Opportunity or Burden?

I’m from that generation of people who grew up in the 60’s that were prone to question everything.  We questioned authority.  We doubted our parents.  And we protested the government (sometimes just for being the government).

It seems we were anti-everything.  Anti-war.  Anti-haircuts.  Anti-fashion.  Anti-establishment. 

Television wouldn’t show Elvis from the waist down because he wiggled to much.  George Carlin came up with his seven words you couldn’t say on TV.  James Dean led a cultural revolution. 

And then the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show and it really got crazy.  Everybody had long hair.  Everybody protested.  Everybody listened to loud music. 

I was the editor of our high school newspaper and pretty much every issue I snuck in something about the Vietnam War.  It got me called to the principal’s office a couple of times although today it was surely mild. 

The problem was that people that I knew were getting killed and, well, the war wasn’t real popular in my neighborhood.  Poor kids from rural areas got drafted and sent to the front.  Then as now, I was for the soldier but against the war.

Later I got picked up (not really arrested) at an event where we were protesting the completion of the dam on the Little Tennessee River, building what is now Tellico Lake.  I remember that tiny snail darter well.  I knew families that were being forced off farms that had been in their family for generations.

And a beautiful, free-flowing stream was being dammed up to build a resort community that was beyond the means of the people that lived there.  (If you can’t tell, I’m still bitter about that one.)

I was a good kid but I do remember one night when I was arguing with my dad about my music being too loud.  It probably was.  And that my hair was too long.  It really wasn’t. 

But one authority figure that I never questioned was my high school football coach.  His name is Bert “Chig” Ratledge and he turned 90 not too long ago.  He was Coach Ratledge then and he’s Coach Ratledge now.  I can recall hearing his friends call him by that nickname but I considered that blasphemy.

When I went to his 90^th birthday party and heard one (and only one) of my peers refer to him by his nickname, I was greatly disturbed.  Coach Ratledge earned my respect many times over.  He was one of the first people that truly believed in me.  And even though his health has declined, he is still the same person and I would still run through a brick wall for him.  Such is the influence that our coaches have over young folks. 

Coaches have a huge responsibility as they mold and direct their young charges.  Good ones acknowledge and accept that responsibility.  The best ones welcome it as an opportunity. 

For your own kids, seek those coaches that embrace the mantle of that responsibility.  Those coaches that have the best interest of your child and every child at heart.

Then step aside and let them do their job.