A man called Coach

I’ve spoken at length about Dr. Lynn Weldon and why I consider him one of my most influential teachers.

I wish to talk about another one. Coach Tony Valdez.

I first met Coach when I was in the eighth grade. He taught PE. We went in and he’s telling us, “I understand you men are young. I’m not going to work you too hard.”

We thought, “cakewalk.”

The next day, he dropped us for fifty pushups. No one there had ever done more than ten.

Now, I wasn’t among the jocks. I was a cowboy and had no time for sports. I was expected to help run the ranch, not chase footballs.

Because of that, I never learned a lot of what most would consider a childhood skill. I can count on two fingers the number of footballs I have ever caught. Despite being tall, I was rather clumsy for basketball. And I’ve hit exactly one home run my entire life, a fact that stunned me and everyone around me so much that I almost forgot to run.

About the only things I was good at were wrestling (branding calves teaches you that) and boxing (I’m big, strong, and I can take a lot of punishment).

None of that mattered to Coach. He still had time to talk to everyone. He leveled the playing field by saying we were all in the same.

Years later, he’s become our vice-principal.

After I graduated, except for a few encounters, I saw little of him except on those rare occasions when my duties with the Sheriff’s office took me to the school.

It wasn’t until after I returned from the Gulf War that I forged a relationship where Coach became my friend. Jewell and I had started going together, and one day I was outside and looked at the house across the street. Sitting on the porch is an old man. He’s reading a newspaper. I laughed and said, “Lord, you have a sense of humor. Spanky (our name for Coach since he knew how to use the board of education) is my neighbor.

Little did I know he’d seen stuff in his war and was smart enough to know how to get me to talk. And he just let me talk. And most importantly, he listened.

It was my great pleasure to have him as a teacher, and an even greater pleasure to call him Friend.