In 1957, I was 4’11” tall, entering the 9th grade, and still shorter than many girls. I tried hard at basketball, the big sport at our school that couldn’t afford football. It was tough going being short and slow, but I enjoyed my 9th grade coach, Del, who had a great sense of humor, and tried make us into “young men”. Del would line us up, call us by our last names, and yell at us … in a nice way … kind of like a prep school in the movies, I thought. Del was young, and seemed like a college guy. He gave me a taste of what life might be like if I ever got out of Logan Falls.
To get us in shape, Del made us jump rope at practice. Some guys thought it was sissy stuff, because their sisters jumped rope. Del wasn’t having that. He said that Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio, boxers and real men, jumped rope all the time. He said jumping rope would make our team more agile, and our big guys wouldn’t trip over their feet all the time, like most big guys did in those days.
Del talked to us about motivation, and asked us why we wanted to play basketball at all. We would say: “Oh, you know, we love the game, coach.”
He would respond: “You guys don’t even know what love is. You are playing to gain recognition. You want other people, especially girls, to recognize you when you walk down the hall. Everytime you score two points, swish, you get recognition.”
“The more points we score, and the more we win, the more recognition. That is why you are playing, and there is nothing wrong with it. That is what young men do. I am here to help you do it better, to get more recognition. Other good things come out of basketball. You get stronger and learn life lessons. But, don’t kid yourselves, recognition is your motivation. ”
Coach Del was my first experience with someone promoting “enlightened self-interest”. In those days, right after WW II, everyone was supposed to be loyal, follow orders, live for your family, and die for your country. While our first response was that playing for recognition sounded wicked, it didn’t take long for me to recognize that Del was probably right. Plus, he seemed to think it was OK to work for recognition.
Despite being a freshman in high school, I was still only 12 years old. Things were happening fast as I transitioned from Little League to High School in the same year.
Categories: Commentary, Ethics, Life Stories, Philosophy, Stories
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