After some pretty pedestrian…no, amateurish…no, crummy football on Saturday afternoon, Michigan State’s head coach, Mark Dantonio was not pleased. His team won, but only in spite of themselves. For those of you who aren’t familiar with his personality, he is notoriously taciturn—at least in front of the press and public, but behind his serious, businesslike façade lays a very passionate man. During the postgame press conference, Coach Dantonio gave brusquely pointed answers to the admittedly dumb questions he was asked. This was in stark contrast to his usual “glass half-full” coach-speak laden spin.
At one point, clearly fed up with all and sundry, he rattled off about five one-word answers followed by “Next question!” This concluded the abbreviated press conference. Needless to say, there has been quite a bit of comment about his behavior because Coach Dantonio rarely betrays any sign of emotion on the football field or off. One thing is for sure: I’m very glad I wasn’t in that locker room after the game and even gladder still I won’t be at practice today.
Now, before I get to my point—which I assure you, will be hidden in the post somewhere…eventually—let me tell you a personal story:
When I was a sophomore in high school, I was on the JV football team. We had been very successful as freshmen going undefeated, including a sound thrashing of the big public school champions. However, sophomore year, a bunch of guys didn’t go out for the team and our best player was taken up to the varsity, leaving us with a very small team. We were so small that we often couldn’t scrimmage for lack of bodies. In games, everyone played both ways—I rarely came off the field—and despite some real talent, we frequently succumbed to deeper opponents.
After one particularly disheartening loss, the third in a row at that point, we loaded onto our bus. Our head coach, Mr. Martin got on last after what seemed a very long time. We rode back to school in complete silence. When we arrived, Coach jumped off the bus first and walked away somewhere. We trudged into the locker room and sat by our lockers. No one had the energy to get undressed. Instead, we just sat there and waited for the inevitable storm that would soon sweep over us when Coach came in for his postgame address to the team.
We sat. We waited. We fidgeted. We waited some more. Finally, we heard Coach’s heavy, purposeful footfalls coming down the hall and braced ourselves. He walked into the locker room, turned the corner into his office, and slammed the door. After about five minutes of staring at that closed door, we realized he wasn’t coming out again. Then, one of the assistant coaches, Coach Walton—whom we affectionately called Wally—came in wearing an expression mixed with equal parts worry and disbelief. He told us to shower and go home and then left himself. Sullenly, we undressed and showered. Not a word was spoken. The only the sound was of running water, softly closing locker doors and murmured good-nights and see-you-tomorrows. When the last of us left, Coach was still in his office.
The next day at school—JV games were on Thursdays—we speculated about what practice would be like. We knew that after a win, we usually didn’t practice at all, but this was a loss and a bad one too. None of us had ever seen Coach this angry and it scared us.
The school day dragged on, none of us really concentrating on our studies. As was our habit, we sat together in the cafeteria at lunch, staring at our uneaten food, occasionally venturing some theory about what horrible drills we would be subjected to later. When we passed each other in the halls, we’d exchange worried expressions and sigh to ourselves forlornly.
Finally, the moment of truth arrived, school was over, and we trooped down to the locker room to dress for practice. Being Friday, the varsity’s game-day, none of the varsity players were there. Likewise, the freshmen were also absent as they had won their game the night before. There we were, all fourteen of us, alone again and heavy with dread. We had started to dress, when suddenly Wally popped his head around the corner. “No pads,” he said simply and disappeared. We looked at each other wondering what awful afternoon of calisthenics and wind sprints awaited us. Nevertheless, we resolutely donned our practice gear, sans pads, and went out to the practice field. We went through our normal pre-practice cals. Just as we were finishing, here came Coach with Wally by his side.
Now Mr. Martin was a lot like Coach Dantonio. He seldom looked happy, rarely smiled, and when he was angry, he looked as if he could bite the heads off several puppies without batting an eye. I think this characteristic is partly why he was appointed vice principal and dean of students. Anyway, there we were. We watched him as he strode out onto the field, his powerfully built chest thrust out emphasizing his size. He stopped at the end of the field and gave a short blast on his whistle. We resignedly jogged over to him. Tersely, he told us to form up in two single-file lines.
“Oh no. Here we go,” we all thought apprehensively. Meanwhile, Wally marched off forty yards and laid his clipboard on the ground. He stood with his hands on his hips, staring back at us with a blank expression, looking for all the world just as the headsman must’ve looked to Anne Boleyn as she mounted the scaffold.
Coach tossed a football each to the two guys at the head of each line. Then in a normal, almost pleasant voice he said, “On the whistle, each of you will run down to where Coach Walton is standing. You will hold the football on the ground and do ten turns around it, then run it back to the next man. The first team to finish wins. Everyone got that?”
Nothing in life is as frightening as not knowing what the hell is going on. Still, what were we to do? Coach blew the whistle and the first two took off in a dead sprint down to where Wally stood. Each one held the point of his football on the ground, and with his hand firmly on the top of it, proceeded to run tiny circles around the ball as fast as he could, Wally counting to make sure each did the full ten turns. When the first man finished, he picked up his ball and started to run back. However, because of the spinning, his equilibrium was shot and he veered comically off to the left of his intended course and fell down. (Anyone who has ever seen the Sausage Races at a Brewers game will know what I’m talking about).
The other man did the exact same thing. The rest of us were in stitches watching the two of them staggering and reeling back to the starting line at which point, the next pair took off and did the same. When the last man finally stumbled across the finish line, we were all laughing and hooting uncontrollably. And then a funny thing happened: all the angst and worry, anger and frustration of the previous twenty-four hours was forgotten. It all vanished in woozy joyfulness. Even Coach Martin smiled.
Do you know, it wasn’t until thirty-three years later that I realized what a good man our coach was and is. He was angry the day before to be sure. But rather than give vent to the disappointment and frustration he felt, he wisely took himself aside to consider things more objectively. He reflected on the reality that we were just a bunch of sixteen and seventeen-year old kids, trying as hard as we could, but finding ourselves over-matched in the end and thoroughly discouraged because of it.
Browbeating us after the fact would only have served to crush us completely. We would be lost as a team, but worse than that, we might carry the scar of failure with us into later life; the failure to succeed in the eyes of someone we looked up to and respected. Whether we moved past this setback, placing it forever in the category of unhappy, but trivial, high school memories, or carried it with us as a lastingly bitter wound of failure, depended on how that man treated us at that moment. He chose to treat us with respect and care and we loved him for it.
[Ah yes, here it is—the point…]
Our view of God has a lot to do with how we ultimately behave. When we fail, especially when we fail miserably, do we expect to be chewed out, run into the ground, and beaten until we bleed? This is one prevalent view of God. This is the view of a slave, not that of a son or daughter. It engenders fear, resentment, and isolation instead of trust, love, and obedience. In fact, this view of God leads to disobedience and further failure as the person becomes more and more discouraged and finally lapses into despair. When a person reaches that point, nothing matters anymore.
The viewpoint of a child on the other hand, humbly accepts that he has failed and wishes that it were otherwise. However, the child expects that, as a good Father—the best of fathers—God will take that child to Himself in an embrace of love, understanding that His child is but dust and sympathizing with his weakness.
So, in that big post-game press conference on the Last Day, when the Devil asks our Lord, “So did Rob’s performance in this game prove to you that he is not starting material?” I hope to hear Him say, “No. Next question!”
