Gridiron memories: terrors and tears

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In my 1969 high school yearbook's team photo, football coach Lyle Hanks wears his ever-present tight gray T-shirt tucked resolutely into baggy workman-like pants with a worn baseball cap partly veiling his chiseled face. There's the hint of a grin — or a sneer.

Coach Hanks scared me to death from the start of summer two-a-day practices, during every scrimmage thereafter on the practice field, during games and even the final time I saw him 33 years later, sitting alone at a local fast food joint.

Back then coaches could slap, shove and shake their players at whim. Coach Hanks was notorious for seizing a poor soul's face mask with his colossal hand, yanking the player's head every which way, screaming tirades about his lack of desire to knock down "Someone! Anyone!" on account of his "girliness."

All the while, the other boys would turn from the ugliness and pretend to adjust a shoulder pad or retie a cleat, relieved this time they weren't the ones bearing the brunt of Coach Hanks' size 18 boot or vise grip.

I remember, during these respites, catching glimpses of cross-country runners playing carefree rounds of touch football on the adjacent school lawn, or of friends hanging out at the McDonald's across the street — desperately wishing I was one of them.

I told no one about my intention to quit the team. After school the next day, I hid out in Miss Steinberg's journalism classroom until Phil Bukstein drove up to the school in a Fishman's Kosher Meats truck as he promised he would.

The freedom I felt delivering meat with him was exhilarating (I remember us singing "Hey Jude" and "Satisfaction" and even taking a drag off his Marlboro). But as the autumn sun set, I dreaded going home, where surely Dad was waiting for me, having somehow heard the news. Where we lived, word traveled fast.

When I walked in, Mom escaped to the kitchen, leaving Dad and me alone in the living room. Our conversation went something like this:

"Your coach called. Why weren't you at practice?"

"Because I quit."

"It's Coach Hanks. He hates me."

"So what? He's your coach."

This went on for a while until Dad headed for the "TV room" and I left the apartment. I can't remember where I went, but I didn't come home until I was sure Dad had gone to bed.

The next day at school, my typing teacher, a few teammates and Mrs. Cadwell, the sweet attendance lady, asked me why I'd quit the team. I knew better than to confess the truth — that I was terrified of Coach Hanks — so I made up something about jamming my knee while stepping off the school bus. Then, during sixth period Human Geography, Coach Hanks himself came to my classroom and pointed at me.

I followed him into the empty hallway, where he placed me against the wall outside the classroom door, dug his mammoth finger into my sternum and said, "I'll see you at practice. You're not quitting." Then he walked away.

But I wasn't. I thought about him often, trying to make sense of what he had done to me (and the other boys) and why.

Many years later I saw him again, sitting by himself at a local Burger King. This time, he was wearing nice slacks, a white short-sleeved shirt and a tie. Besides that nothing about him had changed. The chiseled, skulking face still peered out from under a baseball cap faded enough to be the same one he'd worn years earlier.

Jake, my 7-year-old son, was with me. Ignoring Coach Hanks was out of the question, for his sake and mine. It was necessary to confront Coach Hanks, finally.

What to call him after all these years? "Coach"? "Mr. Hanks"? "Lyle"?

Jake catches me staring. "Who's that man?" he asks.

"He looks scary."

Summoning the gumption to approach him was hard. I was 45. But it was hard.

"Excuse me, Mr. … Coach …? You won't remember me, but …"

"Schwartz? I'll be damned. Class of '69, right?"

How could this be? The man had hated me. He practically busted my nose shoving my face into mud holes.

Now it's 2022. Summer two-a-day practices have begun. On the field near my house I watch the boys, some of whom whoop it up while others fight off their exhaustion. I know that exhaustion, that fear. I know some of them want to be somewhere, anywhere, else.

The coaches holler. I chuckle. They're no match for Coach Hanks' drill sergeant tactics. You can't do those kinds of things now.

At home, I turn to the dog-eared page in the yearbook. There's Coach Hanks, frozen in time. It brings tears to my eyes.