Points about the dunk, and old-school coaches

I usually refrain from giving advice to high-school athletes. Aside from the fact that advice from 50-year-old men with zero athletic ability probably doesn’t mean much to 17-year-olds -- it didn’t when I was 17 -- it also intrudes on the domain of coaches. And since I need coaches who are reasonably cooperative in order to be able to do my job, I do my best not to step on their toes too often.
But after watching several weeks’ worth of basketball now, there is one bit of sagery I’d like to pass along. It was advice given to me -- well, okay, actually, not TO me, but I overheard it being given to someone else -- about that bit of basketball showmanship known as the dunk:
“Don’t dunk the ball to make a point. Dunk the ball to make two points.”
The advice tumbled out of the mouth of a high-school coach way back in 1979, a gentleman named Cecil Ferguson, who coached at LaPorte High School, and was directed at a couple of kids he had who had developed that ability to sail above the rim.
Problem was, they sailed right well but couldn’t get the slam to go home -- and as a result, the Bulldogs had blown a couple of close games.
It’s a point even more pertinent in this era, when there are kids shorter than me who can dunk. It’s all well and good to have that ability, but if you don’t make it -- you not only look like a fool, you lose your team two points and give your opponent momentum.
After they finish laughing.
While the dunk can be a spectacular feat, it’s no longer the game-shattering, in-your-face morale-crusher it once was, because even if you make it, it’s only two points.
Today’s game is ruled by two other shots: the trey and the free throw. Any team that can find a couple of shooters who can connect from the 3-point ring, and who can hit four out of five at the free-throw line, those are teams that are going places.
Okay coaches, I’m done lecturing. Sorry about the toes.
*****
You have to admire the men and women who have the gumption to be school coaches these days. They defy the stereotype in that most of them truly ARE bona fide, qualified, academically-proficient teachers.
The stereotype developed because that was not always the case. I can recall having the head basketball coach as my freshman high-school algebra teacher; interestingly enough, I made straight As in his class.
We spent the entire year wadding up paper and launching it at the “basket” -- a projection screen the coach used to outline problems on an overhead projector. He never noticed the paper until eventually, the weight of the paper wads pulled the screen away from the wall and buried him in a mound of paper balls.
Of course, the class also included two seniors who were All-State basketball players, a baseball player who later went pro for the Reds and a defensive tackle who was not known for his amazing intellect. They passed.
In my sophomore year, taking Algebra II with a real math teacher, I struggled to get a B.
But the stereotype that will be forever live with me was the one I got on my first day of junior-high athletics.
It was a strange thing, walking into a locker room where you would actually dress out for something. To that point, we’d all just played everything in street clothes, you see -- there were no little league versions of football or basketball in the community back then, you played baseball in the summer for Dad, and only foreigners who didn’t speak English played soccer.
But we shuffled into the boys’ locker room at Deer Park Junior High that day and met the biggest man any of us had ever seen. He instantly became The Coach. There were other coaches, but he was The Coach.
“Boys,” he drawled in a low growl, taking a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and lighting it as he stood at the door to his office, “my name is George. George Latham. Get dressed and be on the field in five minutes.”
(Yes, Virginia, people actually used to smoke in public schools. You used to could go to the teacher’s lounge and actually watch the smoke seeping from under the door.)
George Latham happened to be the head coach of the junior high football team -- those Fighting Fawns, for those of you wondering. But to a herd of sixth-graders learning the ropes of athleticism for the first time, he represented the Ultimate Authority Figure.
Wisecracks? Back-talk? Smarting off? Those terms were not even considered, much less acceptable. Needless to say, we did what Coach said to do. Immediately, and sometimes sooner.
It was one thing to get sent to the principal’s office to get swats -- boys were known to survive that. It was something else entirely when Coach said to get in his office: you planned memorial services.
It’s funny, several years later as a senior I had the chance to re-visit the school and found out that Coach Latham was actually a really nice guy, a mainstay in a school district which at the time was among the best in the state.
I remember telling him about that first impression I got and he chuckled, then said: “Well, it put you on the right track to be a good young man, didn’t it?”
It’s interesting when you look back at folks like Coach Latham and realize, many years later, what a profound impact they have made on the direction of your life.