Rambling Josh

My youngest brother, with a lot of help from his wife, became a father on April 17th with the birth of their son Otto. What pearls of wisdom does a seasoned battle scarred vet in the fatherhood vocation have to share with his little brother? What have I learned in the 16 years since I first slipped on the fatherhood galoshes and started slogging my way through the muddled path of parenthood? Good question…maybe in another 16 years I’ll have a good answer.

The only unsolicited advice I’ve offered up to these two fine young people is that at all costs they are to avoid any and all books about parenting. There is no book on raising your child, there are books written by others about how they raised their children. Their children are not your children and you are not them so save your money and by something useful like a bottle of bourbon or a chimp that’s trained to change diapers.

Real parents don’t have time to write a book on parenting let alone read one. I made the mistake of seeking out the advice of a parenting book when I first became a father and my wife has never forgiven me. The parents that authored that particular book recommended that during the first six months it was perfectly fine to allow your child to sleep in your bed at night when they “occasionally” became fussy.

Guess how “occasionally” a baby becomes fussy once they figure out that they get to sleep in your bed when they become fussy? Also, the word “fussy” does not begin to convey the volume and effort a baby is capable of when they are miffed. The little tyrants will bawl their fool heads off at 3 o’clock in the morning for no apparent reason and with no regard for the fact that mommy and daddy have to get up early and go to work to pay for Juniors swimming lessons, his shiny new Johnny Jump Up, and a plethora of other such necessities.

Advice? Kids don’t need everything they claim they need and they will not suffer any permanent damage from not getting everything they claim they need. Also, your kids don’t need everything other parents claim they need and will not suffer any permanent damage from not getting everything other parents claim they need.

As parents you are the captain of the ship, the seas may be rough from time to time but never relinquish the wheel to the kids. You’ll never get it back and when the ship sinks you’ll still get the blame even if you were innocently and obliviously milling about the poop deck in your Birkenstocks and socks when the iceberg was struck.

When it comes to this parenting gig I have faith in my brother and my sister-in-law. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and they both come from pretty stable strong trees that have produced a lot of good apples. A fair share of nuts as well but good apples just the same.

The only advice I have that I am certain of is that no matter how much of tangled mess things seem these first few years of parenthood every once in awhile take a moment to soak it all in because it goes by fast. As our children grow and their worlds get bigger our part as parents gets smaller so enjoy this time when they need you for most everything. Let the needing begin.

As a self-imposed penance or a feeble attempt at righting a cosmic wrong for the sake of my karmic righteousness I took up the hobby of substitute teaching in the Rapid City school district this year. For the handsome sum of $65 I am called upon to show up at a moment’s notice to academically woo and dazzle the eager teenagers of Rapid City’s fine public schools.

If you are the type of individual that doesn’t enjoy flying by the seat of your pants (never really understood that phrase) and you experience acute bouts of nausea, nervousness, and nystagmus when faced with the unknown then substitute teaching may not be the optimal way for you to spend your free time. I’ll admit I was as nervous as long tail cat in room full of rocking chairs my first sub gig but came away from the experience ready and willing for another go round.

Momma always said substitute teaching was like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get. When the students roll in and take their seats they could be likened to a box of chocolates only some of them are turds masquerading as sweet chocolates. As a former classroom turd the ruse of the unruly is shroud I am quite adept at seeing through.

I would like to think I was better than these amateurs when it came to pulling the wool over the teachers eye’s but I now know that sometimes it’s more productive for a teacher to ignore a knucklehead than to stall the groups forward academic progress by stopping to acknowledge and address the behavior. As long as the wool is pulled over my eye’s quietly and non-disruptedly I’ll let it slide for awhile. Since I may only have the student for an hour, like a grandparent, I can let them fill their pants and hand them back to the teacher for changing.

The first tipoff to trouble is an overly enthusiastic smile followed by, “Oooh we have a sub today!” That kid just made the list. It also makes it easier to accept the bad behavior knowing that on some level I deserve to be on the other end of it. I know it may be hard to believe but I wasn’t the most attentive student so when a kid is irritating me I think of the teachers I probably irritated and I hope the years have diminished their urge to choke me.

Knowing that a teacher quietly sat at their desk fantasizing about several shelves of heavy textbooks collapsing on my smirking teenage face really makes me feel bad about my behavior back then. I wasn’t doing myself or my fellow classmates any good by being a constant unabashed wisenheimer and for that I am truly sorry. Sorry for having so much fun at another’s expense is an odd sort of sorry.

So until I feel I have evened out the balance of the cosmic karma scale that tilts so unevenly from my turdly teenage behavior I will continue righting my wrongs and answering the call to substitute teach.

April has come around once again and our world here on the top side of the lower 48 has begun its transformation from the white and gray of winter to the vast color collage of spring. The dark angular figures that have looked like cracks in the winter horizon are beginning to bud and will soon fill out and provide the shade we’ll soon be seeking. Although we optimistically look forward to spring we will continue to warily look over our shoulder for another shot of winter until sometime around Independence Day.

What we need now are some April showers to come in and clean up the remnants of winter. Gently obliterate those last few dirty piles of snow, wash the grit of the road, and perk the grass up a bit.

In the sports world it’s time to kick open the gym doors and head outside to spectate or participate in your sport or sports of choice. Baseball and track top the list for my preferred warm weather endeavors. Nothing better than a baseball game or track meet on a nice warm spring day and nothing worse on a miserably cold, windy, rainy, snowy spring day.

While high school and college teams have been playing for a few weeks now this week brings us opening day for major league baseball. I think I was 5 years old when I fell in love with the game of baseball and it has been a constant in my life ever since. I played football, ran track, and attempted basketball but baseball was the only game that I enjoyed practice as much as the games and still do. It’s just a great game and I feel fortunate to have had the privilege of playing it for so long.

It’s also a very frustrating game. A player batting over .300 is considered to be a very good hitter. A player batting .300 has managed to be successful 30% of their at bats and met with failure the other 70% of their trips to the plate. I think this demonstrates the difficulty of the game and also why optimism is a necessary trait amongst baseball players. A juvenile sense of humor is also helpful.

The founders of the game had great foresight when they settled on using dugouts for the players to hang out in when they weren’t trying to avoid failure on the baseball field. In other sports the players are in full view of the spectators and have to appear intent and interested in the game at all times whereas in baseball the dugout is a home away from home. Horsing around is expected and encouraged in the friendly confines of the dugout.

Allow me to provide an example of the intellectual goings on in a dugout. In college, before they really began enforcing the ban on chewing tobacco, it was perfectly admissible for a teammate to spit a mouthful of tobacco juice on your cleats. If they were able to do so without hitting your shoe laces you could not retaliate until a later date but if after inspection it was agreed upon by the spitee and the spitter that your laces had indeed been soiled with tobacco juice you (the spitee) were entitled to freely soil the spitters cleat with your own mouthful of tobacco juice.

In the dugout conversations of all sort are ongoing, unrecognizable chatter is occurring, some are wearing rally caps, some are sneaking off to the concessions stand for a hotdog, most are participating in some form of screwing around, spit and seeds are flowing at a constant rate, there’s no clock, and you just might stroll out of that environment up to the plate swing your bat and make solid contact and all will be right with the world for a brief moment as you circle the bases and return to where everyone has stopped all the above to congratulate you and welcome you back to the dugout.

There’s a phrase we use in baseball when someone is having a particularly good day. When they’re hitting everything the pitcher throws and fielding everything that comes their way you might hear someone yell out, “hey havin’ a day!” We all know the peaks and valleys of the game and yelling out “hey havin’ a day” to someone is just recognition of one of those peak days that are so elusive on the baseball field. You know when you’re “havin’ a day” and that’s what keeps you coming back, that’s what keeps you from dwelling on the failures that inevitably outweigh the successes in the game.

As spring tentatively settles in go on and have yourself a day.

As fate, demons, or sadistic leprechauns would have it, in the past few weeks two events have intertwined that could prove to put a damper on my life expectancy. I will be pleasantly surprised if at the conclusion of the year 2012 I am upright with full use of both arms and nothing more than the usual yearly mental decline. Unscathed, uninjured, and undead have recently become my post dated belated New Years resolutions.

No I haven’t decided to pursue a career as a tour bus driver in Iraq; my sixteen year old daughter got her learners permit and my twelve year old son completed hunter’s safety. The volatile combination of automobiles and firearms, two American institutions, thrust into one father’s life at the same time. Play times over.

My daughter was having a problem with test anxiety when it came to the learners permit test but the third time was a charm, for her not for me, and she came out smiling holding her shiny new permit in one hand and my life in the other. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy for her, but teaching my teenage daughter the rules of the road from the passenger seat of a moving car with other moving cars in close proximity seemed more than little dangerous for all involved.

As we were getting set to leave the parking lot of the DMV my concern was amplified another notch when I told my daughter to press the brake and shift into reverse. I heard the engine roar as she tugged on the shifter and pressed the peddle to the right of the one I had hoped. Briefly, a vision of the simpler and safer days of Ellis family automobile transportation flittered by with her safely secured in her car seat and me at the helm.

Thankfully, some genius, most likely a father that had to teach a daughter how to drive, incorporated the “must press brake to shift out of park” safety feature. This also is most likely the same fellow who decided the emergency brake should be in the middle within arm’s reach of the passenger (a.k.a. Dad). In the eight miles between our house and the DMV my hand never left the emergency brake and my buns never unclenched. Drivers ed teachers must have buns of steel.

During those eight miles my wife called to inquire about Sierra’s test results. I said, “She passed.” In those few words my wife sensed a “clenched” tone in my voice and asked, “Is she driving now?” I said, “Yes.” My wife said, “You sound nervous.” I said, “Yes.” She said, “I will wait and talk to you when you get home.” I said, “Yes.”

I won’t be nodding off in the passenger seat anytime soon but Sierra is doing a fine job of driving and the only damage to the car has been a noticeable warping in the passenger side floor boards and slight finger indentations around the emergency brake handle.

Sierra’s driving and Jackson can now legally get in touch with his inner Elmer Fudd. I’ve got a few months until hunting season then the clenching can commence in full force again. I’ll keep you posted on the death defying goings on and the promising underwear modeling career all the clenching created.

As Mark Twain once said, and many have said since, “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Those words crossed my mind when I first read about the “Piggy Back Bandit” in a newspaper article a few weeks ago. I have a disorder that makes me laugh at inappropriate times or at least what is deemed inappropriate by a statistical majority of the adult population.

When I first read the story about the Piggy Back Bandit I thought, after a less than mild chuckle, that this may be one of those inappropriate times and that there may be something more to the story. Something darker and more sinister that would make me regret chortling over the issue, but so far nothing dastardly has turned up so for now I feel vindicated of all counts of inappropriate laughter.

Oh I’m sure there are still those that feel this is a very serious matter; the same that feel most every matter is serious. I know who you are. I’ve seen you frown in my direction while I’m struggling to overcome my above mentioned disorder. Have you no compassion for the disordered?

For those who may have missed this little nugget of news allow me to fill you in on the exploits of the Piggy Back Bandit. First of all, I must inform you that Piggy Back Bandit is not the Christian name his parents picked out of their “10,007 Baby Names” book. If it were his given name it would be a simple case of a young man trying to live up to his name. But it’s not so this isn’t a simple case, it’s a strange case, stranger than fiction.

It seems Sherwin “Piggy Back Bandit” Shayegan has spent the last few years making impromptu visits to high school sporting events to solicit piggy back rides from high school athletes. The 28-year-old entrepreneur founded his “business” in Washington and then expanded east collecting piggy back rides and the ire of high school sports officials in Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

A Montana high school sports official was quoted as saying, “What’s disturbing to me is that he is jumping on our young athletes, he is 240 pounds, and he can hurt someone.” What’s disturbing to me is that that’s all he finds disturbing. So if Sherwin coupled a reduced calorie diet with a strenuous regime of daily calisthenics and lost 70 pounds his actions wouldn’t be disturbing? In the event I have the urge to pick up a new hobby I would like to know the optimum non-disturbing weight for a piggy back bandit.

Before you pass judgment on misunderstood and mildly misguided Sherwin know that he is not a free loading piggy back rider. His general mode of operation is to gain close access to the team, he prefers basketball, by taking on the role of water boy. Once the game is over and his water boy duties have been completed he asks for his hard earned wages in his favorite form of currency, the piggy back ride.

Have your free loading kids ever offered you anything in exchange for all the piggy back rides you’ve dished out to them over the years? I need to go get an oil change tomorrow so when the guy finishes up and hands me the bill I’m just going to tell him to hop on. We’ll settle up piggy back bandit style…if he’s under 240 pounds…otherwise it would be disturbing.

During my glorious carefree fun filled college days I claimed, on paper anyway, to be a biology major and I somehow managed to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in biology. A B.S. in Biology, the B.S. part is accurate and somewhat fitting as I had intended on becoming a forest ranger and spending my days moseying around the woods analyzing various forms of animal droppings. Now as an athletic trainer I mosey around gymnasiums and football fields waiting for athletes to drop. B.S. is in just as plentiful a supply at a sporting event as it is in the forest, it’s just being produced and expelled in a different format.

Sometimes what we set out to do or be isn’t what we end up doing or being. For instance, my brother had dreams of one day performing on Broadway. He would dance fervently around the house, dancing and dancing until he would collapse in an exhausted heap, his leotard soaked with sweat. Then one fateful day while dancing he slipped on a stray Lincoln Log rolled his ankle and was never the same. With his dreams of Broadway so cruelly and violently ripped away he sold his leotard and leg warmers and became a lineman.

Since both my brothers are lineman feel free to create a mental picture of whichever one you would find most entertaining dancing around in a leotard. I find them both entertaining and as their older brother I’m confident that I could convince both of them to slip into a leotard.

B.S. got me thinking about B.S. and the other words and phrases we use to express ourselves. For example “Son of a biscuit” is a phrase I refuse to use for various reasons. First of all, as a quasi biology major I do not recall ever studying the reproductive system of a biscuit which makes me question the validity and accuracy of the statement. Since I wasn’t the most attentive student it is entirely possible that I missed that chapter or was absent the day we went over the biscuit reproduction system and had biscuit dissection lab. If that is the case I apologize for my ignorance.

What would the son of a biscuit be? A crouton? An oyster cracker? Secondly, I don’t use that phrase because I believe if you’re going to curse, if you want to curse, if you need to curse then don’t dilly dally around with the low-fat diet version. Spit out a mouthful of the real McCoy. Always full flavored, always satisfying. When you smash your thumb with a hammer and, “Oooh snicker doodles!” just doesn’t cut it reach for the tried and true. This message approved and funded by Cursers of America. We swear by it.

Cursing is an art and like all art forms some people are better at it and more fluent in it than others. Like any great artist you need to know what to use, when to use it, and how much is necessary. That is where many go wrong and give cursing a bad name. I like salt but too much of it can make you cringe. The error those people are making is that they are not taking their audience into consideration. Like an artist who paints portraits of hamburgers and steaks to sell at the PETA convention they just don’t understand the wants and needs of their audience. Don’t understand or don’t care.

Properly used, cursing, can make you feel better, get your point across in fewer words, and provide some level of entertainment to those around you. Unless of course the curse is directed at those around you which of course is the beginning of an entirely different scenario that may find you with a fist in your curse emitter. If you’ve been wanting to give cursing a try start with muttering obscenities to test the waters. Start low and grow is what we teach here at the Cursers of America Academy of the Arts and What Not.

Speaking of B.S., cursing, and muttering obscenities, I hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and the box of chocolates you got didn’t have too many of those chocolates filled with that nasty orange marshmallow substance.

I drew the taxi to Terry Peak straw this past weekend and as I was sitting in the ski lodge passing the time until 4:00, when the lifts shut down for the day and my son and his buddies are forced to stop snowboarding, I spied a sign. A sign I’ve paid a passing glance to in booze pedaling establishments once or twice over the years.

The sign’s intention is to assist those that may have forgotten their age or have been traveling abroad and need to be reminded of the legal drinking age in the United States and South Dakota. The sign said, “If you were born on or before January 29, 1991 enjoy an ice cold Pabst Blue Ribbon.” A simple sign, you’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, we’ve all seen it time and time again.

I worked as a bartender when I was in college and rotating the numbers on the sign was one of a multitude of exhausting duties required of me. Slicing lemons, putting pickle spears and olives on little swords, making sure there wasn’t too much lipstick on the clean beer glasses, and rotating numbers. Oh yeah, and making sure the televisions were all tuned to various sporting events. If no sports were on customers were forced to watch golf or NASCAR instead.

What caught my eye this particular time was the year, 1991. That was the year I graduated from Burke Central High School. Baby’s that were just making their messy and noisy entrance into this world that year can now legally make a messy and noisy exit from a bar. Using my rudimentary math skills and general knowledge of legal drinking age I deduced that 21 years ago I was a young man in tight pants, loafers, and a flowing mane strolling the halls of BCHS on the downhill side of my senior year.

I was enjoying myself sitting at the bar in the ski lodge until that point. Who wants to be reminded that they are well before the “if you were born on or before” date? Not me. As my high school history and shop teacher, Mr. Savelkoul, always said, “Ignorance is bliss.” I was blissful until that sign threw 21 years at me and made me ponder this and that. Pondering this and that reminded me that I will be 40 in July and if the next 21 years go by as quickly as the last I’m going to be 60 sometime next week.

I feel a little nauseous. Mid-life crisis? Does mid-life mean half done or half to go? I can count on the half done part; at least until I forget it, but the half to go part is a crap shoot. I gotta stop with this line of thought; it’s not good for my complexion. Those of you more experienced in the matters of aging could maybe fill me in on how long I’m going to fret about all this number and age nonsense because it’s exhausting.

In my experience hiking, going downhill always means there’s going to eventually be an uphill so you enjoy the downhill because you know the uphill is going to be difficult and tiring. I’m not ready to enjoy the downhill yet so I guess I’ll turn around and walk back up to that knot head in the tight pants and loafers and tell him to enjoy life it goes by fast…and to get a hair cut.

Early one blustery South Dakota January morning the “Pre and Me Meat Co.” was founded and brought forth stuff made of meat. One meat, actually, brought forth in various delicious forms, smoked venison, dried venison, and venison summer sausage all were carefully hand crafted and Labrador approved.

This process of processing was much more time intensive than I imagined and I now understand why people would ere on the side of stinginess when it comes to sharing their homemade jerky and sausage. My right hand dog, Pre, took a keen interest in the art of turning this into that and was by my side every step of the way.

If he had thumbs and better penmanship I’m sure he would have been taking detailed notes. With the large volume of drool this meat work was producing I was concerned about Pre’s hydration and electrolyte levels so I kept him well supplied with Gatorade.

I have made jerky in the oven and in the dehydrator with success in the past but that seemed too easy and predictable so I thought I would take the “Pre and Me Meat Co.” to a new level and really impress our customers and attempt a few new methods. I read an article a few years back on making a smoker out of a garbage can and wanted to give it a try so I set out to do some net surfing to get the particulars on garbage can smoker construction.

To answer your first question, “Yes it was a brand new never been used to contain actual rubbish and what not metal garbage can.” To answer your second question, “I didn’t just go buy a smoker because I saved at least $7.00 by building one of my own.” The Pre of “Pre and Me Meat Co.” will be more than willing to answer any further questions you may have in regards to smoker construction, meat preparation, or canine thoughts and beliefs about UFO’s and Big Foot.

With my garbage can smoker materials list in hand I headed to the hardware store with visions various smoked animals dancing in my head. I apologize to any vegetarians that may be reading this but the vision was a most pleasant site and like a Pavlovian dog I began to salivate as I strolled through the hardware store. Uncontrollable salivation in the hardware store isn’t anything new but this time the reason had nothing to do with the latest and greatest model of table saw with laser alignment and free dado blade.

While searching for all the necessary components I did run across an actual factory made smoker that would only require me to open the box. I was in Wal-Mart at the time and in a weakened state, my general state when forced to venture into Wal-Mart, and of course it was on clearance but I fought of the urge to go with “Made in China” and stayed the course for “Made in my garage”.

Besides, I figured if it didn’t work out at least I would have a garbage can and Pre would have his fill of smoked meat. With some personal modifications to the plans I found on the internet the garbage can smoker worked. Men always make personal modifications to plans because otherwise it’s just following instructions and no man likes to have their creativity and undiscovered genius stifled by instructions.

So after fifteen hours of tending to the needs of drying and smoking meat my family can enjoy the tasty, and let us not forget healthy, products of the “Pre and Me Meat Co.” Be sure to tune in next week as we transform a Mini Winnie into a mobile smoker capable of the simultaneous production and transportation of various forms of smoked and dried meats.

My daughter wanted to stroll around downtown this weekend and visit a few antique shops so her and I headed out for some father daughter browsing. She didn’t ask me to wait in the car or walk a block behind her so I assumed she wanted me to tag along. I enjoy antique shops and generally take a leisurely stroll through the shops in downtown Rapid City every month or so.

I don’t really go there to buy anything I just enjoy looking at old stuff. Apparently I’m not a minority in the “looking not buying” as not much merchandise seems to have changed hands in any of the antique shops in the last few years. As my daughter said, “These stores are more like museums than stores.”

As much as I enjoy “antiquing” I always experience a twinge or two of sadness as I stroll about surrounded by things that once belonged to and were most likely treasured by someone else a long time ago. What was the story behind those that gave form and life to these clothes, gazed into this mirror, walked in these shoes?

I enjoy holding old hand tools and feeling the smooth well-worn wood handle in my hand as I wonder about the person that owned them and what they created with them. Did some kid use this bit brace to drill holes in a bunch of car tires on his grandpa’s farm? My brother Jarvis and I can’t be the only kids that did that? I have that very bit brace in my possession and I smile every time I look at it. My grandpa was a patient man.

The children’s toys always get to me too, but in a different way. I look at those mint condition toys, many of which I had as a child, and wonder what kind of sissy kid owned them. Those poor toys never got properly played with. My toys were mint condition for as long as it took me to construct an explosive or find a hammer. My brother and I were very hard on toys and generally beat up, blew up, or burned up most any toy in our possession.

I did feel a slight pang of guilt when I spied a Johnny West action figure in a glass case complete with all his twenty-four accessories, horse, two dogs (Flick and Flack), and his entourage. The whole gang was there, Jane, Jay and Josie West, Sam Cobra (the villain), and Chief Cherokee and his daughter, Princess Wildflower.

Why did I feel a bit guilty as I looked over this impressive set of toys? The Johnny West action figures were manufactured from 1965 to about 1975 and my Uncle Tim had this same complete set when he was a kid. The complete set, in the condition my uncle left it, would probably be worth about $500 dollars today. The complete set, in the condition my brother and I left it, is worthless. My uncle is a patient man.

Poor Johnny, Jane, Jay, and Josie. Their cowboy days were numbered the day Jarvis and Josh were introduced to the West gang. It all started with mean ole' Sam Cobra stealin' Chief Cherokee’s horse, which Princess Wildflower happened to be riding at the time. Well we thought Sam stole the horse but we came to find out later, after we had popped an arm or two off in the name of frontier justice, that he and Princess Wildflower had been seeing each other on the sly.

Jarvis and I panicked and began pursuing all those that witnessed our mishandling of the Sam Cobra case to cover our tracks. They were in the wrong toy box at the wrong time. Somehow though the mint condition Johnny West gang in the glass display case all seem a little melancholy, like they missed out on something. They’re just begging to live a little. To have an arm, leg, or head snapped off. To be de-accessorized and terrorized by two destructive kids that were sent to play because they couldn’t watch Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk quietly.

Johnny West…“Pffft you were gone.”

The Black Hills Stock Show and Rodeo is in town for a few weeks which means I get the call to either work the rodeo or work whatever other sporting events are going on in town during that time. I got the “other” this time around so Friday and Saturday I worked about 16 hours of high school basketball.

By “worked” I mean I sat and ate some popcorn and a licorice whip or two, read the paper and patiently waited for someone to get hurt. If you’re not the patient type and thrive on a constant threat of disaster and excitement in the workplace athletic training probably isn’t the profession for you.

A disaster in my workplace is getting halfway through a bag of popcorn and as your digging a kernel out of your teeth coming to the realization that you forgot to wash your hands after evaluating a sweaty foot.

I mentioned my penchant for people watching a few weeks back and that is one of the requirements for enjoying life as an athletic trainer. Highest on my list of people to watch at sporting events has always been the coaches. Nothing better than watching a seemingly stable adult get lost in a temper tantrum when a call doesn’t go their way or when a player doesn’t do what they were coached to do.

The only place you could enjoy more whining and cursing would be at a bingo palace just after someone (most likely my Grandma Helen) yelps out, “Bingo!”

As an athletic trainer and a washed up athlete I’ve spent a lot of time on the sidelines and in locker rooms privy to a front row seat to some wonderfully entertaining tirades. Entertaining but for some reason never motivational. I guess I’ve never been the type to garner motivation from a raging coach. Motivated? No. Fits of silent full body shake laughter and unwipable smirks? Yes. Knute Rockne would have strangled me.

Throwing clip boards, kicking chairs, ripping off suit coats, cursing, stomping about…what a spectacle to behold. Some coaches are better at it than others and manage to tie everything together into an impressive seamless rant. No breaks or pauses just let it go.

I understand where this outburst of emotion comes from. If you were to invest as much time and effort into a team as a head coach does you would probably find yourself in the same position a time or two. Coaches want the best out of their players for the sake of their players and the team. Someone once said, “Playing sports doesn’t build character it reveals it.” A coach works to get their players and team into a position to reveal their character.

I commend their dedication to their sport and their athlete’s and am thankful for the many good coaches I’ve played for and worked with. I commend you and thank you and yes sometimes I laugh at you.

You would laugh at you too if you could see that vein sticking out of your forehead as you stomp about yelling something in reference to a referees eyesight and insufficient intelligence.

What’s the take home message? Never accept a half-eaten bag of popcorn from an athletic trainer at a sporting event. Unless you like extra salt.