Wednesday, 8/20/08

By the time Wednesday evening rolled around, Matt had contacted three more potential Cougar runners, two of which said they would be there at practice. So, he knew to expect five kids, but other than that he didn't know what to expect. He'd called a friend from college, who he knew had run track in high school, but unfortunately he had been a sprinter and didn't know what the long-distance runners had done.

"All I remember was that they were never around." he proffered quite uselessly.

He thought about getting in touch with Sean Perlozzo but decided the risk outweighed the rewards. Even a google search for "coaching cross country" or "cross country practices" didn't really yield anything fruitful, other than that some high school cross country teams have seriously impressive web pages. He eventually resolved on the ride over that there was no point faking it, he'd just 'fess up to being completely unprepared for this and hope that someone who'd been on the team last year could get the group started in the right direction.

He got to school around 6:40 and paced nervously around his car waiting for other cars to pull into the lot.

"This is crazy. I wasn't this nervous when I had to hit those two foul shots in the conference tournament finals my senior year. Settle down Matty-boy."

Finally, at 6:55, a minivan turned into the school lot and approached where Matt was standing. The driver rolled down the window, and a mom asked out, "What time should I pick him up?"

His mind raced. Hadn't though of this. Thinking back to the hundreds of basketball practices he'd attended, he said as confidently as he could ...

"9:30."

"9:30!?!" echoed back at him simultaneously from both the driver and the boy who had exited the car.

"Won't it be dark by then?" asked the suddenly startled driver mom.

"Um. I'm sorry. I meant 8:30."

"Oh, okay. All right Nick, I'll see you then." she said before pulling away.

The other four runners came in quick succession and Matt couldn't help judge them internally with the eyes of a basketball coach. Only one of them appeared to top 6 feet and that kid (Jake) looked the least athletic of them all. He gathered them in a loose circle, introduced himself, and handed out copies of the year's schedule. Before he could come clean that he knew nothing about cross-country beyond what Wikipedia had taught him, one of the boys (Kory, he thought ... or was this one Mark) asked him:

"Uh, coach ... whaddya want us to do with these while we're running?

Oh, this was spiraling down the hole quickly, Matt thought. And at that moment, instead of sticking to his original plan of full and open confession, his competitive spirit goaded him into giving it a go as a newly-minted, supposed, running expert.

"Good question Mark ..."

"Uh, I'm Kory, coach."

"Right, sorry about that." he said ... gratified that his stalling tactic had bought him another 10-15 seconds to come up with something.

"Yeah, I'm going to hold the schedules while you guys run. I just wanted you guys to get a look at who we're up against this year. It's never too early to start circling dates on the calendar."

"You're not gonna be running with us, coach?"

Now Matt wasn't sure if they were serious or were on to his charade and playing it for their own malicious enjoyment.

"Nope, I want to just observe you guys. See what we have here." Matt answered.

The volley of confused faces at least let Matt know that they hadn't sniffed him out yet.

"Hey, let's just do some stretching and then we'll get started."

"Stretching before a little warm up?" ... it was Nick this time

"Yeah, today only. Then we'll go back to normal next time. We're gonna take it easy tonight."

That was the first thing he'd said all night that was greeted with any semblance of comprehension and happily it was also greeted with relieved smiles and murmurings from the team. Matt led them through some basic stretching ... more arm and shoulder stuff than they were used to ... and then had them warm up a half mile or so by having them jog around the school. He used that time to draft out the rest of the practice which ended up being heading over to the school track and jogging 8 laps (2 miles), then racing a quarter mile, then jogging another 4 laps as a cool down. They were done by 8:15, so he had some time to get their names, what grade they were in, and how many years they'd run cross-country. When they all had been picked up shortly after that, Matt exhaled and laughed to himself that he'd pulled it off ... at least for one practice. He looked down at his team roster, with an embryonic and unexpected sense of pride, and scribbled a few additional notes.

2008 CVHS Cougars XC Roster:

Jacob (Jake) Rogers: Junior, 3rd year of XC: most endurance (?), no sprint speed
Kory Hall: Senior, 3rd year of XC: battler ... won the sprint w/ a ending kick
Nick Vincent: Junior, 2nd year: started walking some ... looks out of shape
Marcus (Mark) Whitton: Senior, 4th year: SLOW but steady, I guess.
Darrell (D.J.) Turner: Sophomore, 1st year: smoothest runner, quiet

Tuesday, 8/19/08

Even a day later, Matt was decidedly unclear on how he'd become the varsity boys cross-country at Clover Valley. The only running he'd ever done in his life was for basketball conditioning and even then it was only a mile at a time.

"How in the world do you coach running? Don't they just run ... and the fastest one wins?" He wondered aloud over breakfast.

J.T. had given him a packet of information on the team in a large accordion folder. The entire contents of the needlessly large folder consisted of two lonely sheets of paper. One had a handwritten list of 11 names with phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Apparently, this was the interest list compiled last Spring. The second sheet had the team's schedule for the season.

Per J.T's instructions he'd tried to get in touch with all 11 last night. At this point, he'd heard back from six, and three of those were no longer interested. He told the other three that the first practice would be Wednesday night at 7pm. None of the kids he talked to sounded any happier than him about the prospects of the first practice.

Gloomily peering over the schedule, as his Cheerios began to soften, he concluded that the only positive element of this surprise assignment was that he'd get to familiarize himself somewhat with the locations of some of the other schools in the Pine Hills Eight conference.

2008 CVHS Cougars Boys Cross Country Schedule

Sept 3rd Away Rose Hill
Sept 6th Away Kickoff Classic @ Troy Central
Sept 10th Away Flagler County
Sept 17th Home Troy Central
Sept 24th Home Troutdale
Sept 27th Away Hickory Creek Invitational
Oct 1st Home South Troy
Oct 8th Away Willowsburg
Oct 15th Away St. Teresa
Oct 22nd Home Bisbee County
Oct 29th Away Pine Hills Conference Championships @ Willowsburg
Nov 6th Away 3-A State Championship @ Culver City

Monday, 8/18/08 (b)

Matt hadn't really been sweating the educational part of his new adventure. (He'd spent about 90% of his time after accepting the job thinking about how to install a zone press for the basketball team to run.) He'd thoroughly enjoyed his student teaching last spring and his advisers had told him, essentially, that he was a natural-born educator. He was able to maintain a controlled, learning-conducive environment while relating to his would-be scholars in a friendly peer-to-peer basis. (He didn't view this a particularly noteworthy characteristic given he was only about five years older than some of them.) Plus, he'd always been good at math. Dominated it. And his load was pretty light. He was teaching Algebra to two 9th grade classes and then Honors Algebra II to two 10th grade classes. Then in the spring he'd be teaching Honors Economics to seniors.

It was because of the Econ class that he was in Sean Perlozzo's classroom with four other teachers on his first afternoon at CVHS. It wasn't entirely clear to him why Economics was grouped in with the English department, but he wasn't looking to make waves on his first day. In fact, he was just glad to be out of Perlozzo's crosshairs to this point. He'd spent the first 20 minutes of the session absolutely blistering the two other English teachers who didn't show up for the meeting and the next ten blistering Principal Tierney for not running a more efficient school. The subsequent 60 minutes were as tedious as any he'd ever spent inside school walls as Perlozzo started listing individual writing assignments that a CVHS student should write from week one of his/her freshman year to the time he/she graduated. Matt was deep in thought about potential under-the-basket in-bounds plays when the sliver of his brain tasked with minimally paying attention issued an alert.

"Matt, I'm sure you're wondering why you are here."

At that moment, an older, heavily-bearded man slowly sauntered into the room causing Perlozzo to stop talking for one of the few times for the last hour and a half.

"Sean. Gotta a call. Said you ... weren't at cross country practice this morning."

"Well J.T., why would I have been there? I'm not coaching cross-country this year."

"Nobody told me that", the older man responded after some thought.

"I told Gene a couple of weeks ago. He was supposed to tell you. I'm too busy now that I'm chair of the English department."

Perlozzo impatiently started to turn his attention back toward the teachers.

"Nobody told me that you weren't coaching."

Perlozzo sighed heavily and rotated back to face J.T. and muttered,

"I think we've covered that."

Meanwhile, the four veteran CVHS teachers who'd been held captive over the past 90 minutes, and who weren't going to let a second chance for escape go by, used the distraction of their jailer as an excuse for an ipso facto adjournment of the meeting.

Perlozzo now traded in his previous condescending tone for one of agitation.

"Arrgh. Can't that old fool Tierney do anything right!" "All right. Let's go see him. But it's a waste of your time and it's definitely a waste of mine, because I'm not coaching this year. You might as well start looking for someone to babysit that mollycoddled squad of so-called runners."

With that Sean Perlozzo stormed past J.T. near the door, with the older man in tow, en route to the principal's office.

And just like that Matt found himself all alone in the classroom. After a few moments reflecting on the sudden squall that had just passed and left only sunny skies in its wake, he got up to return to his classroom. Turning left out of the door, he immediately found his path blocked by the grizzled figure of J.T. Weber.

"Matthew, right? I need to talk to you."

Monday, 8/18/08 (a)

Even though it was only 7:15 am, the low valley fog was already starting to burn off. It looked to be another abnormally warm day in the North Carolina hills. In the Clover Valley H.S. parking lot, two kids chatted aimlessly while a third lingered just outside the conversation.

After about a 45 second pause in their talking, the taller of the two boys said ...

"He did say the 18th, right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"And the e-mail said 7 am. I know that ..."

The conversation sputtered out again as both boys peered into the direction of the lot's entrance for another 45 seconds. The shorter boy said with a sigh,

"Well Jake, I think Coach Perloser is a no show."

Jake stretched his calves by leaning his 6'4" frame against one of the handicapped parking signs in the lot and responded,

"It's probably good he ain't here. Imagine he'd have us running suicides or some other nonsense and I only ran maybe 100 miles all summer. Well, I can drop you back off at your house and then I can go back to sleep until about noon."

Jake continued.

"Nicky-boy, I gotta say this is a great way to start the season. Just the two of us and no coach."

The mention of the number two called their attention to the third boy in the lot who was fidgeting nervously about 50 yards away. Jake yelled over.

"Hey. Are you here for cross-country?"

Jorge gave a quick nod. This time Nick hollered over.

"Well, we don't know where the coach is, so there's probably not much point in hanging around here. Someone will figure out something I suppose ..."

Jorge didn't really understand what the boy meant, but when they got in their car and left it was pretty clear that his first cross-country practice had not gone as he'd expected. His mom had dropped him off and headed off to work. There was little choice but to run the seven miles home.

Sunday, 8/17/08

When the day came to move out, Matt was caught unaware ... like a good pick from a power forward ... by an undefinable kind of sadness. Through church, despite his best attempts to focus, his mind wandered back to various memories of his days in Coharie Creek. He'd gone away for college, but that was different, he was less than 30 minutes away from home. And while he didn't go back every weekend, especially that first year, it was nice to know that it wasn't too far. The last semester he'd essentially moved back home once his roommate left school after Christmas break.

As he sat around the kitchen table w/ the family, the small talk was somewhat forced. There wasn't much to say. Nobody wanted to see Matt go, but everyone had come to grips with that he was going and that maybe he had to go. It was one of those moments that reminds you that life doesn't come with a pause or rewind button, no matter how badly we might want one. Mostly Emily filled the void with her plans for the upcoming week, her last stretch of summer vacation prior to her junior year at "The Creek", a year she was approaching with much trepidation. Six years ago, Matt didn't have a care in the world other than if he'd make varsity squad that year. Now he was striking out on his own. "Now or never", he thought as he packed his last bag.

They'd mostly filled his small one-bedroom apartment in Clover Valley on Friday. The rest of his stuff was now snugly packed in the back of his 2002 Toyota Echo. The only one not crying was Zeus, their behemoth Neapolitan Mastiff, although his slobbering probably produced the most actual fluid. As he pulled out of the driveway, Zeus gave a rare bark as if to say, "Hey, where are you going?"

Saturday, 8/16/08

J.T. Weber had been athletic director at Clover Valley High School since 1972, the only person there with a longer tenure than Principal Tierney himself. He was from the hills of Mercer County, born and bred as they say. J.T. had a solid working relationship with his boss, but it had never evolved into anything beyond that. For starters, Gene Tierney cared little about the athletic programs at Clover Valley. In his mind, they deserved no more attention than the French club or any other after-school assembly of students. He went to a handful of Yellow Jackets football games a year, but he usually slipped out after the band played at halftime.

More importantly, it was because J.T. did his best to cordon himself off ... not just from Tierney, but from almost everybody. Even though CVHS wasn't that large a school, it wasn't too hard for an experienced athletic director to find out of the way places to spend his days.

If it was hard to find him in the school year, finding him during the summer was next to impossible. A few weeks after a school year ended, he'd be packing up toward the Tennessee border with the minimally necessary camping gear and a few Louis L'Amour novels. He'd set up a camp in some remote spot and spend his days fishing, hiking (less so this summer), and napping (more so this summer). Normally, he'd come back to Clover Valley 10 days before a new school year got underway, but this year there'd been a downpour on his last evening and he felt he needed one more sunset to gird himself for the year ahead.

Friday, 8/15/08

For the first time since starting his routine in early July, he was picking up his pace halfway up the hill that led to Thompson's Park. His stride was long and strong. It felt good. It hadn't always been painful heading up this slope, but it had never felt good. He accelerated further. It was a warm day for the western North Carolina hills, but there was a bit of a breeze and most of his route was shaded, so it was managable. It reminded him of summer at home. Every 10 seconds or so, the breeze would be artifically enhanced by the downwash of a car or truck headed down NC 141 in the Friday afternoon rush hour. Running on the shoulder, Jorge took in both the fumes and the fresh air. He checked his watch as he approached the top of the hill about a mile from home and right at 2 miles from where he had started it.

"10:56!"

It was nearly 30 seconds faster than he done in any of his previous personal time trials. Moreover, he wasn't really even winded. He jogged the last mile with a broad smile and even high-fived a few of the road signs as he cooled down. Eventually coasting to a stop as he wound down the short lane that led from busy NC 141 to his home, he walked the last 100 yards down his family's gravel driveway. With a wipe of shirt bottom to prevent any dripping sweat from hitting the floor, he swept through the back door and hollered out, "Mamá, he hecho mi decisión."

Wednesday, 8/13/08 (c)

Tierney had never felt the need to have department chairs at Clover Valley. Ultimately, he believed that between the curriculum and the individual styles of his teachers, a department chair would have little influence. After the fact he rationalized his decision by concluding that little actual harm could be done ... plus it was late in the summer to be looking for English teachers who would come all the way out to Mercer County. The challenge would be smoothing realtionships with the other English teachers, discreetly letting them know that their participation in this new arrangement was totally voluntary.

As he headed out of the office for a four day weekend, Tierney strongly suspected he had made a mistake. He struggled internally as to whether to chalk it up to simple expediency, or perhaps something more malignant.

His desk phone interrupted that thought.

"Gene? Sean. Didn't think you'd still be there. Thinking about the chairmanship. It's gonna take a lot of my time. A lot of my time. I'm going to have to give up the cross-country gig. At a minimum, I gotta drop that. I'd've called J.T., but who knows where he disappears to this time of year. Sorry about that, but I gotta make sure I don't get burnt out with this chair thing. It's gonna be great, but it's gonna take a lot of time. Good? Good. See ya in a couple weeks Genie."

Dr. Gene Tierney locked up the doors feeling another year older and amazed that the first of the unhappy consequences of his decision was so fast in coming.

"Ahhhhh. I'll call J.T on Monday."

Wednesday, 8/13/08 (b)

Twenty minutes after the scheduled appointment, Sean Perlozzo rushed into the Principal's office and barely pausing for the usual 'how's the summer been small talk', let loose a volley of complaints about the way Clover Valley High School was being run.

Sitting back in his chair, Tierney listened, but he didn't hear anything that he hadn't heard before sometime before in his 27 years running the school. As Tierney edged towards his 60th birthday, he noticed increasing disinterest on the part of others about history ... about past lessons learned. It was as if it hadn't happened in the past 3 years, it hadn't happened at all. In times of reflection at his desk after a particularly tough staff meeting, he'd started to wonder if maybe he was just out of touch and maybe out of place in a new generation.

Creeping doubt aside, he couldn't help but find it galling that this guy who'd come directly from running an independent weekly newspaper was lecturing him on the way to run a school. The meeting to this point had been a monologue. Tierney's mind wandered "Some people simply don't feel like they've had a conversation unless they do 90% of the talking." However, Perlozzo was clearly building up to an ultimatum.

"Listen Gene, we need a department chair to oversee the way we're going about our creative writing. I'm the guy to do it. We need to get the basic principles in place in English 1 and 2. By the time they get to me, they're useless. I spend most of the year undoing the damage that's been done to them as freshmen and sophomores and I'm not going to let that go on another year. Either you make me chair of the English department, or I'm not coming back."

Wednesday, 8/13/08 (a)

As he put down the phone, Principal Tierney observed to an empty office, "He seems like a decent enough guy, but you just can't tell from an application package and a couple of five minute phone calls."

As he entered "Matthew Adamson" into the previously empty spaces for Algebra and Algebra II in the DOE-issued staffing software, he remembered what had initially separated Adamson's application from the rest. It was the fact that all three of his letters of recommendation had mentioned that he was a young man of character. Beyond that ... the cover letter in the application listed a jumbled mess of internships, math coursework, and starry ambitions for Clover Valley's basketball team. And the resume was an even emptier canvas than most kids straight out of college. He knew Adamson wouldn't have been the school board's first choice.

"Ahhh, Lord knows we can't do any worse than the last few hires."

Under increasing pressure from the Board, Tierney had felt forced to fill his vacancies over the past few years with "professionals". The board felt "new blood" was needed to raise test scores up to the level of surrounding counties. Over the last two years, he'd hired the editor of a failed local weekly, a self-employed accountant, and a 20-year Forest Service employee with an interest in plants. Sitting at his desk, he bristled at the notion that the Board defined these people as "professionals" while anybody actually knowledgeable about educating students was placed outside that categorization. Tierney felt that anyone with a halfway-decent education themselves could see the built-in advantages that the surrounding counties had when it came to test scores.

Pushing his chair away from the keyboard and turning to face out the window, Dr. Eugene Tierney worked to calm down.

"This is supposed to be my relaxing time of the year. Shoot, if I can get past this 11 o'clock, the rest of the week should be reasonable enough."

Tuesday, 8/12/08 (b)

He hit the fridge as his Mom looked up from her laptop on the kitchen counter. Between two long gulps of Gatorade, he panted, "I'm going to take the job at Clover Valley."

His mom's shoulders dropped slightly and there was a longish pause while she found the right words to reply.

"If that's what you think is best, Matthew." She paused again, even longer this time. "You know we'll still be here for you."

And with that, it was locked in. Three weeks of internal debate. Three weeks of sleep riven by doubt and restless wonderings. Gone. The burden he'd been carrying seemed to be dropping off him faster than the sweat worked up under the mid-afternoon Carolina sun.

"Thanks Mom."

Decisions generally came easy to Matt Adamson. He had a well-grounded sense of what was right and what was wrong. Ever since he was very young, he was consistently able to assess the paths before him, and using his factory-installed wisdom, determine which route was best for him. And not just for him, for those around him as well. He'd talked some friends off some pretty scary ledges in college. But this decision had presented a haze through which he couldn't see the end. It was a decision between two 'rights'.

"It's like Dean Smith against Ol' Roy in a regional final", he'd determined sometime after 1 a.m. on one of those 21 semi-sleepless nights.

On one bench was his family. Mom, Dad, Emily, and Zeus. The team he'd grown up with. The team that had prepped him for the opportunity he now had. He could stay with them and seemlessly slide into the assistant J.V. coaching job at Coharie Creek, sitting but a few seats up the court from where he'd earned 2nd team all-Metro honors just four years earlier. That was the home team. The higher seed. Always.

On the other bench, pretty much by itself, stood the chance to be head varsity basketball coach at Clover Valley High School.

Tuesday, 8/12/08 (a)

As was usually the case, the routine cleared his mind.

Start with a left-handed layup, then move to the right corner. Swish the 20 footer from just off the driveway. Get the rebound before the second bounce. Head to the left corner, take the pass off the side of the house. Set, jump, release, ... good. Corral the ball and dribble to the top of the key. Face the basket, quick scissor-step dribble between the legs, and drill a slight fadeaway jumper. And only after the previous four steps had been completed to perfection, was the drill ended w/ left-handed layup.

With a wipe of shirt bottom to prevent any dripping sweat from hitting the floor, Matt swept through the back door and hollered out, "Mom, I've made my decision."