Chapter 14 No One Wants to be The-Cheated

 

   

The culture of cheating might not have been as bad as it is now given today’s advances in technology, but it was still a problem at Hanson. For me, it wasn’t that I was the one taking answers; it was just the opposite–I was the one looked upon to give them. Talk about pressure when you’re trying to make it in a new school and your brain is a coveted commodity.

Much like my younger days when classmates called me on the phone for homework answers, I wasn’t always strong enough to say no to people who wanted help. There was one time during my senior year though when I finally had enough and told someone what I thought about the request. I really, really liked this person and so it made it extra tough, but I was so pissed that day, I remember, and I told her loud enough to where everyone in my friend circle could here (maybe even the teacher) that they were going to have to get off their lazy butts and do their own work from now on. I guess by then I didn’t care what I said because I wasn’t worried as much anymore about staying afloat socially. My futility at St. Joseph had long vanished. It was like being naked, though. I actually felt good and bad for having said what I said, probably because I knew I should have said it a long time before.

But the days and the tests leading up to that crucial moment of moral fortitude had piled up behind me. In my mind, I’d long justified what was happening by just taking the test while leaning back in my chair. On other occasions, I chose not to lean back and made it impossible for anyone to see my test, but I didn’t have the strength to simply say no. Those were the days I’d hoped they’d get the hint that I was uncomfortable doing what I was doing. But until I actually said it, it never went away, not completely.

This is why I deserved to get caught in eighth grade doing what the teacher thought I was doing. I shouldn’t have challenged the accusation because, although I was wholly innocent, the other times I hadn’t been caught leaning back in my chair, allowing a good view of the test, warranted punishment. Of course, an eighth grader doesn’t think that way, not me, anyway, and when Miss P walked into the classroom and saw me with a cheat sheet in my hand, big trouble was on the horizon.

I took the test without concern because she hadn’t said anything when I’d hurriedly handed the cheat sheet back to Mark Heston when I saw her walk back in to the classroom. After the Religion test and class was over, I went to P. E.

While I was in the exercise lines, I saw Mr. Wayne walk in with a disciplinary referral and I remember wondering who got in trouble and what did he do. No sooner had I thought this, Mr. Wayne maneuvered his way through the neat rows of students and walked right up to me.

“This is for giving answers on a Religion test,” he said firmly, those eyes fixed on mine and unflinching.

I was shocked and embarrassed, especially having to get this in front of Coach T, my P. E. teacher and a man I respected. “Mr. Wayne, I swear I didn’t do that,” I said, suddenly realizing that Miss P wasn’t so oblivious, after all. I was adamant but not disrespectful, of course, not to Mr. Wayne. He replied in a way that indicated that perhaps Miss P had already told him she wasn’t sure about what had transpired. He told me if I wanted to discuss it further I could meet with him in his office, and to make sure I brought Mark along with me.

What had transpired was this. We were cramming before the test and Miss P walked out of the classroom for whatever reason. I was turned to the side, chatting with some classmates, when I sensed something funny behind me. I saw a slip of paper in Mark’s hands, and, thinking it was some kind of note or something—anything but a cheat sheet—I asked to see what it was. Sure enough, as soon as I received it in hand, Miss P walks back in, and as a reflex to simultaneously realizing what it was and seeing her looking at me when she came through the door, my arm shot out and gave the thing back to Mark.

Even then as an eighth grader I was aware of the importance of perspective. I did put myself in Miss P’s shoes. I was never angry at her. The whole thing worked out because Mark actually went forward to both Mr. Wayne and Miss P and told them exactly what happened. When my story checked out, I was very apologetic and very appreciative that I wouldn’t be receiving a zero on the test. “I just couldn’t believe you were cheating, Jeff,” Miss P said. “‘Why would he have any need to cheat?’ is all I kept asking myself. And I didn’t want to turn you in, but I had to.”

I understood. I really did. And I emphasize that, not because I thought it was some unique trait of mine back then. After being a teacher for eight years you learn that yes, there are those type of students out there who understand perspective and the necessary duties of a teacher; you also learn that there are those students that, even when they are caught red-handed doing something wrong, they will argue and protest. I can’t help but think of the NBA and all the whiners that league has on the court. A guy chops somebody’s arm off on a shot and wants to argue that the arm is just an extension of the ball.

Anyway, the whole thing was settled. I was cleared of the disciplinary referral and Mark alone got in trouble. Still, I always felt that if I’d had more poise, my reflex would have been to stuff that cheat sheet in my pants instead of to shove it back at Mark. He might have been upset with me, but look at what it would have saved him. Yes, he deserved to get in trouble, but he deserved for me to be a better friend before that, and I still regret that day. Ah, the good ole’ 20/20 vision of hindsight.

It wasn’t the only time in eighth grade when my morality was challenged. We’d just gotten some new vending machines in the gym, and for whatever reason one day candy and drinks were on the house. Somehow somebody figured out that it didn’t take two quarters anymore to get a free snack. I’d still like to know how someone figured this; did students just go around punching vending machine buttons? But that’s besides the point. The point is that I refused to do that because I knew, again, fearing Mr. Wayne’s and my father’s disappointment, that they would find out at some point. I paid for my M & M’s and went into the bleachers to munch. I got a little teasing from some of my boys, I can’t remember who it was or how many but I didn’t care. I was in the clear.

I was halfway through the bag when Miss M, our usually mild mannered secretary, came in and went on a tear. She made everyone give up their candy and drinks whether it was unopened or not. It didn’t matter to her that the product was now useless; all that mattered was that right was made right, that someone didn’t continue to capitalize on a error in the machine’s system. I remember laughing to myself and being very happy that I’d chosen to cough up the meaningless fifty cents.

That’s when I saw her walking toward me.

Even though I hadn’t done anything wrong, I was a little nervous. I wonder if this is how my own students felt that time I asked them to come clean about a vocabulary assignment on which I knew many of them had cheated. I prayed about how to handle it that night. The easiest thing to do would have been to just act like I never knew about the classes’ indiscretion. They would’ve never known and my values I constantly espoused would have been tucked neatly away on the shelf. But even trophies get dust on them, and a value sullied by silence, even when no one else knows about it, is a value without shine. It was not an option; it was an obligation for me to tell those kids that I knew about what some of them had done.

The problem was coming up with a consequence. The class and I were pretty close and I felt like their disappointing me and the vision we had as a class would be enough punishment for many of them. The problem with that, though, was that the very people who would feel most ashamed in a situation like this probably weren’t the cheaters in the first place (as it turned out, there was actually one I would have never guessed would do it; goes to show we’re all tempted). I decided to tell them that I knew some people had cheated, and that if those people simply came forward on their own time before or after school and told me the truth, I’d let them retake the test. It may seem like a pretty lame slap on the wrist, but the bottom line was that I didn’t know who the culprits were and all I wanted was for them to tell the truth.

The neat thing about this situation was that one student actually told me that he and some others had misunderstood something I’d said about studying for the test. I retraced the steps of memory and sure enough, I realized that I had been unclear about a specific study session we’d had the day before the test. I was tickled to know that most if not all of these students hadn’t even cheated like I thought they had in the first place. Yet not one of them used it as an excuse not to come forward. These students—the same sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds so many of us like to label as the bane of society—had recognized the bigger picture and most importantly had trusted that my word was solid.

I believe I am such a risk-taker in the classroom because people like Miss M, Miss P, and Mr. Wayne were risk-takers with us in high school. What risk, you might ask? The risk of stress, of losing sleep at night, of opening yourself up to ridicule and false accusation. Make no mistake about it: Even teachers want to be liked; but Hanson taught me that there is a higher honor in being respected that lasts so much longer than the day. It taught me that though happiness is a nice virtue to pursue, ultimately it is the truth that changes people’s lives. And in the end, if you go for truth instead of happiness, they’ll both respect and like you. Most of them, anyway.

I was equally honest with Miss M. that day she wanted my M & M’s, and much like my students would feel in my class years later, it felt good to be honest and know that I hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place. I didn’t have to stretch any truths or leave out any details to clear the situation. She trusted me, and that was that. It was a great feeling not to do anything wrong but an even more liberating one to be trusted. Simply trusted at your word. I’ve never forgotten the utter joy in that, especially since the opposite has also happened a lot in my life, that paralyzing regret that follows a foolish decision, that foolish decision that destroys a person’s trust in you. Cool, clean, un-crippling honesty is the way to go, and people like Miss M and Miss P helped me believe in that.

 Jeff LeJeune hosts the Red River Writers Live show Letters of a Lone Star every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST on Blog Talk Radio. Jeff is the founding English department chair at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, TX. He has penned two novels, the first an allegorical novel called The Final Chase, the second a redemption-themed story entitled Postmarked Baltimore, which was mentioned in the 2008 New England Book Festival. For more information, visit www.TheFinalChase.com

Chapter 13: Sophomore, or Less

 

 

 

My sophomore year arrived with a bit of pomp and circumstance. Coach Cavelle took another job at another school, and was replaced by David Harris. Known as a defense-minded guru, Coach Harris was brought in by Mr. Wayne to take this team abounding in talent to the next level. Losing in the first round of the playoffs the year before had been a huge disappointment for the program, especially since his son Thad had been a junior then and was entering his senior season and last shot at a state championship. In addition to Coach Harris’s arrival, the new school year was marked by the return of one of Hanson’s favorite sons, this time not as the All-State basketball player who led them to the Top 24, but as the new assistant basketball coach under Harris. His name?

Denny LeJeune.

I was ecstatic to have my brother back home. That’s all I saw. I didn’t perceive the obvious problems that lay ahead. I didn’t see what my Dad was talking about when he said he was worried that Denny’s being around was going to hurt me. Looking back it’s amazing how obvious it was. But I loved my brother and I loved having him back, and no sibling-psychological malarkey—as real as it might have been, Mr. Freud—could ever make me regret that year or the two that followed with my big bro by my side.

Earlier that summer we’d gained some confidence by attending the Nicholls State Team Camp and beating St. Thomas More and Karr, two powerhouse programs in the state. I secured some personal confidence when I scored twenty points in a summer game at Centerville, one of our biggest rivals. Our starting five looked pretty stout on paper, plus there were a couple of guys that could provide valuable bench support in our pursuit of a title.

Early in the season we lost to Grand Isle, a small school that Hanson I don’t think had ever lost to. It was one of those freak upsets that rarely happen at the high school level. Ryan Jefferson got thrown out of that game because one of their players baited him into a confrontation early in the first half, and after that point we were never the same. It was embarrassing going back to school the following Monday. We were talented, yes, but we hadn’t gelled as a team just yet.

We seemed to attain much of that chemistry in a Lake Charles tournament at Sam Houston High School. We were the little guys this time, a Class A school going up against 3A Lake Charles-Boston and 5A powerhouse Woodlawn of Baton Rouge. We beat them both, and looked to cap off the great weekend with a win over Sulphur in the finals. I don’t remember much of that game because after trying to draw a charge some time in the third quarter, the player who ran into me accidentally stepped on my head as it was turned to see the referee’s call. It was my first and only concussion. It was weird in a way that is hard to describe: You know where you are, but you don’t. You know the plays, but you don’t. You know the people in front of you, but you don’t. The feeling was more like a dream than anything. Anyway, Coach Harris had enough of the terrible officiating and took us off the court some time before the final buzzer.

I don’t know why I never asked anyone for more information on that game, because I don’t remember much. Maybe I did ask and it’s just been lost. I do know now, after some research I’ve done on concussions, that my going back to practice on Monday was the worst thing I could have done. Back then we didn’t know about the long-term ramifications of a blow to the head, so if you felt better, well, you practiced. What I’ve learned, though, is that part of my problem that year—especially my strange new fear of throwing across the diamond to first base—probably stemmed from that injury. One of the symptoms of post-head trauma, even in the mildest of concussions, is something called Catastrophe Syndrome, where the person illogically envisions terrible end results of situations. Finally, after all these years, I’d finally figured out why the hell I was envisioning myself sailing the ball over the first baseman’s head and hitting a car window, forcing my parents to have to pay for the damages. Talk about Catastrophe Syndrome. Talk about Illogical.

I failed my teammates and the school that year. I’d already felt a little alienated because I was the youngest starter and was playing ahead of some classmates of three of our senior starters. On top of that, I was really feeling the pressure from Denny, from wearing the #21 on my jersey. Again, it wasn’t a conscious thing, but somewhere along the way I let myself believe that I had to be as good as he had been, and I had to be that now. Worrying about getting that all-important first kiss and thinking about Ellen so much destroyed my toughness. I proved Mickey from the Rocky movies right when he says, “Women weaken legs.” Maybe contributing to that, though, was the terrible tragedy that struck our school, the death of Ellen’s best friend and good friend of one of my teammates. Any idea of keeping the emotional distance so I could keep my legs strong, so to speak, was swallowed up when that tragedy struck. I guess in my mind I was not only satisfying my need for emotional contact, but also my desire to be there for Ellen no matter what. My last guess on the matter is that it was my own self-centeredness that made me believe she liked and depended on me that much in the first place.

All of that and then throw in a concussion and you’ve got one psychologically confused and damaged kid. Yes, I am a disciple of psychology and what the past can do to a person. I also believe, however, and more strongly, in dealing with the hand I’m dealt with. The injury may have had a lot to do with my struggles on the court and on the field, but when it came down to it, I simply failed. I didn’t respond like a warrior. I didn’t rise to the challenge.

The basketball season was tough. I kind of settled in to the role of fifth fiddle, not really looking to score much. We really didn’t need that from me, anyway. With the firepower we had, I didn’t need to score. All I had to do was be a facilitator and let those other guys carry the load. The role was tough, though, because I’d gone so long associating scoring with quality of play. I wondered if my brother was proud of me. I wondered if my teammates accepted me. I remember flinching at the sound of Denny’s voice out there. I remember Kenny Lewis taking up for me when a fan from another high school yelled from the stands, “You must be the son of one of the boosters!”

It was the game Coach Harris had sat us down back at school before we even boarded the bus for Lafayette and had drawn an imaginary line on the court with his foot. He told us to forget all the early season struggles we’d had. He said whoever was with him, to step over that line, that we were moving forward and maximizing the potential we had. We were going to kick St. Thomas More’s ass.

I think Thad Kelly had hopped up and crossed that line before Coach even ended his challenge to us.

It crushed me to play so poorly in that game in particular, it really did. I’d gone early that afternoon to the Hanson gym to practice my shooting, and I’d made sixteen three-pointers in a row. I just couldn’t translate it to the damn game. Part of it was guilt because I hated the position Denny was in. He’d tell me later that Coach Harris approached him at halftime of that game and asked him if he thought I should sit to start the second half. Denny acknowledged my poor play, but he also said that I might be lost if Coach Harris ever showed a lack of trust in me.

As it turned out, that was really the last time I played poorly that year until my late-season injury. I remember dishing out several assists in the second half of that game, and we validated our victory over STM that past summer with an opening round victory over them in their own tournament. Thad, Kenny, and Ryan carried us offensively and for one of the few times that season, we clicked as a team. It felt so good to beat those guys on their home floor.

It would feel even better when we’d been them again in front of our home fans, extending our long home winning streak, this time roaring back from a ten-point fourth quarter deficit to do it. I had seven points in that game, one of the highs for me to that point in the season, and Kenny Lewis hit the game winning bucket and free throw in the waning seconds to seal the victory. I’d say it was one of the biggest victories in Hanson history, given the drama, given the storied program we were playing, given the homecourt winning streak on the line. The guts we had that night was a flash of what we could have been that season had we just come together more as a team instead of depending on our individual talents. As good as they were, we would have beaten Southern Lab that year. I’m sure of it.

We opened district play that year with a bad loss at Vermilion Catholic. Those guys were on fire that night, and little we did could dent their armor. One bright spot for us was actually my play. For whatever reason, I got hot and scored 26 that night. The next morning I got a note from Coach Harris. To this day, I’ve kept the note.

Jeff,

I am so proud of the way you played the game last night! Keep it up son and I promise you good things will come your way in basketball before your career at Hanson is over!

Sorry I let you and the team down last night; but I promise to make it up to you!

Love ya son,

Coach

Your desire, hustle, and love for the game is beyond words to express it all—keep up the hard work son!

Pretty powerful stuff from a man I’d grown to love, and maybe more importantly, depend on. He’d take me to Polito’s after school to get a burger. Sometimes he’d take me to his house and we’d just talk. He’d stuck with me through my struggles that season, and as district play started I wanted so much to prove him right.

We had a week off before our next game, so we were chomping at the bit to get back on the court. When we did the following Tuesday, we took out all of our frustration on Gueydan, beating them 120-72. That was the game Ryan took off from the middle of the paint and left-hand dunked on one of Gueydan’s players. On the film you can still see the Gueydan players on the bench react; they were in awe, and a few of them actually stood up and clapped for our guy.

I ended up averaging 13 points per game in district, good enough for fourth on the team and Honorable Mention All-District. Shows how potent we were. We paid VC back when they came to our place and won the district outright when we beat Delcambre and VC lost to Central Catholic on the last Friday of the season. What a year. After getting blown out to start district play, we were right back where we were supposed to be: District Champions for the third straight season.

But the team never gelled. I remember playing at Gueydan and scoring 26 points again and having my joy stomped on when one of my pals told me I shouldn’t be scoring that much against these lesser teams, that it hurts other players’ scoring averages and chances at All-District. It crushed me. I still remember thinking to myself, “Is this the same guy that’s been so cool to me all year, even last year when he’d affectionately call me “Rookie” because I was a freshman? Any confidence I’d gained was dashed once again, because if he thought such things, then in my mind, all the other older guys thought such things as well. Again, I was weak in the face of a challenge, and instead of standing up to him, I curled. I tucked it away in my mind as more evidence that I just wasn’t good enough, or, if I was, that my teammates didn’t care for it one bit.

A sprained ankle I suffered in the regular-season ending win at Delcambre made me wholly ineffective come playoff time. We won handily in the first round at home, but we knew the biggest challenge lay ahead in the second round when we’d have to travel to Baton Rouge to take on Southern Lab. Back then, teams were not seeded going into the playoffs, so your destination was basically set before the season. Lab and Hanson had been ranked 1-2 all year by the sports writers, not that that mattered, but with our resume we probably would have been seeded that high in today’s playoff format. If nothing else, with today’s power rankings, we wouldn’t have met Lab until the Top 28, certainly not in the second round.

Such was our draw, however, and we prepared that day to travel to our state’s capital with a lot on our minds. Could we really do it? Could we really upset mighty Southern Lab and dethrone them from their lofty perch? Just before we left, Coach Harris came to us with a dozen black roses, reportedly from the Southern Lab team itself. We all pretty much called bullshit on that one, assuming it was either Mr. Wayne or Coach Harris himself who’d sent them. It didn’t matter. After we’d played one hell of a first half and trailed by only three at halftime, Lab made one big run in the third quarter to put us away. We lost by 18, one of the closest games Lab had played all year.

I have to be honest. I was relieved when the game was over. It didn’t help that I’d been called “Opie” all night by some of Lab’s more dignified fans. It didn’t help that I couldn’t walk on my ankle, much less play on it, and I was tired of pretending to be this big warrior for the team. It had been such a emotionally-confused year, and I was just ready for it to end. I feel selfish for saying that even now, especially since some of my teammates were finishing their careers and may end up reading this book one day. I hope you realize that if I could do it again, I’d go back into battle with you any day, especially that day you realized you’d never wear the Blue and Gold again.

Jeff LeJeune hosts the Red River Writers Live show Letters of a Lone Star every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST on Blog Talk Radio. Jeff is the founding English department chair at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, TX. He has penned two novels, the first an allegorical novel called The Final Chase, the second a redemption-themed story entitled Postmarked Baltimore, which was mentioned in the 2008 New England Book Festival. For more information, visit www.TheFinalChase.com

 

 

Chapter 12 Roll Play

I never got any detentions of the pink slip variety at Hanson. I did, however, earn three or four disciplinary referrals (worse in terms of degree) and one suspension. The suspension was for one day, and it was supposed to be me and my two partners in crime cleaning up the tennis court area which had been overrun with weeds and vines. That’s pretty much what we did that day, but I can’t say there wasn’t any throwing of the football with the janitor in charge of us. Only at lunch time, though. And for only a few minutes. Roughly.

My two friends were serving the first day of a two-day suspension because they’d been deemed more in the wrong than I had been. It all started for me on a Friday night a few weeks earlier. Plans had been made by Dillon and Jack before I got to the football game that night. Apparently we were going to toilet-paper, or “roll,” Mrs. Friedman’s house that night. I didn’t care one way or the other, but if that’s what they wanted to do for fun, that was cool by me. Even if I had cared, I had little option to refuse because I was stuck there, my mom dropping me off at the school in Franklin and immediately driving back to Jeanerette. Honestly I didn’t think it was that big of a deal; in fact, as far as I understood the practice of rolling someone’s house, it was a gesture of endearment. The problem was that Dillon and Jack (Ass) had rolled the same teacher’s house the week before without my knowledge and would do it again a week or two later, this time running away like wild prey when a neighbor emerged from his house with a shotgun. You think the neighborhood was on to them?

Anyway, they escaped, yay, but there was one teeny-weeny problem for them, and as it would turn out, for me: In their haste, they’d left Jack’s book-bag behind. Not a huge issue if the bag had been filled with toilet paper and not textbooks with the words “Jack” and “McMillan” written in succession on the inside covers.

Once they found Jack’s book-bag and called the school, we all were toast. They separated us and drilled us with questions. My pals were honest about my involvement, or lack thereof in comparison to theirs; hence the lighter sentence for me. On the suspension slip was written, “Teacher Harassment,” and Mr. Wayne really grilled us about doing this to a new teacher, and a Jewish one at that. Maybe I was naïve, but her religious affiliation never factored into my decision to go through with the foolishness. It was exactly that—foolishness, and nothing more. Nothing political. Nothing religious. No agenda. The motive was never mentioned by Dillon and Jack either. My pals took it too far in doing it so many times, and their egg-throwing session at Mrs. Friedman’s door deserved the more serious punishment they got. But at the heart of what we did was not prejudice. Only the passage of time and the observance of how sensitive our country is with things like that have allowed me to comprehend the tough position Mr. Wayne was in. I can also see what we did through Mrs. Friedman’s eyes now: A new, Jewish teacher being toilet-papered three times by Catholic school students? They should have tapped us on the head with a cross.

Mr. Wayne actually contacted my mom to apologize that he had to suspend me. I think it was more of an apology for the necessity of it based on my utter cluelessness to the situation. He knew I hadn’t been involved in any of the other rolling missions, and he regretted, I think, that I had been in that situation basically because I didn’t have a car to get home. My family and the Colemans were close back then, and I think it was the old expression “This Hurts Me A Whole Lot More Than It Hurts You” kind of thing. He was too easy on me, I thought. I had every right and every ounce of strength to say no if I’d wanted to. But it was like I said before: I really looked at it as a harmless prank that would make Mrs. Friedman laugh. Anyway, If I didn’t respect Mr. Wayne already, I gained even more admiration for him when my mom told me he called and what he’d said. Not sure she was supposed to do that, but she did. Maybe she knew I wouldn’t take advantage of the information.

Despite the absence of any ill-feelings toward Mrs. Friedman, I was never quite the same around her. She chose me to be her Rally student in Geometry that same freshman year and I placed third, but still, I felt an incredible sense of guilt whenever I was around her. I guess it was the self-centeredness of adolescence working against me and making me perceive that Mrs. Friedman actually wasted time in her day thinking about ways to dislike me. It’s another regret of mine, that I felt that way around her. I always thought she was one of the most brilliant, kind-hearted teachers I ever had.

Jeff LeJeune hosts the Red River Writers Live show Letters of a Lone Star every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST on Blog Talk Radio. Jeff is the founding English department chair at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, TX. He has penned two novels, the first an allegorical novel called The Final Chase, the second a redemption-themed story entitled Postmarked Baltimore, which was mentioned in the 2008 New England Book Festival. For more information, visit www.TheFinalChase.com

Chapter 11 BoobAge

One day in the spring I’m sitting in class and Mary Gale happens to bend over to get her books. Cleavage city. Me and Herman start laughing, not because she is small or anything, but, well, I guess we really don’t know how to react. When boobs are in your face like that, I guess you have to do something to let the next guy know you saw. So anyway, she catches us laughing and wants to know what we’re laughing at. “We’re not laughing at you,” I say, still laughing, still looking at her. I was pretty smooth back then.

I’d thought about Mary Gale so much in my first two school years at Hanson that it actually hurt to see her sometimes. I wanted her so bad, did for what seemed like my whole life. I’d tried to get over this strangely paralyzing crush by arbitrarily starting to like other girls, like Catherine Delefosse who told me “good job” after a tennis match or Shelly Stansbury after she waved at me before a basketball game in seventh grade.

“So you like her because she raised her hand three inches to wave at you, and from inside a car?” Jeremy Coco asks me, much like he had on my birthday a year earlier.

“Yeah,” I say.

“Of course,” he says. “She has to like you.”

Coco may have been a doubter, but I have to believe in my little fairy tales; the one with junior hottie Catherine Delefosse falling for such a young, dynamic tennis player like me being one of particular note. Ahh…the allure of playing tennis naked under the moonlight…

But these crushes passed. Mary Gale would never pass. We actually got to be pretty good friends as our seventh grade year went on. She picked up my pencil for me and she usually said hi to me in the halls. When I sneezed she said “God bless you” and when I told her the Bulls beat the Lakers the night before, she didn’t stick her finger in her mouth. It was all evidence. Proof of the futility in her resistance.This crush could be quite debilitating at times, especially when I couldn’t make any headway with her. It could also make me make a total ass of myself.

It happens on a Monday one spring day and it’s the big topic of conversation in our class for the rest of the week. Mary wants to know what we were laughing about in class the other day, damnit. It’s gotten goofy, and after telling her and Melanie and her twenty other friends she’s got scouting me and my buddy Herman that it’s nothing, I realize two things: one, that Herman isn’t even a suspect in the incident anymore, and two, I’m eventually going to have to say what happened that Monday to get them to shut up about it, and boy, is it going to make me look stupid.

So you were laughing ‘cause you saw some cleavage?” they’ll say. “Real grown up.

You’re such a pervert, Jeff.

You really haven’t kissed a girl yet, have you?

I finally pull Melanie over at lunch a few days later on Friday, because hopefully the round of attacks will be spent over the weekend, away from everybody.

“Melanie, listen,” I say. “It was nothing. Me and Herman happened to see something that we weren’t looking for, and I guess we just thought it would go away.”

“Why won’t you just say what happened?” she asks.

“Because when you hear it, you’ll realize why we didn’t think it was a big deal in the first place. I really thought it would just blow over, but the more everybody talks about it, the more people are expecting, and the more stupid me and Herman are go’n look when y’all find out what it is.”

“Well, just tell me. Get it over with.”

“Mary bent over to grab her books, and her shirt dropped.”

“And y’all saw her boobs?”

“Not her boobs, you know, her…”

“Cleavage?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s all?”

“Told you it was nothing,” I say, pleased with her response, but not surprised. Melanie’s always been pretty cool. “Can you just tell her it was nothing, and get her to forget about it?”

“Yeah, but you know how Mary is. She’s g’on wanna know. And you know how she is about her boobs.”

“That’s why I didn’t wanna say anything.”

“You did right, Jeff. She’ll probly act mad, but she’ll get over it.”

“So you go’n tell her?”

“Got to,” she says. “Don’t worry. It’ll pass by Monday. She might bring it up, but just say you sorry and she’ll get over it.”

“Sorry? For what?”

“Just do it, Jeff. Like you said, this whole thing’s been blown way outta proportion. People just need to forget about it. It’s stupid.”

“Okay.”

Again, right about now, I’m wondering how in the hell Herman got out of this. He was laughing just as much as I was. Melanie walks away, and I look over to my group of friends.

Sure enough, they’re all laughing, especially Herman, but the only boob he’s laughing at this time is me.

Jeff LeJeune hosts the Red River Writers Live show Letters of a Lone Star every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST on Blog Talk Radio. Jeff is the founding English department chair at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, TX. He has penned two novels, the first an allegorical novel called The Final Chase, the second a redemption-themed story entitled Postmarked Baltimore, which was mentioned in the 2008 New England Book Festival. For more information, visit www.TheFinalChase.com

Chapter 10 A Rocky Road Less Traveled

I look back at the summer of 1995 and I still don’t know what got into me. You watch the Rocky movies and you have these motivational talks with your friends at midnight on a Saturday night and you swear that this will be the off-season you train like Rocky. Then May and June roll around and you make it out of the house and off of your ass for maybe a workout or two. And even then, you settle for less. You lift weights hard and listen to “The Eye of the Tiger” and tell yourself that you’re not falling behind on your promise; you’re just easing yourself into your regimen. Surely, even Rocky didn’t start his training by eating raw eggs and running at four o’clock in the morning; the movie had just skipped the particulars. The movie-makers had just cut out those uninspiring parts. You tell yourself that. And then it’s August and school’s starting and you realize that you’ve let yet another off season go by the wayside.

It wasn’t like that for me. The only reason I know how it feels is because I felt that impotence the following summer, after my senior year when I was supposed to be more fired up than ever entering a new chapter of my basketball in college. I never felt that impotence in high school, and thank God, because I know that it is the only reason I was able to enjoy some of the successes I had. And to think how many opportunities I had along the way to throw it all away. It would have been so easy, and no one would have known any different. There were so many things I avoided that would have dulled my edge, doused my fire, put a big wooden beam through that coveted eye of the tiger.

I know that because I’d watched some of the guys older than me, not all of them but enough, promising players growing up in junior high and early high school. But at some point they leveled off and never really reach the potential I expected of them. I know the high school life of girls and cars and more freedom had a lot to do with it, but I suspected alcohol use had more to do with it than anything. Whether that was actually a reason or not in their cases, I don’t know and I certainly don’t intend to judge, but I decided never to drink in high school for that single reason. I think my older brother’s decision to drink in high school had a lot to do with it too. I never told anyone that, not even my pals, because I didn’t want to make a big deal out of something I didn’t have a hard time doing anyway. But that was the reason. I didn’t want to look back and regret it. Not any of it. If my basketball career fizzled it was going to be because of destiny, not drunkenness.

I said something to my dad while shooting basketball in the backyard one day during my freshman year, and it made me feel strangely mature. Grammar notwithstanding.

“Those guys ain’t as good as they coulda been. Ain’t gotta worry about me drinking.”

I don’t even remember how we got on the subject, because it wasn’t like my dad to even ask the type of question that would have prompted that answer. It wasn’t like us to talk much at all back then, anyway. More on that later.

I loved every teammate of mine because those older guys took me in and accepted me when a lot of other players wouldn’t have. And everyone knows how close me and Denny were. But there was one thing I personally was not going to do and that was get wrapped up in peripheral distractions. I never backed out of that promise. Thing was, it wasn’t even that hard. Now that I teach in high school and I know what pressures are on even the best of kids, I realize what I’d been sheltered from. I was accepted at the school and with my classmates, and it was never a big deal that I didn’t drink. It certainly didn’t hurt that my best friend for much of it didn’t drink either, or that my other close friends didn’t drink in-season, whether that was football or basketball.

Summers after my freshman and sophomore years were spent in the heat of that gym and weight room, getting better. I’d been lanky and weak even in to early high school, so strength was made a priority. Becoming the best shooter I could be was another. By the time I reached the summer before my senior year, the pieces were in place. I was well-prepared to take my training to another level, to truly make myself the only opponent that mattered, even more formidable than the summer heat itself.

The fire raged inside me that summer. It was lit by many factors, not the least of which was my fall from grace on the baseball field in tenth grade I spoke of earlier, but two incidents in particular were obstinate in my mind and were a source of inspiration when I otherwise might have considered the couch and the remote control. The first was a video we’d watched in the spring of my junior year, a story about a promising high school athlete that trained harder than he played. Tragically, on his drive back home from visiting his girlfriend, who was a year older than him and in college, the boy got in a wreck and was paralyzed. His attitude never wavered, though, and his words of inspiration showed strength beyond even his parents’ understanding. As they cried and as he talked to the interviewer, I felt it inside. “It” was that edge, that fire, that eye of the tiger. This “it” is very, very delicate, can be weakened and eliminated by such disparate things as drinking and crushes on girls. You can’t understand it unless you’ve felt it. I promised that boy, that boy who was my age, that I would never quit, because he never quit. He never quit, even after tragedy took his legs from him, and I would never quit either. Not even in the summer heat.

The second flame came quite literally at the Student Council Camp that summer. It was innocent enough, and nothing I can say here will lift it to what it was; life changing moments can typically be that way, where no words can explain to another person what happened to you. Our particular group was in a circle in the dark, and there was a single candle in the middle of the floor. Group members, all young people full of vigor and optimism, were sharing their hopes and dreams, for not only this coming school year, but for the rest of their lives. None of it was phony. I listened to every word and never spoke. I only lay on my stomach and listened. I let my eyes glaze over while staring at that fire. That was it. That was the second inspiration.

I was either lucky or blessed because what would happen that summer wasn’t natural. See, you look at Rocky in those movies and you just wish you had a fight on your hands worthy enough to drive you to want to put yourself through the physical torture he did. You know it was never about boxing with Rocky. It was the man against himself, and you want so, so badly to be presented with anything remotely close to that, just so you can test yourself, just so you can look yourself in the mirror and not look away.

The questions are piercing. Are you good enough? Are you strong enough? And most of all, Is it worth it?

The scary thing is that when you’re in this state of mind, this “it” takes on a whole new meaning. I almost had a heart attack while training. We were back in school by this time, but it was still August and the heat was as bad as ever in south Louisiana. I couldn’t stop one day, not unlike all the other days where I did drill after drill after drill. I was jumping up and over the plyometric boxes, purposely escalating the pain because it felt good. I’d long conquered the worst of the enemy of weakness inside; now the enemy was one bordering on arrogance and stupidity. When you think that there can be no pain harsh enough to stop you, it can get dangerous. But my headphones were on and the music was making me mean. I just wouldn’t stop. When finally I did, it was because I’d gotten bored doing that drill, not because of the enfeebling tingling sensation I had in my left arm.

I’d find out soon enough that this tingling in the left arm is a common symptom of a coming heart attack. I was happy it was my last serious day of off-season training, because it was time to scale it back, to actually do more preseason, basketball stuff and less let-me-put-myself-through-utter-hell-to-prove-something-to-myself stuff. Less Super Cat, more shooting. Less Strength Shoe drills, more dribbling. Maybe I knew that it was over before the drill and just couldn’t say good-bye to a friend I’d borne and developed all summer. You work so damn hard to actually do what you never thought you could ever do, and hell, it’s hard to let it go.

Just like everything else involved with that school.

Jeff LeJeune hosts the Red River Writers Live show Letters of a Lone Star every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST on Blog Talk Radio. Jeff is the founding English department chair at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, TX. He has penned two novels, the first an allegorical novel called The Final Chase, the second a redemption-themed story entitled Postmarked Baltimore, which was mentioned in the 2008 New England Book Festival. For more information, visit www.TheFinalChase.com

 

Chapter 9 Mr. Wayne, the Hurricane

One of the highlights of my freshman year was having athletic P.E. last hour. All of the high school athletes were grouped into the class, and it was nice because we could go to school and go to P.E. and not have to worry about changing back into our school uniform again. It was a big reason why freshman year was one of my favorites at Hanson.

Our principal Mr. Wayne Coleman, was a force of a man. He commanded respect, yet when I saw him tear up at Last Mass for the seniors during my eighth grade year, I saw that he cared. He’d been the head coach of Denny’s basketball team, and had even come over with his wife and son Terrill to have supper with my family.

One photograph of my freshman year in P.E. is particularly obstinate, a moment that made me respect Mr. Wayne even more. It was August and the end of the day, and our principal got on the loud speaker for the announcements and said that we would not have school tomorrow because of Hurricane Andrew. Rarely did we listen to the announcements as we rushed to get ready to leave for the day, but, of course, we heard this announcement, and the locker room erupted with joy. No school tomorrow! Raging, earth-killing monster storm coming our way! No school tomorrow!

Woo-hoo!

I didn’t know a man of Mr. Wayne’s size could move so quickly, but it seemed like right after the commotion began it ended, because he stormed through the doorway and yelled at us to quiet down. The room went silent, like the eye of a hurricane.

Mr. Wayne was firm and direct in his teaching. There was no questioning the truth in what he was saying, not from my point of view, anyway. That day Mr. Wayne tucked another photo in my album when he taught that we do not find joy nor do we capitalize on the misfortune of others, not at this school. He gave no detentions, issued no further punishment. The only punishment I needed was that I’d disappointed him, and if I’d disappointed him, then I’d disappointed God. He was right. We were clueless, sheltered kids who only saw what was in it for us when we heard of the cancellation of school. I doubt if any of us, had we known what terrible things were to come for our little community, would have leapt for joy as we did that day.

The hurricane shut us down for about three weeks. We were without electricity back home for about a week and a half of that. Sleeping outside in that sweltering heat and going for the light switch only to be denied time after time is no fun. It is amazing what you take for granted in life, and when it’s gone, you feel like a fool for continuing in your expectance of it.

I developed my distaste for government handouts during this time. My dad fought against taking the free soup the Red Cross was offering for many days until finally he broke down and got some because he was tired of eating sandwiches kept fresh on my grandfather’s generator. I can still see him sitting there, going back and forth in his mind on his decision, and finally leaping up and running down the driveway to stop the Red Cross truck. He told me he was ashamed of what he’d done, and he told me never to depend on handouts in my life, to work and earn everything I got. I like to think I’ve done that more than not.

Dan Rather hosted his popular 48 Hours news show from Franklin itself. Blew me away. Newscasters and celebrities existed in another world. I had a hard enough time wrapping my mind around the fact that somebody like Dan Rather would even know there was a hurricane coming our way. And no way could they find Franklin on the map even if they did know.

When we got back to school, the old floors and much of the walls had been replaced with temporary plywood. Many of our classes were in the gym, where two, three, sometimes four classes would each find their little niche. It had to have been tough on the teachers, to command the attention they needed to promote learning, all the while thinking about the hurricane’s devastating effects on their own homes. I don’t remember much of their attitudes or of much misbehavior in those early gym classes, and I suspect that means a good thing. It was business as usual at Hanson. We got through what we had to get through and we leaned on each other to do it.

The Mr. Wayne lecture and the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew is another memory I share with my students now. Early this year we were closely monitoring Hurricane Gustav. Since it was very early on in the year and my students and I really hadn’t developed a trust in each other yet, I considered not sharing my story about Mr. Wayne with them. My decision turned, however, when one of my students from last year asked me if I’d told my new class that story yet. She said she remembered being changed by it and that it was one of the stories that just couldn’t go untold. I looked at her, smiled, and thanked her for reminding me of why I’m here.

I did tell the story to each of my classes. They looked at me with interest and seemed to hear every word I was saying. I’m thinking, Okay, right move. Thank you, Kayla for reminding me of why I’m here. And then that night at the football game, a Wednesday night game because of the looming threat of the storm, the entire cheerleading squad, most of the student body, and yes, many of the adults, erupted with joy when our assistant principal announced that there would be no school on Friday so that families could prepare and evacuate.

I sat there, sad, but not surprised. You teach long enough and you grow to learn that your words are often heard, but rarely followed, not while they’re still in high school, anyway. You sit there and try not to look at the very faces you just got through teaching that lesson to. You look straight ahead and choose not to know what adults are cheering, what human beings of parental-age that could have actually gotten to this point in life being so self-absorbed. All these thoughts and prayers and battles run through your head in a matter of moments, moments that you swear nothing you do and nothing you ever say means anything. That you’re just a worthless high school teacher who should just mind his business and love his wife and go ahead and start that family you’ve been putting off because you believe that much in your cause. How stupid. How utterly foolish you are. You are just as near-sighted, Teacher-Boy, as these people going crazy right now.

Last year I emailed Mr. Wayne and thanked him for coming in to the locker room that day and letting us have it. I told him that the lesson had been invaluable to me, because it had taught me compassion for the suffering of others. It had also allowed me a story to tell to my classes now. He emailed me back and gave me even more words of wisdom, even more inspiration for my philosophy in teaching: “Our jobs as teachers is not necessarily to teach something new, it’s to highlight what’s already inside them.”

I thought about this exchange that Wednesday night before Gustav and wondered why I hadn’t been able to highlight what was already there this time. Why hadn’t they listened? Was I too preachy? Did I speak too long? Is it too early in the year to get into all that life-lesson stuff when all they’re thinking about is the summer come and gone.

I ached that night, and the following night. I thought about it amidst my wife and I’s evacuation to Austin. It troubled me, and I wondered if I was even right in the first place. Maybe they are just kids. Maybe it’s Mr. Wayne that was wrong way back then. Maybe you’ve been living a lie, Jeff, that this great man who you respect and love was just off his rocker that day, pissed off at some secretary or student and just decided to come take it out on you.

The following Wednesday we were back to school and stories of students’ homes being flooded were flying around campus. The same Kayla who’d asked me if I’d shared that story with my new group of juniors was talking to a current student of mine at lunch break that day. They came over together, both of them smiling widely because that’s just how they are, and Celeste told me she had something to tell me. I thought about her, how sweet and beautiful she was, how big of a smile she has, and wondered how in the hell she could have been one of those cheerleaders jumping up and down like little idiots that night at the football game.

“Coach LeJeune, remember that story you told us last week about your principal?”

“Yes?”

“I was one that was excited when I heard the announcement, but then right away I thought about you and your story. I stopped. I felt bad.”

I looked at her and I could have died right there. It was one more photograph saved from the wind. One more truth highlighted. One more lesson not defeated by the lies of apathy. Thanks, Mr. Wayne.

Jeff LeJeune is the founding English Chairman and boys basketball coach at St. Dominic Savio Catholic High School in Austin, TX. He has penned two novels, an allegorical novel entitled The Final Chase and the more recent Postmarked Baltimore, which was mentioned in the 2008 New England Book Festival. Go online to BlogTalk Radio every first Wednesday of the month at noon CST where Jeff hosts “Write Now,” a show that spotlights authors from around the country. For more information, visit  www.TheFinalChase.com.  

 

 

 

Chapter 9 Freshman Hoops

Feelings of invincibility help to define adolescence. I think I first encountered this fact with Petey. We’d gotten to be pretty good friends by my freshman year. Getting your ass kicked in tennis and basketball camp will do that, I guess. Petey drove a little white Isuzu, and somehow I got hooked up with him after school on basketball practice days. Petey loved Happy Hour at Sonic, but I think he loved scaring the shit out of me more. I swear he’d take that curve at fifty miles an hour and I just knew we were going to crash into something. He never did, though. He park that little thing so abruptly and perfectly that I wondered out loud how much he’d practiced that before trying it with someone else’s life in his hands.

    “Never,” he said the first time. “This is my first time.”

    Somehow I didn’t believe that but I let him have his fun. I should have gotten out of the car, or at least been more adamant about not wanting to die. Petey was a good guy. He never gave off any indication that I was in his way or somehow imposing on any unwritten rules concerning juniors hanging out with freshmen. I should have known he wasn’t like that because of the memories we’d made in camp over the summer, but still, you never know when enough gets to be enough with someone. It meant a lot to me, and he was surely a God-send, because I was the only freshman on the varsity team and I not having a license yet made it impossible to get to my house twenty miles away and back again for practice in the evenings. Plus, he let me borrow his Guns ‘N Roses “Don’t Cry” cassette single that I’ve never returned. What a sacrifice.

    I enjoyed a brief time of starting for the varsity while the football players were still locked into their season. After they returned, I was relegated to the bench. Something about not playing any defense, my coach said. And to think I was worried he didn’t like the double-double I produced in my first ever high school game—a ten-point/ten-, uhm, ten-turnover performance.

    Despite this unfortunate game that proved game speed was much faster than practice speed, I remember having a moment of foresight in the locker room before the game. Coach Cavelle was talking, and of course I was nervous, but I stopped long enough to consider exactly where I was. It was one of those cosmic reflections I’m prone to do at some of the strangest times; in a flash I saw that the next four years wouldn’t be as long as they normally seem to a ninth grader. I knew in that ever-brief moment that the next time I’d think like this in a locker room, it would be over. And sure enough, I remember crying after my last game in Baton Rouge after a loss to Southern Lab and I ached to go back to that moment my freshman year, when everything was still ahead of me. At that moment before my first game as a freshman, it wasn’t about that night or that game or that team we were playing. It was the beginning of a wonderful journey, seemingly long, but undoubtedly far shorter than I wanted it. Truly, those four years went by so quickly that I’m not sure I was ever quite able to chase down and conquer the thoughts of regret I’d have along the way, and though the exact details were not sharp in my mind that night, I knew it would be before it happened.

    Maybe that’s why I went and turned the ball over ten damn times. Too philosophical before the game.

    When the football players did return, I saw my playing time decrease over the course of three to four games and then disappear entirely for a long spell after that. Petey stuck with me, though. We continued to hang out at his house after school, together preparing for the marathon of a practice we’d have where the bench warmers would be thrown out there to play defense against the starters for two hours. Me and Petey, along with a few other players at the end of the bench, started the “End of the Bench Posse” to pass the time both in practice and while we cheered on our teammates during games. One of our favorite sayings was, when the cheerleaders would yell, “Go, White!” we’d ask each other if they were racist. Nowadays it might not be such a stretch of a joke. Things weren’t as political sixteen years ago.

    Not playing wasn’t that bad. Our team was really good, rolling to a 9-1 record in district. I’m proud to say that after the game before district in which we got steamrolled by Vandebilt Catholic, Coach Cavelle said we were changing practice and that it was time to get tougher. “There will be blood on the floor tomorrow,” he said. Guess who was the first to bleed? Oh, yeah. I saw the scarlet drops on the floor and the pain in my nose was a non-issue. “There’s your blood, Coach,” I said. The whole team laughed, and so did he. It was a great practice that catapulted us to a hard-fought district title.

    Except for one brief entry into the Vermilion Catholic game at home, my ass was attached to that bench, the war wound and battle blood notwithstanding. Really, I was fine with that; the guys ahead of me were just better. It was simple as that. And I liked those guys, the same ones that had accepted me years ago when Denny was still playing ball for Hanson. After that VC game and the two minutes I played in it, I had to earn my respect back from the “End of the Bench Posse.” They gave me the cold shoulder, they turned away, they gossiped about me when I tried to come back. It was like Sex in the City without sex or the city, but I was welcomed back soon enough.

    I’m pretty sure the not playing on varsity wouldn’t have been as okay if my freshman and junior varsity games weren’t going so well. I have to admit, as capable as I would eventually become, I think my best shooting season was during that freshman year. It wasn’t the fact that I had a high scoring average; it was the fact that that was the last before I played in college that I actually knew a ball was going through the hoop before I even shot the ball, sometimes before a teammate even passed me the ball. I really don’t mean to come off as a braggart here. I indulge so that I can bring up one of my dad’s many philosophies: According to Dah, my freshman year had been before I started lifting weights in earnest, and my body had been pre-programmed to be just strong enough to stand behind the three-point line and make threes. Of course, that didn’t explain why I could shoot well from inside the arc, off the dribble, and well beyond the arc, but hey, it was my dad. It was a great backyard philosophy and he had a lot of them. Still does, and I love him for it.

    Some games that year stick out more than others. There was the Vandebilt game, a junior varsity victory before our varsity got massacred later that night. We were up 9-0 in the first minute of that game after I shot and made three straight three-pointers on the first three possessions, forcing the opposing coach to call timeout. The last one was cool because Walter Snead brought the ball up and hit me when I was about four feet behind the arc. The Vandebilt coach was yelling at the defender to put pressure on me, but the player apparently didn’t think I’d pull it from that far out. Since he was waiting for me at the arc, I figured I’d just shoot it before I got to him. Twenty-three footer, nothing but net. I still laugh when I picture Walter shaking his head and laughing at me as we jogged over to the bench for the timeout. After smiling back at him, I met my coach’s eyes. He even had a shit-eating grin on his face.

    I was able to pull that type of hat-trick—three threes on consecutive possessions a few times that year. Another time was to start a Saturday morning freshman game at Delcambre. This experience was a little different from the disaster on the football field in eighth grade. In this game on the first possession, Coach Dronet sees me wide open on the wing and he starts yelling, “Shooter! Shooter!” I smiled to myself. Gus Gentry hits me with the pass and it was one of those I knew was in before I’d even shot it. Coach Dronet called timeout to let his team know exactly what he thought about the play. Apparently they were persuaded enough only after two more possessions.

    Coach Dronet might have motivated me by tearing into his team, but there was another coach that actually tried to get inside my head during games. He had reason, and it was all in fun. Sam Thibodaux, Denny’s former teammate at Nicholls State University, was the coach at Central Catholic of Morgan City. I never knew a guy that enjoyed talking so much shit to a freshman basketball player. The truly demented thing about it is that the more points I pumped in as a response to his good-natured ribbing, the more he enjoyed it. Demented might not even be the word for it. This is a guy who was so competitive that he inserted a varsity starter into the overtime period of a junior varsity game. Said starter proceeded to pour in three three-pointers in a row to blow us out of contention. But he was a good guy, and I think he always secretly pulled for me even though I was on the opposing team. At least when we weren’t playing his team, anyway. Or when his JV team had a shot to beat us in overtime.

    Probably the personal highlight of the year came against Teurlings Catholic out of Lafayette. To that point in my basketball career, my flair for the dramatic was slim. I had scored ten points in the last 35 seconds of a biddy basketball game in fifth grade to help our team overcome a nine-point deficit, and that was a pretty big deal, but there had never been a last-second shot. I’d hear later from Dah about the play as it unfolded, that as I got the ball with the game tied and :11 left on the clock, a man sitting behind him said, very casually, “Oh, we’re all right. Good shape. LeJeune’s got the ball.” His statement to whomever was sitting there nervous with him maybe took on a more mythic proportion as I dribbled the length of the court, used a ball screen at the top of the key, and drilled an eighteen-footer as time expired. It was one of the most exhilarating moments I’d ever have in basketball, and I’ve always glowed in silent satisfaction that I’d given Dah another story to be proud of.

    Going 9-1 in the district that year was pretty unbelievable. The fact that we did it in a district with three other teams as good as us, then lost in the first round of the state playoffs at home, may be even more unbelievable. When I said to our point guard after the game, “Next year,” I could tell in his face he was tired of saying “Next year.” I cried my eyes out all the way home that night, with Vivian Shaley in the backseat.

    The whole night was such a switch of emotions from four nights earlier when we won the district outright on Central Catholic’s home floor (poetic justice, perhaps; it was the same night of the JV overtime debacle). We almost had to go into overtime in the varsity game too, but a magnificent play in which our point guard caught up to a loose ball and flung it over his shoulder back to the goal saved the day. Later he and the guy who caught the pass to score a layup at the buzzer would say they’d practiced that exact scenario since they were kids. Just more mythology for the legend of Hanson High School.

    By the time the ball went through the hoop, me and the posse were well into celebration mode, and we swarmed each other in the midst of our equally happy fans. Posse member Gene Stubbs would stand at halfcourt for a solid minute yelling like some animal already extinct or not yet discovered, a display my mom witnessed and would later use to question whether or not she wanted me riding in the same vehicle with him when I needed a ride to the State Academic Rally in Baton Rouge.

    One night later, our team was huddling together at the Carnival Dance in the gym, shouting out the words of Queen’s “We Are the Champions.” We wouldn’t feel like champions three days later, when our season would end on that very floor.

 

Jeff LeJeune is the author of The Final Chase and Postmarked Baltimore, which won Honorable Mention in the 2008 New England Book Festival. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School. Website and other blog links can be found at www.thefinalchase.com.

 

Chapter 8 Coach T.

I decided to play football in eighth grade. Two of the most vivid memories are wearing ugly cleats and going home with Jeremy Wiltz, a sheet covering the backseat of his mom’s new car. Wiltz’s mom, though not thrilled about the idea of dirt and sweat getting on her new car seat, had no problem with her son playing football. My mom, on the other hand, had always been on my butt about not playing, not wanting me to get hurt for basketball. I’d been brainwashed, I think. But I loved my friends, and did want to see if I had what it took to be a quarterback. I’d heard it enough since my first P.E. class at Hanson a year earlier when Coach Richard saw how ‘sponsible I was with the football.

     My eighth grade coach’s name was Coach Talbot, or, as most everybody called him, Coach T. Everybody loved him. He was one of those old-school coaches that took shit from nobody. There was even a story that had circulated that he’d gotten so angry with his son in practice a year earlier that he took him by the face mask and dragged him through the hole he was supposed to run through as tailback. Toby probably felt bad, but some of us actually looked at him with a lot more respect after that. A sick part of us would have wanted it to be us being dragged through the dirt by Coach T. It was a badge of honor.

     Coach T. was also known for his paddle. It was gray with holes in it so the air couldn’t slow the speed of it before it smacked flush against some poor—but proud—student’s ass. See, students actually liked to get paddled by Coach T. Once again, the badge of honor thing. You could barely see the gray from all the students over the years that had signed it. To compensate for the new laws moving toward an abolition of corporal punishment, he started giving us an option: Write lines when we didn’t know the answer to a question, or “grab your ankles,” as he liked to say We had one poor guy in our class that didn’t know a whole lot of the subject matter at hand, and he’d get pounded in front of the class pretty much every day.

     “You ever go’n start studying?” somebody asked him one day.

     “Hell, no,” he said. “It’s Coach T. I love gettin’ hit.”

     Yep, Coach T. was and is definitely a legend. Ten straight Sweet 16s with the girls’ basketball team, too. He grew up and started teaching in a time when paddles knocked sense into idiot teenagers like we were and kids just worked hard for what they got. When I had Coach T. in the classroom, we were in transition, becoming a better society, apparently, a nation more sensitive to the delicate sensibilities of our students.

     Two decades have passed and I still shake my head at what a load of crap that was and still is.

     Anyway, Coach T. had apparently heard the news about my arm as well. On the first day of football practice, he didn’t even hide his expectations.

     “Okay, LeJeune, I’ve heard you’ve got talent. Let’s see it.”

     The hour-long practice passed. And so had I.

     “You got a gift, son,” he said, the same gruff voice, the same straight tone as he’d had before practice began. “Hope you develop it.”

     I loved when a coach called me “son.” It gave me shivers. Made me want to run through a brick wall for him.

     I loved Coach Talbot and I loved making him proud. One day in our History class, someone asked him about the Creation story and evolution. “Which one do you believe in?” was the question. He took his cup of coffee off the desk and sipped. He adjusted his eyeglasses and looked back at the student.

     “I’m a God-fearing man,” he said, “and I believe what the good Lord says in his word.” He paused. “But it sure is hard for an old man like me to ignore the evidence of science.”

     Then he got back to his lecture. It was simple. There was no discussion. I wondered if he knew how powerful and wise he’d just came off, like Master Yoda. I still have that photograph in my photo album today, and I share it with my own students when the moment presents it self. It’s okay not to know for sure, I tell them. Because Coach T. said so.

     We only had one football game that year, and thank goodness because at the end of it I could finally stop coloring my white cleats with black marker. The guys knew I did it and would ask me why I did it, and I would say I wanted black shoes but I didn’t want to waste this pair I’d had since last baseball season. They didn’t seem to give me too hard a time with it, considering I could never actually finish coloring even one shoe before the marker would run out of ink. My shoes looked silly, I knew that, but I was a pretty good quarterback and I think that was all that mattered to them.

     Anyway, we played one game against the Delcambre Panthers and that was the extent of our season. I didn’t throw as many passes as I wanted to, but I did get smashed, run over by their running back when I broke down to keep him out of the endzone. I mean I was absolutely crushed, and when I peeled myself off the grass to go back on offense, I hoped Coach Talbot was taking notes. I am not a safety, I wanted to say. I am a quarterback. Please never put me on defense again.

     Delcambre beat us 6-0, the aforementioned plough-over the only score of the game. My pal Chris Alleman got an interception, one of the few highlights we were able to take away from the game, but I wonder if any of my teammates noticed what Coach Talbot said out loud but to no one before the game had even started. I took a quick glance and didn’t sense that anyone had heard it. It was my consoler after the loss, and even though he would never coach me again, he instilled in me a motto that I would never forget.

     “All that hollering don’t prove you’re ready for the game,” he said, volume up but tone as even as ever. “You get ready for the game yesterday.”

     That’s what life is about. Getting ready for the game yesterday. Damn right, Coach T.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of The Final Chase and Postmarked Baltimore, which won Honorable Mention in the 2008 New England Book Festival. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School. Website and other blog links can be found at www.thefinalchase.com.

 

 

Chapter 7 Bathe that Phone Again

Besides basketball, there were other things that made my seventh grade year memorable. It was then that my interest in all facets of life began. Life, indeed, was more than just sports, I started to realize and enjoy for seemingly the first time, and it just seemed everything was meshing neatly together. There was Mallory Bennett, a pal I “went out” with for a day, and because we did, we apparently loved each other during those 24 hours. It was such a bold adventure, sinfully audacious for us to go out like we did. I don’t know how we found time to do such going out. By the afternoon of the second day, Mallory had said she was confused with how she really felt, and our wild relationship plummeted to the realm of obscurity.

     My long-time crush on Mary Gale began in seventh grade. When she found out from her friend—the same Mallory Bennett—that I liked her, she gave Mallory the gag sign to let her know exactly what she thought about that. I happened to see her do it, and it did hurt at the time, I must admit. I kid you not, though, I remember very clearly thinking at that moment, “I have five and a half years to change her mind, to get her to like me.” Gosh, five and a half years was an eternity back then. So much and so little time. I’m glad we didn’t know the difference.

     I might not have gotten to Mary like I eventually would.

     I remember coming home and playing in the back yard with my long-time neighbor, Scott, telling him about Hanson and how awesome it was. I think he always thought I had a shot at Mary, probably because he wasn’t around to see her pretend to vomit.

     Seventh grade parties were new and fun, even though my dad never liked them. “Nine o’clock’s too late for a twelve-year-old,” he’d say. “They trying to make dem kids sixteen when they twelve.” Always said to my mom within hearing distance of me. Aggravated me to no end. I wonder if my dad’s learned his lesson yet.

     I think when my kids are in seventh grade I’m going make sure they’re home for eight.

     At these parties, bad rap music trumpeted in the background. For the slow songs the cool kids with significant others danced—the ass-out, hands on the hips, stay three feet away from each other variety—while the single kids who were not in love and awaiting their wedding day wished we could be. I even got my folks to have one at my house for my birthday, but there was no mushy-mushy slow dancing with this one. No, sir. It was straight up cut-throat war, all-out 4-on-4 basketball games in a 20 X 20 foot square. And Mary was on my team. I aimed to impress, and I think I did. It was great. Mary would later touch the very phone I used to call her parents.

     “She’s using the phone right now,” I said to Jeremy Wiltz.

     “You’re an idiot, LeJeune.”

     “I know, but one day, I’m telling you. It’s gonna happen.”

     “Because she’s using your phone?”

     “You didn’t see us laughing on the court?”      

     “Whatever, LeJeune. I was also laughing. I used your phone to call my parents ten minutes ago. You wanna bone me too?”

     I have to admit, it was a stretch, and Wiltzy was right in a sense, but think about it: Mary’s ear touched my phone. I would never bathe that phone again.

Jeff LeJeune is the author of Postmarked Baltimore and The Final Chase. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School.

 

Chapter 6 Two Worlds Collide

We won the next game in the All-Star tournament, but were eliminated after losing our fourth game, a defeat I watched from the bleachers with bandages on my face. I was very disappointed. I thought that if we could just pull off one more victory, maybe I could play the next game, sacrifice bunt or something. Either the anesthesia or the bad hospital food must have been making me crazy. I don’t think even Dr. Smoot would have gone for that.

The rest of the summer passed and the big day arrived. I was officially a Hanson Tiger. The first real and in the flesh high school girl that caught my eye was Janice Snead, a junior Student Council member and older sister of Ellen, a girl who will have a major part in this story later on. Janice was sitting in front with the important high school students who had great responsibilities. She was so focused on her work that she couldn’t stop kicking her foot and looking at and picking at the ends of her hair. She was deep in thought, apparently, with all the great things Hanson Student Council members had to do.

Going to a new school was a strange mix of familiarity and new for me. Naturally, I still thought of my old St. Joseph friends. I couldn’t wait to tell my friend Randy all about Hanson, the same Randy I’d shared kissing stories with in the back of my parents’ car and the same Randy I got in a fight with in fifth grade. Even though Randy still went to St. Joseph, he and I would still keep in touch for a time, especially since he still lived in the neighborhood and we hadn’t gotten cars yet. It kind of certified Randy’s true friendship, I guess, a fact I think helped me see that my experience there hadn’t been so bad after all.

That first day, after I got back from Orientation, Randy called to see how my day had gone. I told him about how fine the girls were and that it was awesome to be on a high school campus. Compared to tiny St. Joseph, Class A Hanson with an enrollment of about 200 was huge. Randy told me that during roll call that day, someone in the class informed the teacher that someone was absent.

“And the whole class agreed,” Randy said. “We missed you, man.”

Regret was a knife. It cut my heart and stomach. I didn’t lament going to Hanson; I lamented not realizing how much they might have cared all along.

“P.E. was pretty boring too,” Randy added. “Nobody got into it. It wasn’t the same without you.”

“Thanks,” I said, not really knowing what emotion to grab hold of. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me, man. Tell everybody I said hi.”

That one conversation did more for me to dress the wound of the St. Joseph years than anything. I even appreciated the teachers more.

My Pirate pals also welcomed me with open arms, at least before tipoff, the first time I returned to the old St. Joseph gym to play my old teammates, this time donning the blue and gold of Hanson. It was St. Joseph’s Homecoming, and we cruised out to a 31-11 lead midway through the third quarter. All was going smoothly, a typical humdrum junior high game where the team expected to win big was winning big, especially when it came to Hanson vs. St. Joseph. Only difference was that now I was on the right side of the beating.

With three minutes left in the third, though, my old pals started to scratch their way back. We, on the other hand, lost our claws. It happened so quickly and so unexpectedly that we barely had time to recover. Mike Hebert and Joey Powers, the latter making an inspirational return to the court after having to get a skin graft done on his leg, strung together a rash of three-point buckets that put St. Joseph back in the game before a strangely loud crowd. When the game was over, the referee would tell my mom that most high school games don’t have the intensity this game had. It was, to that point, the single most exhilarating game of my young life. It was the first game where there was an actual roar in the crowd, not only for the home team but for the visitors as well. Deep inside me, I discovered another gear of competitiveness, a level that can only be achieved when an athlete’s back is against the wall. Down by two with about a minute to play, me and my teammates gritted our teeth.

Amidst the chant, “DEFENSE! DEFENSE!”, I walked the ball up the court. Everything slowed down. I looked up at the clock. 1:32. 1:31. A bucket here ties the game. Chad Alleman’s setting a ball screen. I dribble left. I pull up for the shot. Nothing but net. Tie game.

Back down the court. Mike Hebert has hit what seems like 87 three-pointers and somehow we’re still tied. Got to guard him. Double team as he tries to shoot. Pass out of the trap. Powers is wide open for three. Nothing but net. Pirates back up by three.

Under a minute left. Time out, Tigers. Got to score here. We’re fine. Just relax. Lot of time left.

I don’t remember if I thought about how awful it would have been to lose that game.

“If something breaks down, set a screen for me,” I say after the timeout. It wasn’t that I didn’t have faith in Coach’s play. I was just getting us all straight on a Plan B. “Chad, roll to the bucket. I’m gonna hit you. Score the bucket and we’ll just foul them to get the ball back. We don’t need three right now.”

The play does break down and we’re forced to improvise. It happens exactly how I expect, but better. Alleman scores the bucket and is fouled. He hits the free-throw. Tie game.

When Hebert takes another three-pointer on the next possession, I just know it’s going in. It seems like the ball’s in the air for three minutes. But it doesn’t go in. He finally misses. We get the rebound and can hold for the last shot. Time out, Tigers.

“All right, boys,” Coach Richard says. “It’s winning time. I don’t want them to even touch the ball again. We win it here. Spread it out. Run the clock down to about ten seconds, and get it to Jeff. Jeff, make a play, and the rest of you get ready to score.”

It’s Alleman, not me, who scores the winning bucket. St. Joseph makes one final, futile heave from beyond half court. Game over.

I grab the ball and throw it in the air. Exhilarating cannot describe the feeling. We mob each other with wild joy. The girls’ team, still cheering us on, is screaming around us, hugging us, loving what they just witnessed. We pray The Memorae together, and it might be the last time I pray it without knowing the words.

That night, Randy and I talked for a half-hour about the game. His team had lost, but even they had been so grateful that they could play in a game with such excitement. It’s a little sad to think that they probably never experienced that again.

We had a great season overall. Not only did I get to wear #21, but I wore the same navy blue jersey Denny had worn in high school. I couldn’t believe that the high school team thought their new uniforms were nicer than the old ones, but I wasn’t complaining.

Coach Richard instilled in me a new confidence, or as he would call it in Louisiana History class, “Pride and ‘Sponsibility.” It was after a test on which we had to answer a discussion on the back of a lineless sheet of paper. Some of my classmates didn’t write straight, and Coach Richard gave us a lecture on it. It had less to do with writing, he said, and more to do with “pride and ‘sponsibility.” As funny as it was to tease Coach Richard for his little lecture, I never forgot it. I always made a point to try to write as straight as possible.

Coach Richard also challenged me on the court like I’d never been challenged. I think it was just my time, though, because Coach David at St. Joseph worked hard, and I wasted my opportunity with him. Besides the St. Joseph thriller, the other game that stood out from seventh grade was a home matchup with the Loreauville Tigers. I wasn’t playing particularly well that night, and Coach flat out told me so during a timeout.

“Son, you’re better than this,” he said. “It’s time to step up. Shoot it the way you’ve been practicing.”

Our team down in the fourth quarter, I did step up. I scored probably 10 or 12 of my 19 points after that timeout and we won the game by nine. It was the game that finally made me confident in my new shooting mechanics, something Coach Richard had practiced with me when we realized my across-the-chest style would hinder me as the competition increased a couple years down the road. It wouldn’t be the last major revision on my mechanics, but it was pivotal in getting me through another step in the process, and I owe a lot of my eventual success in the game of basketball to that particular game and Coach Richard in general.

Coach Richard and I were so close even from the beginning of school, it almost sent me in a completely different athletic direction all together. Coach was my P.E. teacher, and before we started practicing for basketball in class, we played football. I could throw it a little bit.

“Son,” he said after class the first day, “you’re one heck of a quarterback.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I said.

“I’m serious. You’ve got a future, son.”

“I’ve never played football except in the backyard.”

“Son, you need to play football.”

“I don’t know, Coach. I really like basketball.”

“What’s that got to do with it? You play both. It’s simple.”

It was simple. It really was that simple. It was so simple it would bedevil me for years after I graduated high school why I didn’t have more pride and ‘sponsibility in football.

Another highlight of my first year at Hanson was when my brother Denny and his Nicholls State University basketball team came to play a scrimmage at our Hanson Gym. There was a big banner in the lobby welcoming him, WELCOME HOME, DENNY. Denny hustled his ass off in the scrimmage just like he always had when he was a Tiger. I was so proud of my brother that night, like the event was my own, I guess like any kid would be. He looked out of place wearing #24, but I must admit, it was much better than that #32 he’d been wearing his freshman year.

It was also the first time I’d really hung out with Chad Alleman, my trusty teammate on the basketball team. We went outside in the dark that night just for a look, like after school hours the campus morphed into something different. Kind of like when a student sees a teacher at the grocery store or the bank. It’s just weird. Anyway, on our way back to the gym, we got the strangest sensation that someone was following us. We even heard noises. We looked and both of us swore we saw movement between the trees. Then, to prove the extent of our fear, we ran around in a circle. Two or three revolutions. We heard another noise and then just yelled and ran back to the gym. It was so stupid and surreal that I wouldn’t even think about putting it in a fictional story out of fear that it wouldn’t be believable. Maybe that’s what makes what really happens in life the best fiction there is. As the Adidas commercial says, Impossible is Nothing.

When we were safely within reach of a light source and the crowd, we took one look at each other and didn’t say a word. I think somehow we knew something very weird had just happened. Had we just run in circles like that? I think we both wanted to know what in the hell was making the noise and moving in behind us. I think we both decided it was best to just never talk about it again. Not only would no one believe it, they’d think we were making it up anyway. They’d think we were crazy for the circles. Again, the Fiction Factor.

Chad was also the guy who drew the bird-finger on a sheet of looseleaf in English class and got into trouble. I laughed at him and my teacher, who’d taught me at St. Joseph just a year earlier, said I’d changed, and not in a good way. I wasn’t laughing at her, though, I thought while she wrote a detention for Chad. Now that I teach and understand the delicate energy between teacher and students, I know what she meant. In that moment, laughter is the last thing a teacher wants to hear. It’s affirmation of the bad behavior, and when one of the smart people does it, you swear the whole class is against you. She was right. I had changed and was changing. A lot of it was good. But a lot of it wasn’t so good. And I regret that now. I regret how I acted that day and I regret what that side of me would become in high school.

 

Jeff LeJeune is the author of Postmarked Baltimore and The Final Chase. He teaches American Literature and U. S. History at St. Louis Catholic High School.