When We Were Lions: Ch. 12"If You Ain't First Your Last"

Yep, there’s the house.

Smell it?

Supper’s cooking. Wait till you step onto the porch.

Coach’s wife was making turkey sandwiches.

Nah, I had another meeting to get to.

Do you remember the bible verse I said to remember?

Our memories are a funny thing.

When I was talking to him and he handed me those pictures, you know what?

He wasn’t in the photo from the championship day.

His recollection was he could not be there that day.

I was like, “what?” “Oh man don’t tell me that!”

I literally had a Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights moment.

“If you ain’t first your last”

Ricky lived his whole life by that saying. His transient father told him that and his classmates at career day, as he was a stock car driver.

“Remember kid’s, if you ain’t first, your last.”

Later in the movie when Rick is a grown man and he confronts his father with what he said, his father answers him with.

” I was high when I said that.”

“That don’t make no sense, you can be second, third, fourth, hell, you can even be fifth!”

Ricky counters, “I lived my whole life based on that. Now what am I supposed to do?”

I have such clear memories of that day… “and there he was…

gone”, from the team photo.

Mr. Mytton is in the photo and everybody who was on the team, but not coach.

So if it was Mr Mytton who put his hand on my shoulder that day I have another Thank You to give out.

Coach and I confirmed everything else that I remembered about his time in the elementary school, middle school coaching and his time as a wrestling coach.

He said he really missed the camaraderie with the other coaches.

Regardless if it was a win or a loss he said, “you could always count on the other coaches to give you the business no matter what the outcome was.”

I asked how he coached in high school as I did not have any experience with him in that area.

He admitted, “I was a yeller.”

So I asked him if he lost his cool at the wrestling matches.

I think his response shows a gap between then and now as far as what peoples expectations are.

“It wasn’t out of anger”, he said. “If you get angry, it’s over.”

I remember him yelling too. ‘Member that football story I told you about, how I let that receiver get up field? Oh Yeah, all the coaches were yellers then.

But it wasn’t a big deal back then, and he didn’t make you feel stupid or small and I only remember him yelling during game time.

Makes you feel good doesn’t it? Smelling supper cooking. 

In 2015 Coach had one of those defining years.

He was diagnosed with MDS, wrecked with his horses at my work celebration, developed a blood clot in his leg from driving so much, he was going back and forth to the hospital, as his daughter lost her infant daughter, his granddaughter in November.

So I asked Coach about his faith. 

He said, “With all the people and staff that I see now, that are dealing with all manner of chemo treatments and other ailments, and the staff who take care of them, I don’t know how they cope if they don’t have faith in God.”

Coach will be 70 in August, married for 50 years in December, has 4 children, his oldest was born while he was in Vietnam,

8 grandchildren ages 3 to 16,

his daughter is a Tech. Ed. teacher like he was and he looks as good now as he did way back when!

I know. It didn’t sound like a regular biography of a person’s life.

But you can’t fit a man’s life into just any ole’ 500 words, and the words I did use…

only make me want to ask him more questions.