Doing the Laundry by A. J. Kohlhepp photos AJ Kohlhepp
If
you ask me about my strengths as a prep school squash coach, I will
usually echo Dustin Hoffman’s iconic character in Rain Man: “I’m
an excellent driver.”
Given the fact that my winter
coaching assignment involves multiple Wednesday and Saturday journeys
across the frozen New England landscape, with me behind the wheel or a
7- or 14-passenger vehicle, this ability is pretty much a necessary
criterion.
But I can add another element to my
skillset after the most recent season, and this latest addition says a
lot about my emerging approach to my role as coach: I do
laundry. Not every day, mind you, and not with the same sparkling
results as Berkshire’s equipment manager, Skip Bowman, but often and
well enough to serve the needs of my team.
I have
not always been the sort of coach who would collect and launder the
sweaty uniforms of his athletes. In fact, I have not always been the
sort of coach who even paid attention to such aspects, leaving it up to
individual players or team leaders to ensure appropriate garb for
practices and matches. When team members failed to measure up, I would
greet their failures with sarcastic commentary or, worse still, silent
disappointment. Athletes met my sartorial expectations, and the
many others I held (but few of which I was explicit about), or they
faced my condemnation.
Instead of focusing on what my teams
wanted or needed, I generally focused on my own expectations for a
“varsity” program. Rather than establishing goals through
dialogue and consensus, I autocratically posted them and expressed
frustration when athletes and teams failed to measure up. I think
I have made strides in that regard over a decade and a half in the
role, but my evolution has been anything but linear, and the most
salient lessons for me have come about when I least expected them.
February
of 2015, a challenging squash season as a whole, represented a kind of
nadir. My girls played badly against the Millbrook Mustangs, a
team we have usually beaten over the years, and I unleashed a torrent
of invective when we convened in the visitors’ changing room. I
intended my post-game remarks to spur these girls toward increased
effort level down the home stretch, but my diatribe cast a pall over
the remaining weeks of the season. I was sad to say goodbye to
our seniors after the season-ending New England tournament, but I feel
safe in saying that we were all glad to be done with it.
Fast
forward to February 2016. This year’s motley collection of Bears
was struggling through an even darker winter, at least in terms of
quantifiable results. With two key starters lost to graduation, I
had known that that 2015-6 would be a challenging campaign. When
two returners opted out before the season began and our #2 player left
school at the end of the first semester, I was looking at the weakest
team I had coached in years.
As we made our way
through January, the losses mounted. We dropped close matches to teams
we usually beat and got crushed by teams that we usually
threaten. But the Bears battled on, and their resolve never
slackened. And throughout this season, in which I expected little
to nothing in terms of the won-lost record, I never lost sight of my
own objectives: to support them on their terms, rather than my
own; to help each athlete continue to improve; and to help this lean,
mean eight come together as a unit. Instead of telling them how they
had failed, I asked them what they needed. Every now and then,
this was laundry service.
So I collected and washed and
folded the uniforms, and I kept driving the van, and I encouraged the
repetition of profane dub-step playlists that drove me bonkers, and I
found instances to praise play among opportunities to exhort further
exertion.
A couple of February rematches
proved to be the turning point. Having lost to Williston 4-3 at
home, we traveled to their raucous courts and eked out a gritty 4-3
win. Immediately after that, we took Millbrook to the very brink,
losing 4-3 by the slimmest of margins after having been pummeled 6-1 by
those same Mustangs just a few weeks earlier. (It was a similarly
lopsided loss to that same school that had pushed me over the edge the
year before.) But what would that late surge mean heading into the
NEISA tournament?
Getting word that we had been
relegated to the C division after many years at the B level, the girls
felt optimistic about our prospects. Given the strength of our
schedule, the commitment of our training, and the results from our last
few matches, we sensed that a podium finish was within reach.
Little did we know what these Bears could do when they really set their
minds to it.
Arriving at host site St. Paul’s School
late on Friday night, Berkshire got off to a blazing start. Five Bears
out of seven claimed victories to advance to the semifinals in their
flights, and the same five pushed through to the finals the next
morning. Chase and Emily, who had lost in the first round, added
to our aggregate point total with strong second days, fueled by some
late-night gelato and a good night’s sleep. #7 Morgan and #3
Maggie stormed to victory in their respective flights, while #5 Mia and
#6 Tara came up just a bit short, settling for second place.
Prior
to the fifth game of her final match at St. Paul’s, which also happened
to be Berkshire’s last of the New England tournament, #2 Madison was
struggling. In between gasps for air and gulps from her water
bottle, she managed one desperate sentence: “I can’t do this.” A
small smile of recognition played across my face, for I had heard this
same disclaimer dozens of times, in the classroom and across the quad
and on the court, throughout her four years at Berkshire. And I
had an easy reply, which I delivered quietly amidst the courtside
chaos. “You can,” I reminded her gently. “And you will.”
And
she did, seizing game five with gusto, earning herself an individual
championship, and closing the ledger on our team’s
accomplishments. When the din had died down in the McClane Squash
Courts at St. Paul’s, the sum of individual efforts added up to one
sweet phrase for these sweaty Bears: 2015-2016 New England
Champions, C Division.
Girls’ varsity squash headed
south from St. Paul’s, knowing that they had taken an historic stride
for Berkshire, bringing home the school’s first squash championship,
albeit a level below where we are accustomed to competing. Our seniors
quickly integrated Queen’s “We Are the Champions” into the playlist,
and I don’t think I have ever heard a group of teenagers exhibit as
much unadulterated joy as this team belted out with each chorus.
Four
more hours behind the wheel – my last as chauffer for this particular
crew – gave me plenty of time think about the strange and wonderful
season that had just come to an end. Had my off-court adjustment
contributed in some way to their on-court accomplishments? Had
asking them “what do you need,” rather than telling them “here’s what I
need,” provided some small measure of strength or composure in the
moments when they really mattered?
We rolled back
onto campus late on Saturday, at the end of a long February. One by one
the girls piled out of the minibus, dragging squash bags and medals,
checking their phones to initiate their re-entry into the Saturday
night social sphere, and disappearing into the darkness.
“Coach,”
said Madison, a three year varsity player and senior co-captain, who
was last to leave the van. “I think you forgot something.”
I
turned in my chair, looking up and around for a cue, and a clue, to my
oversight. Had I come up short in terms of hugs or high fives? Was the
luggage compartment of the van wide open to the late winter
winds? Had I misplaced my clipboard, dropped the package of hair
ties that I have learned to carry with me at all times, or left the
massive championship plaque in a dark corner of the vehicle?
Amused by my confusion, Madison held out a dripping bundle of white and green microfiber.
“The uniforms,” she laughed. “You forgot to collect the uniforms.”
And
so I had. But at that late hour, after that long season, it
didn’t seem to matter so much. The laundry could wait for another
day.
