I had not spoken with Raul in over a year. But suddenly he was standing next to me saying, “Hey Coach.”
Raul was Philip’s first friend in Hermes. In 2002, before moving from San Geraldo to Hermes, we signed up Philip for Little League Baseball in Hermes. We figured Philip would meet a bunch of kids on the team, and that one of them would almost certainly be in the same first grade class on Philip’s first day at a new school more than half way through the school year. When Philip started at his new elementary school in Hermes, he found Raul there waving him into the same class. The two shared a great season of Little League. For second grade and third grade, I coached the soccer teams on which Philip and Raul played together. To the degree that an adult and a child from different families can be friends, Raul and I have been friends for many years now.
This Fall, Philip has been practicing lacrosse twice a week at Hermes with the other players who are not presently absorbed by football. The off-season lacrosse players have a small patch of fenced-in artificial turf for two hours on Mondays and Wednesdays while the Freshman, JV and Varsity football teams dominate the wide open athletic fields on the Hermes High School campus for the entire week. I arrived on campus from my now fifty minute commute home about fifteen minutes before the lacrosse coach ended practice.
To keep the locker room from being over-crowded, the football coaches release the teams in reverse order of seniority half an hour apart. Raul has been playing on the JV squad this year. While the rest of the sophomore and junior players on the JV team walked by the artificial turf without even slowing to watch, Raul took the opportunity to catch up with me. Like Philip, Raul is lean and now taller than me. I asked him about football and told him I intended to see at least part of the upcoming JV game. He asked about Philip’s lacrosse team and for help identifying Philip from behind the helmets and light body armor. When I asked him how his younger sister was adjusting to high school, he sounded like his father. “She’s adjusting well. If anything, she’s adjusting a little too well in my opinion.” The conversation lasted a little over five minutes.
Like Philip, Raul looked ever so close to adulthood. Our conversation was not far from what would be said between two adults watching the scrimmage at the end of a high school lacrosse practice. I was proud of the boy I had coached and had under my home on multiple occasions. And I was proud of the young man he was today. Raul was healthy and confident. And he was completely comfortable engaging an adult as an equal.
Among Philip’s peers, some have always stood out as special to me. Many of these were ones I had coached along the way. Raul has always been one of the special ones. Coaches, family friends, teachers and others who work with youth in extracurricular activities get to play a minor role in a child’s upbringing for a brief window of life. There is a special satisfaction at the time. There is a special satisfaction that endures. And that enduring satisfaction comes to the surface whenever I get to speak with a kid I had once coached. For the special ones like Raul, the feeling of satisfaction is particularly enjoyable.
The last of the JV players walked just after I told Raul I was planning to catch at least part of his game. He smiled and said, “That would be great.” He then seemed to notice he was going to be the last into the locker room. “I should go get changed so I my dad doesn’t have to wait.” He turned and disappeared into the small current of JV football practice jerseys. And I couldn’t help smiling as I turned my attention back to the lacrosse scrimmage.
Some day Raul will be a full adult. If he and I still live in Hermes ten years from now, I suspect Raul and I will still be friends, and we will enjoy the kind of friendships older adults share with younger adults who are not from the same family.
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