gutter ball

Couple of days ago, I was working at my new Menards job, and my training at the moment was to check, reset, and inventory the gutter aisle, which turned into a six hour project. But it looked great when I was done. I had warned my training manager that I might take longer, because I'm kinda meticulous about getting it looking right. He said, "That's why I'm having YOU do it."

About four hours into it, I saw a familiar face round the corner, and he began appraising the polycarbonate roof panels. I called out, Hey Coach Miller!", but he didn't seem to hear me.
I said, "Mr. Miller!", but still nothing. So I got up off my knees, and walked toward him, and
tried again. He looked up, and I was met with a perplexed look of confusion, as Coach tried to process why a smiling man in a blue vest was approaching him. I gave him the easiest way out I could think of, and I visibly pointed to my name tag, and said, "It's Jay Hornocker!". I waited a beat, and finally the recognition came, and he exclaimed, "Horn!!".

Harold Miller was our Phys-Ed teacher at North Side Junior High School back in the mid-seventies, and he was our basketball coach when we won the 9th grade City Championship back in 1976. I was a second or third stringer, and was really on the team for height, more than talent, but the height wasn't helping me that much either.

As I stood next to the polycarbonate roofing panels, Coach chuckled, and told me that he had just thought of me the other day. He asked if I remembered running "Death Valleys" after basketball practice. For the uninitiated, this was, and may still be a common ending to the basketball practices of most young players. Each player takes his turn stepping to the free throw line to shoot two free throws, as his teammates face him on the near baseline. If he misses, everyone sprints forward and back, from the baseline to the free throw line, the mid-court line, the far free throw line, and the far baseline. If he makes it, everyone rests. Practice typically isn't over until the last guy has hit two in a row. Which brings me into the story.

Coach Miller laughed as he asked, "Do you remember how all the guys groaned every time you stepped to the free throw line for Death Valleys?" I may have blocked out that particular memory of Junior High peer pressure and frustration. But I did remember that I wasn't nearly the best free throw shooter on the 1976 North Side Braves 9th Grade team.
In fact, I may have been the worst. This may have been one of the reasons I was the Indian Mascot, and not the Indian power forward once we arrived at Anderson High School.

However, Coach did recall that I never seemed to tire when I was running at basketball practice, and he may have been the one who suggested that I run track in the Spring. I did run, and managed to make a nice little high school career out of the 880 yard run, with a couple trips to the State Meet in Indy.

Unfortunately, I did not qualify for the finals of the "Death Valley".

Coach is now a full-time farmer, and we talked for a spell about this year's crop prospects, and I reminded him of the one summer day that Macy, Funk, and I baled hay for him on a sunny, 90 degree afternoon. Hardest days work I've ever done.

Eventually, we both had to get back to work. Coach, or rather, Farmer Miller had to get back to his farm on West Eighth Street, and I had to finish sorting my Menards gutter aisle.

We shook hands, and I helped him get a twelve foot roof panel off the rack, and he was on his way. But as he walked away, I recalled what a positive influence he had been for us, and how he had helped mold our character and values, and I was thankful that he had stepped up in our lives back in 1976.

And I felt just a bit less guilty for missing all those free throws after basketball practice.