Bobby Hawthorne
Academics Director

Many of my fondest memories revolve around sports, either as a player, fan or coach. Many of my strongest friendships were forged on a football field or tennis court. My life has been indelibly molded by my involvement with ath-letes and athletics.

I’ve enjoyed every range of emotion possible -- from a 13-1 record my senior year in football to a 3- 13 record as a rookie coach of my 8-year-old daughter’s kickball team, from mopping the floor with my youngest brother in two-on-two basketball to continuously falling to him three or four years later in tennis, generally prompting me to smash my fancy Bjorn Borg Donnay racquet into the net or hurl it in disgust over the chain-link fence at White Oak High.

I cried when the Dallas Cowboys lost to Baltimore 16-13 on a last-second field goal in the 1969 Super Bowl. The next year, they demolished the Miami Dolphins 24- 7. I still get goose bumps when I read Tex Maule’s story in Sports Illustrated, which I’ve saved.

I love sports. I appreciate the lessons young people learn by competing in sports, but I’m not lost to the damage that misguided adults can inflict on them as well. I survived a season when my stepson was coached by a man whose chief strategy seemed to be to berate and belittle his players. I’ve seen coaches run up the score on teams just to pad their stats for the rankings. I once coached against a woman who at a crucial moment in a key game instructed the slow girl to fake an asthma attack so she wouldn’t have to bat. The lesson she taught her girls that day was clearly, "Anything to win."

Fortunately, I haven’t encountered many like her. Most of the coaches I’ve known are like Bill Griffin, an old friend who died in June 2000 after a long illness. Bill and I grew up together in White Oak. His sister later married my brother. Bill and I played football together, were both members of the high school newspaper and yearbook staffs and later worked together as young sportswriters at the Longview Morning Journal. I went on to The University of Texas at Austin. He went to Louisiana Tech, but we remained close.

After bouncing around from one job to another, Bill became what he was meant to be: a teacher and a coach. He began by coaching junior varsity girls basketball, then became an assistant varsity coach, finally became head football coach and athletic director at Danbury, a coastal town just south of Houston. In terms of wins and losses, he wasn’t all that successful. In terms of helping young people grow and mature, he was a triple Olympic Gold Medalist. Bill loved young people, loved joking with them, loved challenging them to suck it up and deal with it, regardless of what "it" was. Bill was the kind of man every parent wants to coach his child because the lessons he taught -- particularly Winning and losing are not the only important parts of the game those he taught about grace, generosity and strength in his final days -- will be with those children and with me the rest of our lives.

Of course, many don’t conjure images of the Bill Griffins of the world when they think about sports today. It is an unfortunate result of the times that sports have become big business. A lot of us have grown weary of the "Show Me The Money," celebrity-driven, trash-talking, in-your-face, crime-and-scandal sodden coverage that dominates cable TV and talk radio, and we’ve grown cynical and disillusioned with sports, particularly profes-sional sports. The Dallas Cowboys can win the next 15 Super Bowls in a row, and I couldn’t care less.

But I don’t feel that way about high school sports. I want my alma mater to win even though I don’t know a kid on the team. I appreciate the young people who dedicate themselves to a team and a cause. I don’t glorify high school athletics. It’s not why we have school. But I admire the kids who hustle out there on those playing fields and courts. And I especially admire the men and women who coach them. Most aren’t doing it for the money or the prestige. They’re doing it because they love working with kids, to be a part of their lives during the trials and tribulations of any season.

A novice high school sports writer would do well to enter this world with a general appreciation of the efforts these young people and their coaches make. If and when he or she loses this appreciation, becomes jaded, sees only the bumps and potholes in the road and not the beauty of the journey, well then it’s time to put down the pen and pad and try something else. Despite the occa-sional abuses, the times when fans turn into fanatics, scholastic sports remains one of the best aspects of the American high school experience. It’s a profession full of men and women like Bill Griffin, and the lessons they’re teaching last a lifetime.

Moreso, their stories deserve to be told.

Editor’s note: This essay is the preface from Bobby Hawthorne’s "The Coverage of Interscholastic Sports," which is available from the UIL by contacting Randy Vonderheid at 512/232-7311 (fax) or rvonderheid@mail.utexas.edu.