Hermes is a small, stable, low-crime, high-test-score community. We have two public elementary schools, one public middle school, one public high school and one private K-8 school. The student population at Hermes High School hovers around seven hundred. I tell friends who live far away that the town in which we chose to raise our children is a bit like Mayberry, the small town in the 1960s television show, Andy Griffith. But the analogy is really only an analogy. Hermes’ two main arteries are always clogged with traffic. There’s a McDonalds, a Taco Bell and plenty of the other trappings of more modern, prosperous, and fast-paced life to remind us we are living neither in Andy’s Mayberry nor in Dorothy’s Kansas.
Hermes is also home to a small private college. Santa Carla, which is just ten minutes south of us, is home to a state university. San Geraldo, a city of roughly one million, is just half an hour north over a mountain highway. Most of Hermes’ working population rides that mountain highway to and from work each weekday. Active religious affiliation is diverse and disproportionately high. Kids’ sports dominate the town’s two large parks. There is more than one ballet academy and more than one martial arts academy. The town’s community center hosts no shortage of additional children’s enrichment activities, including art and music.
Lacrosse is a fast growing sport in Hermes. Philip is now in his fourth season. He’s looking forward to playing Lacrosse for Hermes High School next year. So a late Friday afternoon home game early in the season was cause to take Philip to the High School early last month to witness High School Lacrosse first hand. And that is when my image of Mayberry was shattered.
The player was particularly tall and particularly fit. He had either a tight crew cut or the beginnings of growth on a recently shaved head. I could see he had at least one visible tattoo. In the first two minutes of the game, he received a penalty for a particularly nasty-looking foul. The player mouthed-off to the referee for calling the penalty before the player took his place in the penalty box with a huff. The player continued to acquire penalties throughout the game and each time spoke disrespectfully to the referee. Somewhere in the middle of the third quarter, the player acquired the penalty that booted him from the game. There was no hint of contrition. The player stalked off the field, removed his jersey, pulled the back of his uniform shorts down below his underwear and strutted defiantly on the sidelines, bad-mouthing the referees to his teammates on the sidelines. The production continued until the game was over. I didn’t care that Hermes had won the game.
As Philip and I walked back to the car, I asked him what he thought. His answer satisfied me, but I wanted to take the conversation at least one level deeper.
“Here’s the deal, Philip. You can play lacrosse at Hermes High School next year. But you need to understand something. The way the coaches were tolerating that player’s behavior and attitude leads me to conclude that those same coaches will tolerate what I would consider unacceptable behavior and a toxic attitude from a player if he is a strong athlete. That player was not even one of the top players on the team. And yet the coaches kept him in and let him continue to acquire penalties. When tolerated by the coaches, players like that poison the whole atmosphere on the team. It is an atmosphere you’ll probably need to deal with and accept if you want to play lacrosse at Hermes High School. I’ll understand and respect whatever decision you make about joining the team.” It was a sober ride home.
This past Friday there was another late afternoon home game. I invited Philip to join me to go watch the game, but he declined. When I arrived the coach asked me if I could man the game clock. I accepted and the job put me sitting at a table directly behind the penalty box. I was especially curious to watch the player who had been kicked out of the previous game I had attended. It was shortly after seven minutes when one of the referees gave the player a penalty. It was a foul, but the foul looked a whole lot more genuine than any of the fouls I had witnessed from him before. There was no back-talk this time. He jogged off the field at an appropriate speed and took a disciplined one-knee in the penalty box. He watched the game intently. “Ten seconds, son,” I said as his penalty approached its end. The player made eye contact with me and nodded. Then he turned his attention back to the game. At five I began counting down for him. He released at the buzzer and rejoined the game. “Very nice improvement,” I thought.
And my thought proved correct. The player had no more fouls for the remainder of the game. He played hard and he played well. Whatever the coaches had done to bring about the change in behavior and attitude had clearly been a success. His coaches had confronted and addressed the problem in a time and manner of their own choosing, not mine.
I was very pleased to bring the good report home to Philip. And as I related the story, my image of Mayberry was restored.
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