steal after steal after steal.
Advantage 2: I was fast, which I needed in order to dodge my father’s hands at home and run from all the older kids I shot my mouth off to anywhere I went.
Advantage 3: I could dribble really well. If you can dribble fast as a freshman, you are always the best player as you can beat everyone down the court, ball in hand.
Advantage 4: I was angry and this made me fearless. I played basketball like I was at war. I hated my opponents. I wanted them dead. I hoped that I could drag their dead corpses across our parking lot and hang them from the flag pole.
I pretty much always scored the most points but that’s because I shot 100 shots a game. If those statistics are wallowing in the deep, dark dungeons of Willard, I’m pretty sure you’d find I shot around 12% from the field. When I stole the ball and took off for a breakaway lay up, there was a 50-50 chance I was going to miss it. Yes, I routinely missed uncontested layups that would hit the rim with so much force and rocket back towards my head, which had the added benefit of leaving me with a possible concussion. But it wan’t my “talent” that put me in front of Coach Wilson. It was my anger and my five technical fouls.
After practice one day, I was summoned to Coach Wilson’s office, which was down the stairs and in the locker room. The musty smell of sweat clung to the walls hidden by the low wattage of the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead working overtime on a public school budget. Coach was sitting behind his desk when I knocked on his door. My assumption was he was going to praise me for my excellent play on the court and I was rather excited. He waved me in and I said the normal “yes, sir, you wanted to see me?” He didn’t waste anytime with obligatory get to know you questions in a get to know you moment like “how are you doing,” etc. etc., he just got right to the point, which was his way. He said, “You’re a pretty good player.” I awkwardly said, “Thank you,” raising my pitch on the end as if it was a question because there was an obvious “but” creeping up behind that complement. It didn’t casually roll into the next sentence like it was an issue on the peripheral, it was THE issue and I guess he needed the first sentence to soften the blow. He let some silence sit heavy on my chest as I waited for his next words, and he wasn’t searching for the words, he knew what he was going to say. Looking back, I think he wanted the moment to resonate with me, but the words were so direct that they startled me like the blunt end of a baton had just been suddenly slapped against a metal pipe. The words changed my life because it required me to make a choice. “If you get one more technical foul, you will never play for me. I don’t care if you are the greatest player I have ever seen, which you are not.” He was the very first person to tell me that what I was doing was not only wrong, it was not going to be tolerated.
I had already racked up an impressive 5 technical fouls at this point. These weren’t over aggressive fouls that caused the ref to throw up a T, in fact, back in the 80’s, you could pretty much mug a guy and not get a T. My techs were from arguing with the referee. Arguing might be over simplified. They would call a foul that I found to be egregious and I would exercise my right to free speech, educating the various referees of their mistake by throwing the ball across the gym, slamming it on the ground with such force that it flew towards the rafters, and telling them what idiots they were. My parents never disciplined me. My freshman coach never disciplined me. He let me play because I was the best player and you don’t take the best player off the floor. However, Coach Wilson just informed me that you can take the best player off the floor…permanently. He didn’t give a shit. In that quick exchange, I knew he meant it.
My heart dropped immediately because I had two immediate thoughts as I stared at him in shock. I don’t know if I can contain my anger and how am I going to stop my father from coming up here and killing this man?
THE HISTORY OF THE ANGER
I grew up in the gym at the Boys Club of Springfield which smelled of sweat clothes and chlorine from the pool where I learned how to swim. The building was grungy, but it had these red candy machines out by the front doors where you could put your dime or nickel in and turn the handle to get a handful of goodies. My favorite was the gum ball machine, the various colors inside the round glass stood out against the mundane beige walls. Most of us were being dropped off because our parents couldn’t afford sitters and we weren’t quite old enough to be left on our own and when I was lucky enough to have a little bit of change, I would pay for as many gum balls as I could fit in my mouth until my jaws ached from trying to clamp down. My very first team was Empire Bank. Our uniforms were lime green with yellow writing and it always made me think of St. Patrick’s Day. My first coach was a man named David Horsey and he was an excellent coach who took the job seriously. I have no idea what he did for a living in his real life, but none of us knew what our parents really did. They were just there to make sure we didn’t die and sometimes barely that.
Scott Quigg was my best friend on the team because we rode the bench together. Nothing builds camaraderie better than being in the same club. We were in the “I’m The Worst Player on the Team” club. It was nice to have a friend to watch the game with so you weren’t singled out. One of my issues was strength. I had to shoot my foul shots underhanded because I wasn’t strong enough to get it to the rim any other way. This was terribly embarrassing, but my father told me about Rick Barry, a Hall of Fame NBA player who shot all of his free throws underhanded, so I kept at it and dealt with the other kids chuckling. That was my father at his best. As hard as he was on me, there were sweet moments like this that cling on to the outer edges of my memory, hanging on by a thread. I think it was easier for him when I was terrible because he wasn’t manipulated by expectations.
I remember when those expectations changed. I was the only kid on the team who hadn’t scored a point. Scotty had scored and I was a little jealous watching the crowd go wild for him. Being part of a team at that age was extremely rewarding because I was part of something bigger, filled with a lot of love as everyone is rooting for your success. Nobody is worried about statistics in 1st grade. But once Scott scored, he was now in their club, a real player, a true baller in my eyes. I was just the kid who air-balled his underhand free throws. And then it happened. I was at the free throw line, legs spread, ball, heavy in my tiny hands. I swung the ball under my legs and flipped it forward as hard as I could towards the basket with a grunt. The ball spun backwards, lifting towards the rim. The trajectory was good and the ball kept moving upwards until it skipped off the front and bounced off the back board. I held my breath, eyes fixated on the ball. It dropped onto the back of the rim where it bounced twice, losing its momentum each time until it had no where else to go. I stared at it, begging and pleading with the universe to let it happen, just this once and then the most remarkable thing happened. The ball winked at me, whispered, “atta boy” and fell through the net with a whoosh. You would have thought that I had just won the championship as I jumped up and down and the team went wild. The parents cheered me on and I ran off the foul line towards Scotty who was just a few feet from me, lined up on the lane and we both jumped in the air, giddy as can be and the ref had to bring me back to the line to shoot my second shot. To be honest, I have no idea if the second shot went in, I was too caught up in the ecstatic ether of my victory, but after the shot, my coach put his hand out for me to give him five and I slapped Dave Horsey’s hand like it was Slap Jack. That feeling! There’s nothing like it.
But now, my father had new expectations of me. After every game, we would walk to the car and he would always say “good game, but….why didn’t you…etc. etc.” He and my Mom would sit in the front seat of our car and my sister and I would sit in the back and his criticisms would grow louder and louder, eventually turning into a scream, arm over the seat like he was backing up only we just sat in the parking lot until he felt like I agreed with him or until I cried so hard I hyperventilated. Where my anger started growing wasn’t just with his critique of my play, but he began to attack my heart and my desire to win. He questioned my work ethic, calling me lazy or he would say that I was too afraid to do what was necessary. He would tell me that I wasn’t trying and I’d better get my ass out there and try harder. My sister would cry for me, just wanting it to stop. My mother would try and talk him down, but she couldn’t and eventually, over the years, she would start agreeing with him like she had Stockholm Syndrome.
By fifth grade, I had become a pretty good basketball player. Yes, I had some skill, but mainly it was created in the back seat conversations of my father’s car where I turned my effort into rage and the desire to stop the screaming after every game. And though I was a good player, it was obvious that my skill was chiseled more out of my fear of losing than my athletic ability. It was more nurture than nature.
One game, at a place we called The New Boy’s Club, where the court sat below all the seats and parent’s watched down on us like we were gladiators in Rome, I was bringing the ball up the court. Since my father traveled a lot, at times I would get lucky and he would be out of town for the game. When this particular game started, he wasn’t in the stands. He was racing to get home, but hadn’t made it yet. About a quarter of the way into the game, he arrived. I couldn’t see him. I could just hear him. “Come on, Brian, get up the court!” “Hustle, Brian, stop being lazy!” “Shoot the ball!” The beginning of my lifelong rebellion against all facets of authority started this day and I don’t know how I mustered the will. Suddenly, as I was dribbling up the court, listening to the barrage of negativity and critical words, I stopped progressing forward, picked up the ball, held it by my side and screamed as loud as I could, “Fuck You!”
The place went silent and when I say “the place”, I mean the entire gym. The coaches, referees, players and fans had no idea what to do. The referee paused for a few seconds looking around to see if anyone was going to say or do anything, but no one did. He looked back at me, probably wondering what my next move was going to be, so I started dribbling again, which was technically a violation called double dribble, but nobody contested, not even the other coach. The ref, just shrugged his shoulders and continued on with the game as though nothing had happened, like I had simply sneezed. I don’t remember ever using that word before that moment. I was 11 years old.
Ironically, nothing happened to me after that game. There were no repercussions. My father never said a word.
COACH WILSON, MEET MY FATHER
My junior year, Coach Wilson elected to have Scott Berry, the principal’s son, be in the starting line-up and I came off the bench. Scott and I weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies either. We just co-existed. However, the idea that I wasn’t going to start put my father into an exasperated fury of rage and I didn’t know how it would end. He was convinced that Scott was starting because he was the principal’s son. Anyone who knew Coach Wilson knew that he never would have done that. Every night over dinner, he would ask me if I’m starting yet and when I would say no, he would come unhinged, making threats against everyone and then he would go off on me and tell me that I wasn’t doing enough.
When my father felt powerless his anger would turn manic and his ideas to “even the playing field” were always steeped in violence or if followed through, would burn any bridge in the area making sure there was no way back. In this case, he wanted me to tell Coach Wilson that I knew he was showing favoritism to the principal’s son and if he didn’t stop, I would take it to the school board. I wish my father would have just said, that ‘s it’s going to be OK and to keep working hard and it will all work itself out. But that’s not how my family thought. Everything was a conspiracy against us and the only way to fight back was to basically Napalm the entire situation. I told him that I would not do that.
He talked about taking a knife and puncturing all of Scott’s tires before a big game so he would be late and then I would get to start and prove that I’m the better player. I spent many a night terrified that he was going to actually do it and begged him to let me handle it my way, but I always believed that I was going to wake up one day and find out that Scott was dead, killed by some random mugging.
Then one day, Coach Wilson called me into his office again. All he said was, “If your father calls me at home again, you won’t be able to play on the team.”
I was completely embarrassed. I was dating the man’s daughter! I don’t know if he ever told Tara this story or warned her about my family, but she never acted any different which is a testament to him. I had no idea my father had called him and when Coach said these words to me, my legs grew weak from panic. I teared up and told him that I didn’t know how to stop him and I didn’t want to lose my position on the team from something my father did. I could tell Coach Wilson felt for me. He had told my father the same thing, but he wanted me to know. Looking back now that I am an adult, I realize it was the only thing he could do. He knew my father would never forgive himself if I was kicked off the team because of his actions and I knew that Coach didn’t want to do it, but he wouldn’t have had a choice.
A week later, when I didn’t start again, my father completely lost it. He threw his hand angrily at a chair in the dining room knocking it across the floor. When he got like this, a glaze would come over his eyes like he had disappeared inside of his mind where reality was no longer in front of him, but instead, he was back in Vietnam. He went to the phone on the wall and picked it up and I ran over to the phone to take it from him and he shoved me to the ground. My mom put both hands on the phone and kept saying, “Jim, this won’t help. You can’t do this.” In these moments you could not tell him that he couldn’t do it because he would go out of his way to prove you wrong. He yanked the phone from her hands and started to dial and I crawled over and grabbed his legs and begged him like I was a starving child begging for food saying, “please, please, please.” He kept telling me that Wilson wasn’t going to kick me off the team. He had most of the numbers dialed in when I finally stood up and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Yes he will! He will and it will be your fault!” There have been very few times in my life where I have felt more helpless than in that moment. I sat on the floor, crying harder than I had in my entire life. How would I explain what happened to everyone? I needed basketball. I needed to be on a team. My father stopped dialing and hung up the phone and walked out the garage door for some fresh air. I continued to cry even though I was so relieved.
THE TRUE MEANING OF TEAM
It was my senior. This was going to be my year. We were practicing before the season started. Coach Wilson and I were the only two in the locker room as he was taping up my ankle before practice and I could tell you something to say. He started with a few comments about how important I was to the team, the complement before the “but” and then he told me that I wouldn’t be starting unless I played point guard and I wouldn’t be the main scorer. There were two sophomores, Alex Manary and Scott Welsh that were better scorers than me and Matt Wallace, another senior, was a better three point shooter. The good news was that he thought if I played point guard and if I was willing to be a facilitator, he thought we could go to state. I’m an adult now and so often times when I think about this moment, I can see it with different eyes. Just having children helps me to realize this conversation had to be handled delicately for my sake because what he said to me, he knew would put me in danger. And without saying it, and without me acknowledging it, we both knew it. I sat there in silence as he finished taping me up. He stood back and leaned against the wall while I stayed on the table.
This was one of the greatest lessons of my life. He didn’t bullshit me. He told me the truth and the truth was I was going to have to sacrifice for us to win and he wasn’t really giving me a choice because if I didn’t play point guard, I wasn’t going to get much playing time. A hard truth to swallow, but there is no point beating around the bush. Sometimes you sacrifice for the betterment of the team. I said, “Ok.” I trusted him completely. He also said to me, “Not everyone is going to be happy with this decision. Are you going to be able to handle that conversation?” I knew he was talking about my father. “Because he can’t call me or cause any problems or any scenes.” That had to be hard for him to say to me. I know that it was hard for me to hear. I took in his words and then shook my head in agreement and we never spoke of it again.
Those first words he said to me my freshman year had an immediate affect on me as I never got another technical foul. I had no doubt that he was a man of his word and I wasn’t willing to test that water. I imagine Coach Wilson was steadfast and true to this nature all of his life. I didn’t stop being angry, I just learned how to use my anger and my aggression towards my opponents during the game and when I fouled, I made it count. Mainly, Coach Wilson taught me how to harness my anger deep inside and use it on defense, which became a surrogate for my inability to take on my father. Playing defense is a belief and will. It’s me against you and you are not getting by me today. Not today. Not in this moment. Throughout my life, as I played ball in local games at the neighborhood court, people were always amazed at how hard I played defense even as my skills began to decline and my knees began to snap and crackle and the only way I could explain it is that it was the only thing I could control. It was pure and all about who wanted it more and I didn’t just want it more, I needed it. I needed to win and not be afraid that my head would be taken off and I needed to be good at something, anything. On defense, I wasn’t afraid because there were rules that we both had to follow and it allowed for strategy and position that Coach Wilson taught me consistently on how to beat the guy to where he is going and that has become a part of my life, knowing where you are going and beating you there and it doesn’t work in relationships in life near as easily as it works for defensive basketball, but it has become my way.
That was the most beautiful thing he did for me was to show me that the game is a world in of itself where you can block out all the problems of life for those 4 quarters. You have to fight for that. You have to protect it and stop others, outside the game, from destroying it with pettiness and hate and fear and anger. You can bring a small group of people together from different worlds and they can work and strategize and learn to move in unison for a moment in time and if you prepare and string enough good moments together you can transcend your reality and create something better than yourself because its a shared experience. It’s nice to win, but success is more than winning. It’s the teamwork and the process of working and the euphoric feeling that comes from competing. It was a world that needed to be protected and respected and I learned that you cannot always control your environment, but you can control how you react both on the court and off.
I didn’t know what he had done for me at the time. How could I have? I was just a kid, but I know it now and I wish I would have told him before he died. I should have reached out, but life gets in the way and before you know it, people are gone. I don’t know if he would have remembered these small moments that we shared. They were probably insignificant to him, but I would have liked to have told him anyway, to let him know that he mattered in my life and as he moved on to other teams and other worlds, his lessons stayed behind, living within me, buried deep in my bones. We are all connected. We are all the sum of our experiences and everything we do, no matter how small, matters to someone.