We were the lucky ones

If you talk to people about the coaches they had in school you will probably hear stories that are all over the board.

My coach was great; he was okay; he didn’t like me; he was a good teacher; not sure he knew much about the game he was coaching or we were lucky to have him as our coach.

Most players only get to know their coach as a teacher in the classroom, if they do in fact teach, or the person that coaches as football, basketball, volleyball, baseball, softball, tennis, track or fill in the blank sport mentors.

I know some coaches that were hired as teachers and had to learn a game they never played to fill a coaching position.

I’ve had coaches that knew everything and some that knew very little. One in particular relied on some of his players to figure out what needed to be done.

I had one football coach during high school but I had four basketball coaches. I had one that made several players wonder why they turned out in the first place.

I had one that would eventually become a Hall of Fame coach. Unfortunately he was only here my sophomore year.

Coach Doug McLean was hired my senior year. Two years before he had taken a team from the west side to the State B tournament.

The school had 31 kids attending and not all of them were boys. They had talent, but anytime you take a team to the tournament when it never happened before and you only have a varsity team it takes a lot of trust and belief.

Coach McLean was the head basketball coach at Ritzville for four years. He took two teams to State tournaments.

The 1970 team placed seventh at the B tournament in Spokane and the 1973 team played in the A tournament in Tacoma. Each of these teams made runs that were memorable and a little unbelievable at the same time.

Nearly two weeks ago, four co-captains from Coach McLean’s teams got together to visit with the man who made a real impact on their lives.

All four played in one state tournament and have been friends since their playing days or at least knew they would be.

I was a co-captain for the 1969-70 team, Dan Meyer for the 1970-71 team, Randy Hanson for the 1971-72 team and Tom Benzel for the 1972-73 team. Dan, Randy and I played in the B Tournament in Spokane and Tom made it to the A tournament.

Tom and Mike McCaffery were the 11 and 12th men who practiced with the varsity each day.

When we got new basketball uniforms in January there were only 10 ordered and since we went from red jerseys to black jerseys they wouldn’t suit up for the games which is unfortunate.

The four of us met at Dan’s home in Tumwater and we made the short trek down I-5 to Centralia to see Coach who was now in a nursing home there. True to form Coach was watching his Seattle Mariners and happily they won that day.

Coach was happy to see us and we brought a smile and a few chuckles his way. We signed a basketball and took a picture and gave these items to our coach.

We all told him how much he meant to us and how lucky we were to have him as our coach.

Coach looked at us and said, “It works both ways. I was lucky to have you as my players.”

Coach has had some serious health issues and we knew how important this trip was for him and us. Life is too short to not do the right thing.

We spent a couple of hours with Coach that Saturday afternoon and it was still too short to let him know how we felt about him but I’m sure he knew.

Not every player that he coached knew Coach McLean other than his teaching and coaching sides.

He used to come back to the back of the bus to visit with us. These were some of the most important conversations that young men could have with their coach. Oh yeah, the four of us were sitting in the back of the bus.

I can’t say for sure if I will ever be able to see Coach again as his health has declined in the last two years. But I will never forget the smiles that we brought to him that day. The four of us spent the rest of the day at Dan’s reminiscing and telling stories.

When it comes right down to it we were the lucky ones for the extra time Coach spent talking to us about life in general.

It is something I never took for granted but will remember always.