Growing up in a small town: 2nd verse

Last week you heard a bit about what it was like to grow up in my hometown.   I guess I romanticized it a bit because it was far from perfect.    It was a very blue collar town so pretty much everybody was in the same socio-economic status.  Nobody had much but we didn't know it.

What I didn't tell you about was that of those guys that I grew up with, one was shot, one died under questionable circumstances but had been in jail on numerous occasions, and one was dead by his late 30's from lifestyle choices.

We grew up in the same place, attended the same churches and schools, played together and stayed together.  Yet, we all ended up on different paths as adults, most good but some obviously bad.

I grew up blessed.  I lived in a 2 parent home.  I never went hungry, I never felt unloved, and I never had to worry that I would have a roof over my head.   I also was never in jail, never failed a subject in school, and got paddled only once (and Mrs. Rainwater was wrong in doing it that time--I can't help it that Gary Alexander pinched Laura Booth behind my back in the 2nd grade!)

But we didn't have a lot.  My dad worked in a factory.  My mom was a stay-at-home mom until my dad became disabled and then she went back to work, ending up in the same factory where my dad had worked.  

It's a different world that kids are growing up in today.  Not better, not worse--just different.  Most of us worked (mowing yards, delivering newspapers, hauling hay) but that was for the necessities.  I can remember the first time I saw one of the rogue boys have a beer.   We didn't have drugs or spending money.   

I'm pretty sure I had good parents.  The only thing I can remember that I wanted that I didn't get was a guitar, but I didn't want much.  At 16, I was happy with a first car that cost $55 ('54 Plymouth, 2 dr, 3 spd on the column, primary color bondo). 

Today it seems like there are too many parents who make sure that their kids have absolutely everything that they want.    Parents that either can't make a decision or who make all the wrong decisions.   Who try to be a friend to their children instead of being a parent. 

Parents who threaten litigation against a coach over playing time.   Or that feel that because of who they are,  their kid should get special attention/opportunities.

Parents that can't get along at home but when a teacher wants to have a conference because of unacceptable behavior from their child, they insist that it is the school's responsibility to take care of those problems.

Parents who want too badly for their kids to have the success in athletics that they never had.  We hear about parents living vicariously through their children until it is simply a cliche. 

My advice?  Make sure your kids know the value of work, drive used cars until they are adults, know that if they get punished at school that it will be worse at home, and that your love is unconditional.  And remember that they got their genes from you.

Coach Pat Summitt

Early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type.

At the mention of that, I get this picture in my mind of somebody really old and wrinkled.  Maybe stooped over on a walker.   Wisps of hair are all that remain.  A vacant stare.

But Pat Summitt?!?   She of the icy stare.  Pat Summitt--one of the most respected coaches in all of sports?  Pat Summitt, who is categorized with John Wooden as one of the greatest coaches of all time?  

Pat Summitt who could coach anything, anytime, anwhere?   A lot of folks have suggested that she should be the men's basketball coach at UT every time that job came open.  

Heck, I'd give her pretty much any job she wanted.  Athletic Director?  Sure.   CEO?  Any time.   President of the United States?  I'd vote for her.

Her tenacity, her integrity, her dedication, her brains...I could go on and on.   Those things would translate to any job.   I'm not alone in believing she could straighten out Wall Street, Afghanistan, and the NCAA in about a week if they would just put her in charge.

And now we're all concerned because Pat (which is what her players call her---I don't think I could do that), an icon and a legend, has early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type. 

At 59.  Goodness gracious, I'm 58!

Coach Summitt taught tennis to my wife in a Physical Education elective class at UT in 1975.  Back then, she had to teach classes as well as coach basketball.    That seems pretty bizarre now.

So what can we all expect?  

We all know that there is not yet a cure for Alzheimer's.   The very mention of the word scares us, much like the word "cancer" did to another generation.  We know that it is progressive.  And ultimately fatal.

But we all also feel like we know Pat Summitt.   And we all know that she will attack this with the same intensity that is her trademark.  Heck, I stand up straighter just at the mention of her name.

Whatever happens, however this disease affects her, we all know that Pat Summitt will deal with it on her terms, the same way she has always coached.

But as this whole scenario plays out, I betcha several things happen.  I betcha more people will get diagnosed earlier, when more can be done.  I betcha everybody in Tennessee will know more about this disease.  I betcha that there will be more research on this disease than ever before.

And you better not bet against Coach Summitt.

joeblack

Growing up in a small town

I grew up in a small town.  As a matter of fact, I got my first college degree alongside more people than lived in my hometown. 

It was a great place to grow up.  Slower, simpler, safer, almost idyllic.  Summers were my favorite.  I always knew how many days it was until school was out.    I was actually well into college before I liked school.

 Most of my friends lived in town.  I lived "out in the country," about a mile from them.  Most summer mornings, I would get up, have breakfast, and hop my bicycle to head into town.   The basic rule was to be home in time for supper.  

There were a bunch of us kids that would spend pretty much all day, all summer together.   Ronnie, Bill, Teddy, Tony, Gary.   Sometimes joined by Freddie or Lonnie.  We played everything and made up what we didn't know.  We had Boy Scout leaders to teach about the outdoors but we didn't have anybody to teach us about sports.

The city didn't really have a recreation department but they would hire teachers for the summer to do things like crafts and organize games.  Coach Ratledge might organize a game and help us get started but mostly we had neither coaches nor referees.  There was no little league baseball but we would choose sides and play for hours.

For lunch, we would drop by somebody's house and their mother would fix us lunch, usually PB&J.   Granny Miller was a favorite but sometimes she would serve souse meat sandwiches so we looked elsewhere on those days.

There was no public swimming pool so if you wanted to swim you had to go to the river.   Occasionally we would catch a ride in the back of a pickup truck to the next town where they had a public swimming pool but the only reason to do that was the diving board and the girls.

We discovered tennis at about 10.   There were no public tennis courts but there were two private courts.   My buddies and I got the homeowners to agree to let us play if we would sweep the courts when we were finished and not cuss.   I don't think they knew how obsessed we would be with a game that was so far out of our socioeconomic status as to be absurd.

Nobody took lessons for anything and the only organized sport was youth league football (which we all played).  We taught ourselves how to do things.   Our athletic development was more dependent on backyard basketball and Red Rover games.

I look at today's organized leagues and traveling teams for 7 year olds and personal trainers and position coaches and on and on and on and I long for those simpler times. 

Are athletes better today?  No doubt.  But at what price?  Are they enjoying the games and the competition?  

This whole topic started when I asked a couple of young adults what they remembered about the AAU basketball games that they played when they were young.  I was their coach.  Their memories were not the games or the sport or the teams but the travels and the friends.  About the time that we went for ribs at The Rendezvous in Memphis.    About the friends that they made and driving down the interstate singing 80's hits.

My memories are about playing tennis at the Greer's court under the lights and swimming in the Tennessee River, about street football and catching a Pinky Russell curveball.   About Jackie Lefler dribbling between his legs and Gordo Watson outrunning everyone, regardless of distance and even when encumbered by a potato sack or tied to another kid in a 3 leg race.

So what's my point?   Just that sports are all about building memories and they're not always about the games we play nor the outcome of those games.  

Afghanistan and Vietnam

I grew up in the Vietnam era.  It wasn't my father's war (WWII).   In that one, the whole country was behind our armed forces and those that came home were truly heroes in their communities.

Vietnam was different.  Fighting an enemy on their own soil who used tactics we never really understood but which they knew well from  years of fighting the French made it a hard war.  A war in which you never knew who the enemy was.

Leaders who were ambiguous in their support of our military.  Remember when our politicians were known as "hawks" or "doves?"  There were lots of protests and returning soldiers were too often ridiculed.

Any sane country that is in a war should have anti-war protesters but no country with a heart should heap scorn on our fighting men and women.

Unfortunately, that's what returning soldiers often faced when they got home from Vietnam.  True hero Senator John McCain, after spending years in the Hanoi Hilton prison camp, was spit on when he returned.

Lots of them didn't come home.  Every night on the news, there was an obscene thing called a "body count."  I had friends that didn't come home and others that came home but were seriously impaired by the experience.

Maryville College quarterback Butch Crabtree, the brother of one of my classmates, got drafted and never came home.

Drafted.  That's what many of us faced.  What drafted means is that the military doesn't have enough soldiers to fight so they tell you to report for duty.

Duty.  That can be a funny word.   Was it my duty to go to Vietnam and fight a war that our country wasn't fully committed to win?  I struggled with it then and I'm still struggling with it.

And now we're at war again.  The war in Iraq seems to be winding down while the war in Afghanistan just gets nastier.

One very real difference today from 1971 when I turned 18 and barely missed being drafted is that today our country is committed.   Our leaders, while they argue the merits of war--as they should--are still supportive of our military personnel.

And the people of this country would never allow scorn to be directed toward returning soldiers.  We welcome them home when they return.  We embrace them, knowing that they are heroes.

There are those that say that we should get out of the middle east,  that we have domestic issues that need fixing.  It isn't nearly that simple.  As places like Afghanistan destabilize, groups like Al-Quaeda gain ground.   We can't simply build a fence and keep everybody that might be a threat out of America.  Sometimes we have to go to a foreign land and help stabilize those areas of great turmoil.  I believe that's what we have done in Iraq and what we're attempting to do in Afghanistan.

As we mourn the terrorist attack that happened on September 11, 2001, never forget one thing--these countries export terrorism.