In the next few posts I am going to share with you the people, events and even places that taught me about coaching and inspired me to coach. My first major influence came fairly early, his name was Charles Kuehl, my high school basketball coach and history teacher. As I look back through the prism of time I realize how much he taught me about discipline, drive, determination, organization and most importantly coaching as teaching.
As a thirteen-year old ninth grader my first contact with him was in the classroom. He taught a class one day a week to all the ninth graders that lasted all semester. It was a class in how to write a term paper. We picked a historical topic and the each week learned the process of writing a term paper step by step. Each week we had specific assignments that culminated in a final ten-page paper at the end of the semester. You name it, we learned it, he was exact in what was expected, detailed, demanding, very clear on how things were to be done – a portent of things to come two years later on the basketball court. My topic was D-Day – June 6, 1944. All I remember is being totally intimidated by him. Picture this, he was maybe 5”5” tall and bald but he was scary. I struggled mightily with the paper, but somehow I pulled it together to get a C (Only later did I learn that Mr. Kuehl has been a fighter pilot during the Normandy invasion). I learned a ton, learned how to take notes in a format I still use today when I write, compile a bibliography, format footnotes, all the things necessary to organize and communicate in writing.
The rest of my freshman year and my sophomore year I had little contact with him. I grew eight inches my freshman year and turned my attention to football, with the goal to play college football, but I loved basketball. I spent every spare moment playing basketball on the playground against older, physically bigger and tougher adult players. No rules and no holds barred, just put the ball in the hoop or stop your man. No skill aside from shooting, it was more like wresting at times. So with this “street ball” background I went out for varsity basketball my junior year. Somehow I made the team as the last player. So now I run smack into Mr. Kuehl at his finest, he is demanding, more demanding than he ever was in the classroom. I was cocky, I thought I could play basketball because I had survived on the playground against some ex marines and a couple of ex cons, but this was nothing like that. I had to concentrate. I had to learn plays. I had be part of a team. I had to play real defense. I had to catch the ball and learn to keep my pivot foot. I had to do things precisely the way he wanted the game to be played. It was fundamental and no much fun for me, but I listened (begrudgingly) and I got better. The things that he was teaching were working.
I worked my way up to second-string center and then I caught a break. The first string center 6’4” around 220 pounds, a big guy in 1963, was kicked off the team for drinking. I got to start the rest of the season. I was named most improved player and in many ways I never looked back. That summer we practiced two evenings a week and played in the first organized summer league ever in Santa Barbara. We got to play the big schools, the public schools; it was chance for a small Catholic school to measure ourselves against tougher competition. We held our own. Mr. Kuehl kept teaching and we knew we were going to better our senior year.
As a senior I was a starter, but still a little too cocky and in my own way a bit of rebel. We did not have many rules and the rules we had were very simple. One basic rule was that on game days we were required to go to morning mass as a team. I thought that was stupid, I wanted to sleep in, so after a couple of games I decided to sleep in and miss mass. I showed up to school, nothing was said, went through pre-game warm-up, still nothing was said. We go back into he locker and Mr. Kuehl read out the starting line-up and I was not starting. I was hot, how could he do this to me. I did not play! Still nothing was said. Next day at lunch I went to the student store to buy a pencil (Mr. Kuehl ran the student store). I paid for my pencil then he asked me a simple question. He asked me if I wanted to play? I said yes, of course. He then told me it was simple; go to mass like everyone else and I would play. Needless to say from then on I was the first one at mass.
As look back on those two years I realize how profound an influence he had on my development as a person and an athlete, but most importantly he inspired me to coach. He encouraged me to come back during the summer when I was in college to help him coach. That ignited the spark. It was because of him I became a history teacher and a coach. I realize now some 48 years later that he instilled in me one of my core beliefs as coach. That is it is always about choices. He taught me that by never raising his voice or calling me out when I missed mass, I had made a choice and I paid the consequences. Thanks Mr. Kuehl you were a great man, teacher and coach.