joe king said:
Ace said:
sir,
what kind of team is this?
oh, and 90 percent of the time when a coach/manager says he'll never talk to you again, he changes his tune after about 24 hours.
I'd say it's more like 99 percent.
Just be aware that the other 1 percent DOES exist. Few years back, a kid at one of our area schools died in a wreck. I call the football coach to find out a little about this kid, but the kid was just a student and didn't play football, so the coach didn't really know him. So the coach tells me to call one of his assistant coaches and his team captain, who was friends with the dead kid.
Assistant coach isn't home, but I talk to the captain. Nothing too intrusive, just trying to find out a little about who the dead kid was.
A few days later I get an angry call from the assistant coach, saying I shouldn't have called the team captain at a time like that. I figure it's just some hurt on his own part talking and more or less ignore it.
The next summer, I head out to this little school to do our tab stuff. As I'm talking to the head coach, the assistant coach gets up and leaves the office. Very chilly. After I'm done, I ask head coach what his deal was. He explains the backstory to me, and I'm floored. So I go out to the gym, where assistant coach is sitting, and try to clear the air. He wants none of it. He more or less repeats the earlier message and tells me not to talk to him anymore. Now, this is a big dude. Not a fat redneck, but about 6-3, and a solid 220 or 230 pounds of nothing but muscle. The kind of guy that if you crossed him in a bar, it's your ass. So I don't push the issue, just try to avoid him.
Two YEARS later, the redneck becomes the head coach at the school. It's still on my list of area schools, so I call over there. As soon as I find out he's the head man, I switch off with our other writer to make it easier on everybody. After a week or so he calls our other writer back and tells him "I'll talk to you, but I wasn't going to call Batman back."
As far as I know he's still pissed at me. Last year another of our writers went out there and the coach had told his players not to talk to him. Coincidentally, the redneck is in some position of power at the school. That school is no longer on our list of area schools.