I made a trip down to my old high school today. I have not been back for almost a year. I like to go back every once in a while just to see the few teachers I liked. It’s weird to go back there, the school has changed. The main reason I went back was to go and see my old Football Coach who also doubles as a History teacher. Mr. Peterson started when my class were freshman so I think we got to know him better than the rest of the teachers we had. It was like we started high school together in a way.

While I was sitting there talking to him, I for some reason couldn’t help but think of this one time around my freshman/sophomore year when I was out for basketball. It was at practice and someone came and told Mr. Peterson some bad news. I really don’t remember who told him or if he came to practice knowing this bad news. So any way we had been doing some running drills or something and Fago had falling down and twisted his ankle or some shit like that. So Peterson gave me his keys to go and get bandages and stuff like that. Keep in mind the keys were not only to the coaches office but his keys to his car and home. The varsity coach was leaving to go home around this time so Peterson stressed not to forget to bring the keys back up.

And of course I forgot the keys down in the office, which I made sure was locked when I came back up. Well he took care of Fago and then asked for his keys. This was when I figured out I left them down in the office. Without sounding as if Peterson was a bad guy He quite frankly snapped. He was pissed. I remember that his face got as red as can be. He told me to go and do stairs. That’s when you run up the stairs and then back down the stairs and repeat. Now under normal circumstances I hate doing stairs. But he was so mad that I obliged him no problem. In fact after he had cooled down and explained what had happened he told me to stop doing the stairs. I clearly remember telling him “That’s ok Coach I’ll just keep doing stairs.”

You see his uncle or aunt had passed away and he took it pretty hard. But when Peterson told you to do something you did it. There was no smart mouthing or any of that shit. I think (and I’m not a coaching expert) that those ten years ago when my class was in school still, discipline was something we believed in. And I admit that I didn’t really care to much about discipline in the classroom. But for sports I really believe it means something. I don’t claim to know what the football coach for South Beloit is like now but I do know that their record is zero wins. We had a winning record back in the day. My last to years in school is what I’m talking about. And I think it had a lot to do with the coaches we had. You figure out who coached at that time.