The Coach’s Son
Easton is a small town, with a baseball park, a couple of good-sized soccer pitches, and exactly one field that was lined properly for lacrosse. This is reflected on the size and success that the team. We never had the most athletic guys, most of them went to play soccer. And well… baseball got everyone else. Our team consisted of off-season hockey players and kids who thought rounding bases until mid-July sounded about as fun telling your 1985 state champion dad that baseball was lame. We were a scrappy bunch on the Easton Youth Lacrosse team, led by a scrappy group of town dads with varying levels of exposure to the game. A few had played in college, like Coach Duffy and Coach Lang. Most picked up a stick when their sons did, like my dad… Coach Kent.
It was never a rule by my Dad that he had to be coach Kent on the field. In every other instance he was “Dad.” At home… Dad. Picking me up from school… Dad. You get the idea. Even in the car driving to or from a game, he turned back into Dad. It was only ever on the field, with my pads on and stick in hand that he became Coach Kent. To this day he is still one of the best coaches I have ever had. It may be cliché to talk about sports and how they shape us, but moments on the field at our lowest and highest stay with us every time we walk back out there. Coach Kent was there for both my highest and lowest points.
The ride home from a loss was something the team had grown accustomed to. By the time I hit 5th grade we expected a loss and celebrated the annual hard-fought win over whatever other hick town we played that also only had one lacrosse field. Coach Kent worked hard to fix the culture of lacrosse in Easton. Over the years and a brief time as President of the Youth Lacrosse Organization, my dad tripled the size of the program. Even with that growth the team still struggled. We lost players; some went to try other sports. Others left the team and played for other towns with bigger and better programs.
I was in the 7th grade when we had just lost to Raynham by two goals. A team that hosted one of these traitors on their team. Rory Madden. I will not forget his name because I did consider him a friend. Until he left the team, which was a decision that Coach Kent did not support. On the ride to the game, I could tell Dad really wanted to win. He wanted so badly to stick it to this 7th grader and show him what a huge mistake he had made leaving the team. I do not blame him, because it was all I wanted too.
The loss stung like most of them did, this one a little sourer. As I sat in the passenger side of my dad’s car driving home, I thought of the things I did well. I scored two goals. Which was not something uncommon for me. I played attack, and as a 5-foot 10-inch 7th grader, you would think I would have had more goals scored. Coach Kent usually thought so too. Being the coach’s son comes with its fair share of nepotism. Were there times when I got to play the whole game? Most definitely. But that came with expectations of preforming well. There was a reason coach Kent left me in. He expected the best from me, anything short of that was disappointment.
I kept my eyes forward on the road as we left the field in Raynham. The silence on the inside of the car was only broken by the hushed volume of the sports radio station. We played hard, and despite the loss I felt satisfied with how I played. I looked over at my dad who was clutching the wheel with two hands and driving maybe a little bit too fast. His face looked different than mine. There was no contempt in face. His face showed anger. No, something different. Disappointment maybe? But in who? I played well. I had two goals, there was no way he was disappointed in me. Maybe he was disappointed in the face-offs. We lost almost every single one, that had to be the reason we lost the game. I turned back towards the road ahead of us while visualizing my two goals.
“I think we played well today.” I said confidently, keeping my eyes forward looking out the windshield.
Coach Kent took a familiar long breath in, like how he started every lecture he would give. “Ya it was alright. You just gotta be more aggressive out there Cole. Maybe the score would have been different if you had gotten those two ground balls at the midfield. You know you didn’t fight hard enough for those. You have to get low and scoop all the way through the ball, no more of that one-handed pick-up crap. Use your body, get in front of the guy and scoop. Drop your shoulder if you have to. If you had fought for those ground balls, I think we would have won. You gotta really want that ball if you want to win.
I could tell he was taking glances at me in between looking at the road. I never took my eyes off the taillights in front of me. The loss was my fault. Guilt consumed me. I replayed those two ground balls over and over in my head. Each time trying to force myself to pick them up. But each time in my head, I missed them. Tears swelled in my eyes and caused the red taillights in front of me to stretch out in long streaks.
Every time I take the field, I think back on this moment. Even to this day, as a senior in college playing Lacrosse at a division III school, I remember this youth game. Not just that game but each moment of failure on the field in the past twelve years, all of them brought me further. It amazes me that even after experiences of humbling failure I can still love the game. The Iroquois Native Americans are the creators of lacrosse well over a thousand years ago. In their language they call the game Dehoñtjihgwa’és, which translates to “they bump hips.” Perhaps the most fundamental understanding and lesson in the game of lacrosse is to be physical, and bump hips. Each time I go down for a ground ball in a game or practice, even now as a twenty-two-year-old college senior, I still remember the lessons that Coach Kent taught me.
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