Three Little Words

 

Three little words. Hard to say for some. Profound, when said sincerely. And oh so important. I can remember the first time I ever heard a coach tell his team “I love you.” It was Don Story, Head Football Coach at Maryville High. I remember later hearing Punky Dalton tell his Alcoa football team the same thing.

That was a bit different for me. I played high school football for Loudon’s legendary Coach Chig Ratledge. He never told us that he loved us. We were all a bit afraid of him. He was probably 5’7” and 120 pounds but he could stop you in your tracks with just a look.

Coach Ratledge was pretty unique in a lot of ways. First off, he never played football. In high school, he played drums in the school band. His love for football manifested itself in college, where he was the team’s manager and, obviously, an astute student of the game.

A master motivator, Coach Ratledge also had a brilliant football mind. He was the first coach in this area to embrace the triple option. Coached it to the 1969 state championship. Coached it so well that the University of Houston had him teach it to their football coaches.

I last saw him at his 91^st birthday party, just months before he died. In a room full of former Loudon stars, he still had that look, despite being bent over at the waist from back pain. On that night, I bet even big ol’ Bruce Wilkerson, UT All-American and NFL star, would have ran through a wall for Coach Ratledge.

And everyone in that room knew that he loved them. When I was inducted into the Blount County Sports Hall of Fame, Coach Ratledge came for the ceremony. Of course, I was proud to have my family there, but having Coach Ratledge there, well, that meant the world to me.

Back to that 91^st birthday party—his daughter had arranged it and invited all the Loudon football greats. Plus me. I was decent, and I did play on the ’69 championship team, but I didn’t belong in that room.

In addition to Big Bruce, you had Lonnie Hawkins, Gordo Watson, Jackie Lefler, Bubba Brown, Bud Guider, Yancy Hampton, Ray Simmons—a long list of Loudon football greats. But Coach Ratledge wanted me there. He made it clear to his daughter.

You see, nobody in that room took more away from football and Coach Ratledge. I was an underachieving high school sophomore not even sure who I was when I overhead Coach Ratledge tell a practice visitor that I could be “a good one” if I worked at it.  It was truly transformative. He set me on the path to a lot of the success I’ve had.

Oh, I was still afraid of the man. One game my senior year got rescheduled to Saturday because of rain on Friday. I had to tell Coach Ratledge that I had to work that morning. I bagged groceries at White Store #32.  Coach Ratledge wanted all of our focus to be on the football game. On game day, he wanted all of your attention on the game at hand. I was scared to death but felt I had to tell him.

I walked into his office in the basement of the high school, probably shaking and barely able to speak. But Coach Ratledge didn’t criticize me at all. He knew that my family needed me to work. He knew that I was fully committed to football.

He didn’t say much, but he let me know it was OK. He loved me but I’m pretty sure would never have told me that. “I love you” was just not something he told his players, but we knew. By the way, we won that game. Beat Lenoir City 48-7.

I’ve heard lots of coaches since then tell their teams that they loved them. The ones I knew best, Tim Hammontree, George Quarles, Derek Hunt—they said it and meant it.

Kids, it may not mean much right now, but a coach that loves you and means it wants nothing more than your success. They want nothing more than for you to become a better person because of your sports participation. Same thing at home. Today, tell someone that you love them and mean it. Somebody needs to hear that from you.