The Cow, The Cat, The Captain and The Church Mice (Part 4)

 Kingsley Tate coached basketball at Regional State University.  He was profane, demanding and controversial.  He also sent players to the pros and had a hall of fame career.  At a distance, some interpreted his philosophy as a mix of rage and poetry. 

At a distance, she watched her brother memorize the raging prose.  Gone was the showmanship and swagger that populated his high school career.  He voluntarily folded himself into a machine; an opponent-bending, instrument of ticket sales.  His smile was gone and his taunts silenced.  When she asked him about the change, he was candid, "I want to start.  If you play his way, you start."  In an instant, he was changed.

The simplicity with which her brother bartered stunned her.  Pigheaded and supremely confident, he was an apex socialite; in high school, a lion.  Basketball was one of three varsity letters he earned; the scouts came calling.  When he visited a RSU home game his lip quivered because he'd never wanted anything like he wanted to wear red and white.

No names appeared on jerseys and the locker room air was moist and stale.  Chewing gum was ground into the floors of bleachers and concession stand food was overpriced.  He looked past the disappointments and longed for the culture: the way Coach Tate invented a style of winning.  To her brother, the college basketball team was otherworldly and he wanted to live on that planet.

He checked his ego at the door and entered the Big Nine gym with his head down and ears open.  His initial animal kingdom queues kept him from being made an example.  Inattentiveness, disrespect, slovenliness and tardiness were reasons for Coach's cruel and unusual teaching moments.  While his classmates recovered from his wrath, her brother watched his assistant coaches.

Some of the assistants insecurely popped to attention when Coached entered a room.  Others seemed to be able to finish his sentences with fluid familiarity.  He asked an assistant for a seven minute Q&A and typed up the notes from the conversation.  Slowly revisiting content between the lines of the interview resulted in his earning a starting position while upperclassmen watched.  When he explained to his sister, how he navigated the choppy waters of Midwestern Collegiate basketball, she decided to try it.

Her laboratory was middle school orchestra.  Like Coach Tate, her orchestra teacher was mercurial, well-loved and backed by an alumni dominated booster club.  She was talented but uninformed about how to be selected as a section leader; how to sit in the first chair.  Rather than pout with rest of the frustrated teenagers, she conducted an experiment.  Previous section leaders were still available in high school and she reached out to each requesting a seven minute informational interview.  Each consented, answered her questions and left her with a choice.

She could continue being frustrated as so many children, parents, teachers and administrators around her.  Conversely she could use what she learned from her brother, and triumphant orchestral predecessors, to achieve her goal.  With acute deftness, she pivoted and never looked back.  Coach's assistants, her brother and the high school interviewees said the same thing in different ways.