From Jerry Ball, RHS '65 - Round Two

They are not long, the days of wine and roses,
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

                                                - Ernest Dowson

Well, I had hoped for a few more responses to my blog entry in May. (Thank you, Gloria!) Let me try again.

One of the things, I was hoping to hear about were your experiences at RHS. I’ll start by telling you some of mine. Basically there are three parts – basketball, mentors, and “The Girl”.

Some of you may remember the flurry of e-mails that came about when Jim Pepitone, RHS ’65, forwarded a note about a movie called “Brats” to Gloria to include on the blog. Jim’s note seemed to hit a responsive note with a bunch of us as the next few days brought comments (and memories) from people I had not heard from for many years. Great comments. I loved them. (You can still find them on the blog if you go to December 2005 and scroll down to them.) The comments I’m making today are in addition to the ones I made then thanking a number of Rohawks for welcoming me in August 1964.

- - - - -

I was only a one year Rohawk, but I remember many things about that year. I remember playing basketball. I remember faculty members who helped me a lot. And I remember someone whom I will call merely “The Girl”.

I came to Randolph after having spent my first three years of high school at a dependent school near Seville, Spain (Morón Air Base and San Pablo Air Base, for those familiar with the old base structure there). Moving between junior and senior years really sucked. Things I thought I might have been elected to had I been able to stay in Seville (maybe student council president, NHS president, or yearbook editor, for example) were not even a possibility when I walked into a new school where absolutely nobody knew me. And Texas state law kept me from competing to be the valedictorian. I didn’t expect much out of my one year in this new school.

When I was processing in to RHS, they asked a lot of questions. One of the questions was had I ever played any sports. I said I had played some basketball. When my class schedule came out, I didn't think anything about having been assigned to PE for the final class period of the day - except to be glad to know that I wouldn't have to go to my next class sweating like a pig like I had had to do for three years in Spain.

But it turned out to be more important to me than that. It was in that class that I met the first of the mentors at Randolph who have had a lifetime impact on me – Coach Ivan Leschber. In Spain, I had had two coaches. One was primarily a chemistry instructor. The other was primarily a tennis instructor. Coach Leschber was the first time that I knew a man who was a real basketball coach as a primary part of his being. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure I was not the first time that he had a real “work in progress” to deal with.

I found out that the boys assigned to last period PE were guys who made up the sports teams for the school since it made it easy to transition directly from the class day to practice time. Texas University Interscholastic League rules forbade any basketball practices from happening prior to October 15th, but they didn't stop us from playing volleyball as a group until then. I watched as some of the guys in my PE class started disappearing from the group. When October 15th came, we started doing all of the traditional basketball drills while we waited for the football team to finish its season, and then we got the multi-sport guys to join us for basketball.

Coach Leschber was always looking for an edge, so he had us compete for the task of doing the tipoff at the start of each quarter. We had a “jump off” and I won. That meant that I got to start each game - and then Coach would get me off the court as soon as there was a break in the action and a real basketball player could get in. But Coach kept working with me one-on-one and, as the season went on, I got to stay on the floor longer after the tipoff.

In his great memoir “My Losing Season”, Pat Conroy began with the line “I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one”.  I can identify with that.  My genetics made me tall so I was born to be a basketball player, just not a very good one.  Those of you who watched the ’64-’65 basketball games know that. But I was on the starting team with some really good players – Tom McDougall, Bill Kem, Charles “Mike” Pitzer, and George McClughan, and we had guys like “Flame” Madsen on the bench who could have started on most of the other teams in our district.  That helped atone for my manifold deficiencies.

Coach Leschber’s teams had won the district championship the first two years that RHS operated. As we started the pre-season for this third year, it looked like his winning streak would end with us. Coach put us up against some talented and physically aggressive teams. I think that when I jumped the tipoff against the center for LaSalle High School, I looked up for the ball and read “Converse, size 14” on the bottom of his sneakers. Our non-conference record was not good. I guess we were being toughened up for the real season.

Part of the “toughening up” was the alumni game played over Christmas break.

I had heard the names of the guys who starred in previous years – most notably Bill Borellis, a Parade All-American. The guys talked about his playing with respect bordering on awe. The girls talked about him with a near swoon.

So, it came to pass that it was my turn to guard him in the alumni game. It was no challenge – for him. I frequently took my defensive stance only soon to be looking at empty space between me and the far wall of the gym. I never even slowed him down.  I know this for a fact because I “met” Mr. Borellis years later at an alumni event, and he had no hint of acknowledgment of ever having seen me before.  If I had slowed him down at least once, he might have at least recognized my face.

Coach worked one-on-one with me a lot during the Christmas break as we would soon start district play. Among the student body, I suspect there was little enthusiasm (or hope, I expect) as that fateful date approached.

In 2010, I read a book that contained gems that any of us who have had an outstanding coach can identify with. The title was simply Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life and it was by Michael Lewis. I had heard an excerpt on the radio while driving and picked up the book as soon as I could. Mr. Lewis said things about his coach that many of us might have felt but could not say as well. In particular, Mr. Lewis described a time when his team started a year poorly, but then responded to the leadership of his “Coach Fitz”.

“. . . The games became closer; the battles more fiercely fought. We were learning what it felt like to lay it all on the line. Those were no longer hollow words, they were a deep feeling. And finally, somehow, we won. No one who walked into our locker room as we danced around and hurled our uniforms into the washing machine, and listened to the speech Fitz gave about our fighting spirit, would have known they were looking at a team that now stood 1-12.

            We listened to the man because he had something to tell us, and us alone. Not how to play baseball, though he did that better than anyone. Not how to win, though winning was wonderful. Not even how to sacrifice. He was teaching us something far more important; how to cope with the two greatest enemies of a well-lived life, fear and failure. To make the lesson stick, he made sure we encountered enough of both. What he knew – and I’m not sure he ever consciously thought it, but he knew it all the same – was that we’d never conquer the weakness within ourselves. We’d never drive the worst of ourselves away for good. We’d never win. The only glory to be had would be in the quality of the struggle.

            I never could have explained at the time what he had done for me, but I felt it in my bones all the same.”

The other members of the Rohawk basketball team no doubt had many more coaches in their various athletic programs than I did. For me, when I hear “Coach”, I think of Ivan Leschber. Thanks, Coach.

After Coach Leschber’s hard work with us in the pre-season, there was a surprise. We won our district championship, the bi-district championship, and the regional championship before losing to a superior team in the Texas state semi-finals.

Of those games, the final game of the district season sticks out most in my mind. We had been undefeated through the district and were playing New Braunfels Canyon High School whose only loss had been to us on our court. Now we were playing on theirs.

The lead went back and forth. Never varying much more than a few points. We tied at the end of regulation. And for two overtime periods. As the seconds closed in the third overtime, Canyon’s star player drove for the basket while being guarded by our star Tom McDougall. I can still see the play as though I am watching a slow-motion film. Their star quickly threw up his arms in a shot that was less intended to go in as to get a foul on Tom and earn two free throws. Tom sensed this, pulled his arms back, and the ball flew over the basket where I speared it on the other side and quickly threw the outlet pass down the court.  My original recollection was that Mike Pitzer caught the ball and took the shot, but he told me that Coach called time out and set up a play for Tom to take the final shot. Tom was guarded well and tossed it to Mike who did get the winning shot. Our district record was preserved and we went on from there.

A few years ago, Mike Pitzer sent me a DVD with clips from some of the games from 1964-1965.  I had gone back to the school around 1970 and asked about whether there were any game films left only to be told they were all gone.  I figured there was no chance of ever seeing any scenes from that season again.  And then the envelope came from Mike.

Pat Conroy had a similar experience and he described it “My Losing Season”:

"In the grainy film of a handheld camera, the year suddenly materialized as my team, so beautiful in their prime, were seen running up and down the court. " I . . . “watched the . . . film mesmerized by the strange magic of image and lost time."  And then,  . . . "The Zapruder film of our lost youth went black, and we turned back to our middle-age selves again."

I watched the DVD several times the day it came.  No sound.  Just grainy gray images of long ago days.  But they were wonderful to watch, and I really am glad Mike shared them.

Besides Coach Leschber, I had other teachers at RHS who still stand out in my mind. Mr. Cranz L. Nichols taught physics. It may have been the toughest course I took in high school  (besides typing, but for very different reasons). In college, I would realize why the course had been so tough. Mr. Nichols had to explain concepts that were best spoken in the “language” of calculus. In my sophomore year of college, with thirteen semester hours of calculus under my belt, the physics concepts Mr. Nichols had so carefully imparted were matched by the math they should relate to. Mr. Nichols gave me a head start on not only college physics, but required courses in aeronautical engineering, astronautical engineering, and mechanical engineering. Thanks, Mr. Nichols.

One other teacher I’d like to mention even though he is no longer with us physically. Mr. William Walter Childers taught “Civics” – the processes of government and of our individual participation in it. But beyond teaching an academic subject, he cared about students. Again, Michael Lewis’ words are better than mine:

“A few people, and a few experiences, simply refuse to be trivialized by time. There are teachers with a rare ability to enter a child’s mind; it’s as if their ability to get there at all gives them the right to stay forever. I’d once had such a teacher.”

Mr. Childers was a good teacher because he was knowledgeable in his subject matter. He was a great teacher because he authentically cared for his students as individuals. I can see him now – standing behind his classroom podium with his motto inscribed – We CAN do it if we TRY! He once gave me a photograph of Lenin’s Tomb that he told me had been taken with a camera concealed in his belt buckle. But beyond that souvenir, he gave me much encouragement and considerable counsel – not all of which I heeded, but it would probably have worked out better for me if I had.

Somebody in Mr. Childers’ family has put some nice pictures and information about his life on Ancestry.com if you have access to that. You can use Ancestry.com for free at many public libraries.

http://person.ancestry.com/tree/13500711/person/-57994940/facts

When I go to Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery to visit my dad’s grave, I sometimes stop by Mr. Childers grave, also. I salute, and I say a prayer of thanks for having known him. I wish every student could have a teacher like him. Thanks, Mr. C.

So, that’s my start of the conversation.  I’d love to see notes on your recollections from RHS, or from any of the decades thereafter.  Any takers?

Thanks.

Jerry Ball, RHS ‘65