Thanksgiving 2011

About a month ago, I had a very pleasant surprise pop up in my “In Box.”

From: Robert Pratt -----------------Subject: SVSU

Dr. Robert Pratt was my favorite professor at what was then Saginaw Valley State College. The institution achieved university status sometime in the ‘90’s and has blossomed into what Dr. Pratt called, “one of the gems of mid Michigan,” hence now SVSU. I had not seen or talked to Dr. Pratt since 1986.

Like a six year old at Christmas, I anxiously clicked on the message. It read: “I'd love to hear from you and catch up on the past 25 years. I stopped coaching in 1997 but continue to teach. This is my 39th year on campus and God willing I'd like to teach for 4-5 more years.”

Dr. Pratt is so well read; is an engaging instructor, well organized with attention to detail, and analytical. He allowed me to sit in and travel with his basketball team when I had time as an undergraduate, trying to learn about the intricacies of the game. He was one of the most influential people in my professional development and he was now asking to hear from me, one of thousands of students he has had in his lifetime. I was honored as the memories started to flood back.

It was in the portable classroom unit, back behind the gym that, as Ernie Harwell would have said, is “long gone” sometime in the early ‘80s. Dr. Pratt was telling us a story of a University of Michigan English professor lecturing about the theoretical importance of the day’s subject matter to his class when the teacher suddenly stopped, pointed out the window to the practicing Wolverine football team, and said: “some or many of you may snicker or mock them but you want to know what is important, that is, because it is real.”

Dr. Pratt was real. He was the only professor on campus that routinely would have lunch in the lone cafeteria on campus at that time. Daily he would come and eat and visit with the young men and women that were his pupils in the classroom but friends at the table. In fact, while doing an independent study with Dr. Pratt my senior year, I would affectionately call the class: “Lunch with Bob,” for I learned more there at a shared lunch that I would incorporate into my teaching and coaching than I ever did in reading works from sport psychologist Bruce Ogilvie or Thomas Tutko.

I sat down eagerly to fulfill the request to “catch up” but I was stuck at the start. What honorific was I to use? The title Coach has always been one of the most revered and honored titles to me. Surely, not everyone that coaches is exemplary, but being one that has had so many coaches that have been a positive influence, I started: Dear Coach. After some time, I reconsidered and re-addressed my response using his earned honorific, Doctor.

As I started to think about this year’s Thanksgiving column, I could not help but to be reminiscing about Dr. Pratt and other coaches that have been special to me over the years. I looked at Bill Cole’s 15 characteristics of top coaches:

1. Exquisite self awareness.
2. High emotional intelligence.
3. Broad vision with focus on important details.
4. Nuanced, crisp, superb communication.
5. Highest regard, caring and respect for clients.
6. Creative, innovative learner and developer of custom coaching methodologies.
7. Perceptive, intuitive, curious and inquiring.
8. Quick study with capacity for deep and wide learning.
9. Student of coaching and other disciplines that support helping others.
10. Sincere interest in clients and desire to help.
11. Continuous learner of themselves and their experiences.
12. See coaching as a two way interchange of energies and learnings.
13. Humble, open, nurturing and grateful to the world.
14. View coaching as a calling, an art and a discipline.
15. Walking the talk and modeling a good life for their clients.

After reading that again, I came to the conclusion that the honorific Coach too is earned. I would have been correct and as honoring in addressing Dr. Pratt as Coach.

I like Coach better.

 

So today, in the honoring of my Coaches/ Colleagues: I am thankful for:

Coach Bob Faught – The first coach I can remember having. I was supposed to be too young to play on the little league team but he allowed me to be part of his squad. In the small northern Michigan town in the 1960’s, Little League was a far cry from with it is today. We had a six game season. I fouled a ball off in the fifth game and had a blooper to right that fell in for my first ever hit in the final contest that year. That it came off the older bully made it all the more sweet.

Coach Jay Yarwood – My first school coach. He coached the football team in the fall even though we had no interscholastic games, the 7th grade basketball team, and the junior high track team in the spring that had only one meet. Even though the schedule was minimal, his time was not. It was also cool that he would bring me out to his country house and let me stay there on opening day of trout season were a cool, clear water stream ran through his property.

Coach John Stanley – I never played for Coach Stanley, my eighth grade English teacher and family friend. He would leave the small town and take his passion for football to the university level in Texas. He also model that Christian faith and coaching to make a good combination. I still have the occasion to catch up with Coach Stanley including in 1986 when I was invited to be part of a week long Fellowship for Christian Athletes event at Texas A&M where Reggie White was my roommate.

Coach Tom Stobie – Who took over the high school football program. His teams, who would only drop four games in four years, winning three league titles and having an undefeated season before he left, could be described with one word: enthusiasm! And the entire student body knew it.

Coach Bill Hollenbeck – He was my position coach on the high school football team and was the first coach that would demand that you practiced with absolute precision. At first it was a shock to the system, but greatly appreciated later.

Coach Mike Nagy – I enjoyed his tutelage as the assistant football, 9th grade basketball, and head track coach and especially in the classroom. I don’t think coaching was his first passion when came to Frankfort (teaching was), but he would study and work to become an excellent coach and motivator when asked as part of his teaching duties to accept coaching roles. Without him, the hidden athletic talent that was within me would have most likely never been discovered on my own, thus a totally different life path was set for me because of him.

Coach Doug Hansen – My college coach who first shared his vision that if I would come to Saginaw Valley we could do some special things together which he did make happen. It was a week after an appendectomy that he called me into his office and told me that “I did not bring you here to be just part of the group, I except you to lead it.” From that day on, for the next four years, I would lead every step of every workout. Last year our team was thrilled to be the first team inducted into the University’s new athletic hall of fame celebrating the team’s 1982 national title. But to a man, the celebration was a tribute to Coach Hansen, his vision, persistence, and dedication in building that program and to those that came before us to lay the program’s foundation.

Coach Ed Skerlunas – My collegiate group coach who surely reported to Coach Hansen that I could get more out of my workouts than I was, hence my meeting. Coach Skerlunas was the silent partner in the building of that program into a national power.

Coach Bob Pratt – Who taught me the difference between ludus and paidia play and the importance of play education and so much more. See, I was listening in class.

Coaches Tom Wright and Sid Sink – Who, at Bowling Green, allowed me to begin my coaching career working within their track and cross country programs as a graduate assistant, helping make the slow transformation from athlete to coach.

Coaches Frank Tate and Myron Lowery – Coach Tate was the head football and basketball coach at the first junior high school here in Charlotte that I taught. It was the first time I was on my own handling kids as an adult as the JV coach versus as a peer. His encouragement was invaluable and then he stepped aside to allow me to become the head coach when he knew I was ready. Coach Lowery arrived and became my first “assistant” coach. It was with pleasure that I had the chance to work as his assistant when he became the head basketball coach at Harding.

Coach Larry McAfee – Though the opponent, the long time (40 plus years 10 state titles) cross country coach that took me under his Eagle’s wings when I was trying to develop our program into what he had at my first head coaching job at the high school level. It took us six seasons of progress before the Sabres were able to finally upset the Eagles by a point for the first of four consecutive SW4A titles. It is an honor to call him my friend today and look forward to working with him annually on the cross country course even though it has been more than a decade since either of us worked as head coaches. Few, if any, coaches have done more for his sport and teams in the state.

Coach Herb Davis – Once the long time head basketball coach at South Mecklenburg, it was a pleasure to work with and for him. Like most of the elite coaches I know, he would do what he could to help his kids. In 1993 I asked Coach Davis to take me over to the Smith Center in Chapel Hill after the pre game press conference for the high school state championships we were competing in were completed to meet Coach Smith. Though it was just before practice time as the Tar Heels were prepping for Arkansas in the NCAA tournament in what would become his second national title season, Coach Smith took 20 minutes out of his schedule to chat with us about our team, his team, and show us around the basketball operations in the Smith Center. If you know how detailed Coach Smith was, for him to take that time was extremely special, and I have never forgotten that.

Coach Jim Lalas – The best and most influential coach I ever had, and the only coach I do not address as Coach. I just call him dad.

And to all those that have the earned honorific of coach.

 

Yoda

Well said Mincmi - well said.

Yoda could not have said it better - of course, you may the Yoda of TBR!

I would submit that anyone who embodies the 15 characteristics you have listed would arguably have earned the honorific SUCCESSFUL at whatever their chosen field. It will be borrowed and appear in a future meeting with your permission, of course!

 

Well done Mincmi!!!

I have had coaches I loved and those I didn't, But two will always stand out to me. One was named Cy and one was named Sharkey (no, they were not loan sharks.) They each had one thing in common---they knew what buttons to push for each person. They didn't coach by formula and they were both what you would call "salty"...but they understood their players and how to push and get the maximum results. They were like fathers and for me...they were my role models.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our TBR members