“What if you both had worked more with the younger guys? Would we have freshmen or sophomores ready to move up to varsity? Think in terms of Alabama. Would sharing what you’ve learned over the last four years have helped to jump-start the younger players?” I asked.
“Isn’t that my problem?” Coach Hope asked.
“Didn’t you just say that you were understaffed?” Mr. Tams asked.
“What David is suggesting is something similar to what we had at my fraternity in college: big and little brothers. My big brother helped me get acclimated to not only the fraternity but to college life as a whole. If it hadn’t been for him, I would probably need a liver transplant now, and I surely would have flunked out,” Dad shared.
I mentally marked that down for someday when Dad made a comment about my drinking.
“I’m not sure what we call it,” I admitted. “In my own case, I owe my success to mentors, and not only for sports. For most everything I’ve done, I’ve sought out an expert and asked them to guide me. Some have been formal, like when I hired Bo Harrington. Others were more informal. I asked one of the actors in LA to help me understand the Japanese culture so I could do a better job with my performance.”
“So, you’re suggesting that older guys act as big brothers for younger teammates?” Tracy asked.
“I want it to be more than sports-focused, and for more than the football team. Some of the seniors took the time to teach me stuff my freshman year that I had no clue about. I was lucky because I had an actual big brother. Not all kids have the benefit of an older brother who would tolerate their freshman sibling, let alone hold their hand and help them grow up.
“With that in mind, I hoped we would build more of a family-like atmosphere. I’d like to get the upperclassmen on the team together to discuss it,” I said.
“I want you to be careful when we define anything as a ‘family’ type of dynamic,” Coach Hope said. “When I was in the military, we were taught different leadership styles. A family style does encourage personal relationships, a sense of community, and a feeling of security.
“But it may also discourage competition, lower expectations, or struggle with accountability for the simple reason that we don’t hold family as accountable as we sometimes should. I’m sure we can all think of someone in our family who, if they weren’t a part of it, we would vote out because they don’t carry their weight.”
“How is Brad, by the way?” I asked.
I’d forgotten that Cassidy was sitting quietly in the back of the room until she dissolved in laughter. Coach glared at both of us in a way that promised pain later.
“Coach is right,” Dad said, to get us back on track. “There has to be some accountability on all sides, or this won’t work. I think what David was getting at was that it must be about more than football or baseball. Some of my best memories were just hanging out with my big brother from my frat. It reminds me of when we visited Oklahoma, and our guide talked about how the teammates hung out in the locker room.”
“Why would you want to hang out in a locker room?” Tom Dole asked.
“It was a nice locker room. They had big-screen TVs, leather couches, pool tables … envision your best concept of a man cave, and you’ll get some idea of their locker room,” Dad said.
“So, it was a sausage fest?” Tom asked.
That made us all laugh. He had a point. Then again, it was a place you could go and just be a guy.
“What do you hope to accomplish at the team meeting?” Mrs. Sullivan asked to get us back on topic.
Poor Tom was reminded that she was in the room and that his “sausage fest” comment might not go over well in mixed company.
“I want to see if the seniors are willing to help start this or if they just want to enjoy the rest of the year,” I said.
“Trust me. Just tell them, and they’ll do it because you said so,” Wolf said. “Besides, I expect they want to leave a legacy as badly as you do. I don’t want to see our success end just because we graduate.”
“That’s something we need to fix. We need leaders to step up. While I don’t think we want a bunch of chiefs running around, we do need more than one. We also have to train the new chiefs,” I said.
“Didn’t you do that last fall when you made the younger guys lead the team?” Tim asked.
“To an extent. There’s more to it than leading the team in warm-ups or doing the coin toss,” I reminded them.
“I thought he was just sick of doing it,” Tracy said.
I bit my tongue before I said what I thought of her smart comment.
Once we finished discussing the mentor idea, Mrs. Sullivan was ready with a new topic.
“I recently got a call saying that the school district plans to build a new middle school where the football practice field is.”
“Where are we supposed to practice?” Coach Hope asked, apparently hearing this for the first time.
“The city has a park three blocks from the high school.”
“Why not build the middle school there?” Dad asked.
