Dusty memories

I've been blessed with a charmed life, that much I'll admit, thanks largely to some key decisions made at various times in my past. One of those decisions was to chase the dream of teaching as a career, and as an addition to the classroom adventures once the contract was signed was the "pay it forward" mentality of coaching as many teams as I could handle. I had thoroughly enjoyed athletics throughout elementary, secondary, and post secondary, had enjoyed some tremendous experiences, and felt strongly about assisting youngsters under my influence in making their own memories. While none of this is news to anyone that has known me as more than a passing acquaintance, I'd still like to take a few minutes to rehash some dusty old recollections that percolated to the surface of my consciousness thanks to a recent refereeing assignment.

I "went back to the scene of the crime" as the saying goes. 

I have made it known on this Blog how much I am loving the return to basketball officiating, and while it's the older folks that really grant me the most enjoyment, I still cherish working with the "Grass Roots" level because you simply don't get the same fulsome exuberance with the high school and above athletes. Maybe I should clarify that I don't see the same levels any way, so when I recently was assigned a mini-tournament for Jr girls elementary school at Portage View PS, I was giddy as a groom on his wedding night since I hadn't been back to PVPS since teaching there in the early 90's. I have some gold-plated memories from my time there, both in the classroom and in the gymnasium.

First, A little history lesson, to set the stage, as the saying goes.

I spent the first 8 years of my teaching career in the elementary panel because I really thought that was were my heart lay. I was hired by the SCDSB for a primary classroom at Maple Grove PS and was only there for a year before being declared redundant and getting transferred to Portage View, a scenario typical for young teachers in those years. After 3 pretty awesome years at PVPS, I was tossed back into the transfer vortex again, and after being tentatively placed (on paper) in 19 different schools, I physically landed back at MGPS. I really don't know the actual reasons, but every year I spent in the elementary panel I was assigned older aged classrooms thanks to administrators who championed a "we need a strong male influence" party line for justification. I could see the proverbial "writing on the wall" that my career would be in grade 7/8 and made the decision to jump to the secondary panel in 1998, another pivotal decision in my career.

Back to PVPS.

When I arrived at Portage View in fall of 1992, the incumbent Intermediate boy's basketball coach was a tremendously popular and beloved fellow named Andrew Lindsay. For reasons I never really learned, he eagerly stepped aside and passed the baton to me. It quickly became apparent at the initial few practices that he had groomed a special group of young boys for greatness, and as the wins mounted and playoffs arrived, I really thought we could make deep run. The team was led by Joe Santoro, a gifted 6 foot gem of a human with PG skills, but included a wide assortment of great athletes who had a thirst of competition. If I'm honest, the successes were more from the players than they were from coaching, but even stallions are useless if they aren't hitched to the same cart. After a win for the ages over Prince of Wales in the area tournament, a game that still stings in the hearts of POW players (*scroll down to the bottom for more info), my PVPS Panthers entered the Simcoe County Championships with a buzz about their potential success.

Nothing goes according to plan, though, and one of my best athletes decided that sleeping in on a Saturday was more important than supporting his mates. 

Some choice words from his buddies, and an offered ride from his coach, and he changed his mind.

In the end, we played some gosh-darned great basketball, and spurred by Joe's legendary performances, we cruised through the tournament, winning the banner in convincing fashion, a banner that I was very pleased to see again when I entered the PVPS gym for my refereeing assignment. When I first spied it hanging high in the rafters, a flood of dusty old memories flashed through my frontal lobe, making me look the part of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, likely making some of the parents in attendance a little nervous about the demonic grin on their ref's face. I don't mind telling you that the accomplishment holds high esteem in my list of proud moments.

The Jr girls, Lord love them, were a bundle of frenetic energy, mixed with raw emotion, wrapped up in blanket of exuberance, resulting in tsunami-like waves of shrill screams that assaulted the eardrums like some crazed Kumi-Daiko (Japanese drummer). While the energy was high, the execution was less so, the ball bouncing unpossessed nearly as often as being dribbled, making for a Keystone Cops like comedy as times. Having said that, the genuine grins of enjoyment are permanently etched in the spectators' Hippocampus, and anyone who says differently is the personification of Dickins' Scrooge.

The coup de grace was the huge grin of a former student and player, Justin Dyck, from those PVPS/BCC days taking time out of his day to shake my hand, offer kind words, and formally introduce me to his daughter who had participated in the tourney with PVPS. You could see the sparkle in his eyes as he conjured up some of those same memories I had, augmented by the fact that his daughter was attending his alma mater and making memories of her own.

Too bad she'll never have a chance to experience ol' BCC ... sorry, couldn't resist.

It was truly a wonderful afternoon.

Special Note: The 1993 Area Championship:

For those that aren't aware, Prince of Wales PS used to be situated right beside Barrie Central CI (NOT so much anymore ... sigh) so athletes from POW and PV eventually fed into BCC, despite competing against each other throughout their elementary years. When PV and POW earned their way into the area championship, the lineups featured athletes who would dominate the lineup for my BCC Sr Boys' team that captured Bronze at OFSAA in 1999 (see photo). The championship game was a hotly contested affair that see sawed back and forth with my PV Panthers winning by the narrowest of margins, but was not without its controversy when some of the best players from POW fouled out near the end of the game. 

With so many of those athletes becoming dear friends after our battles together representing Central, they've spared no opportunity to take a shot at ol' coach about the horseshoe firmly wedged between by butt cheeks. I of course simply smile, nod, and shrug. Some times it's better to be lucky than good.