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1/23/06 There’s an old saying that goes like this; ‘A coach will tell you what you don’t want to hear, and show you what you don’t want to see, so you can grow into the person you always pictured you could be.’ Freddie U. was a good leftfielder on our HS baseball team. Up until the Varsity level, he was a starter. Things got crowded as a senior and his playing time dwindled, so he simply quit the team. At the time we were 7-0 and two weeks later he had a rush of consciousness so he asked if he could come back on the team. Coach Luke, an old-schooler all the way, sat Freddie down and gave him some tough love. ‘Freddie, you quit,’ he said. ‘It’s final.’ You quit on the team, you quit on me, and you quit on yourself.’ ‘If I let you back, what have you learned?’ ‘If you don’t get your way, you just quit!’ You’ll do it the rest of your life… ‘Don’t like your job? Quit…Don’t like your boss? Quit. Don’t like your wife? Quit. Times get rough. Quit! ‘Quitting becomes a lifetime habit, and I’m not going to be the one to set the tone because I don’t have the guts to make the right decision.’ Coach Luke was not a great baseball coach by any stretch. He was also the offensive line coach on our football team. He was however, genuine. He never put on an act, and at 60-years old, this would be his last year in coaching. At any rate, Freddie saw Coach Luke at Don Long’s wedding 5 years later, and the quitting incident came up. ‘You made a mistake,’ Freddie said, jovially. ‘No, you made the mistake, Coach Luke said smiling, I don’t recall seeing you going on to stardom elsewhere!’ ‘Besides, I wanted to teach you that actions have consequences, and my father did the same thing to me once.’ Years later, in the Marines, Coach Luke learned that he could deal with tough times without pouting or quitting. Today Freddie U. is a highly successful lawyer, and he has his own practice. Baseball is a distant memory, but the incident is not. Freddie U. regrets quitting, but he isn’t lost on the lesson learned. ‘I never quit anything again,’ he said, even though he admitted some very tough times at St. Louis University Law School. Coaches coach, players play…Coaches teach, too. They’re teaching you how to conduct yourself on the field of sport, and in the game of life…whether you believe it or not. The rest is up to you… (c) 2006 Novi
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