hard ass...

Coach Ron.

There is no fucking around on his watch. You do your job....and you do it well.

No whining.

No crying.

No quitting.

Wrestling, football, basketball, softball, track....swimming. Doesn't matter the sport...he can coach it....and coach it well. He often produced results...when others seemed to fail.

My Dad.

The consummate coach.

He no longer stands on the deck....stopwatch in hand...sunburned...whistling and yelling at me to "pick it up". (the only coach my twin & I would audibly curse while swimming...screaming back at him between breaths..."it's a 1500, you fucking 'pick it up'!") He has since passed the coaching stopwatch(es) onto my older brother and twin.

Doesn't matter...he still has that gift. That charm.

So....this summer....I've unloosed his coaching prowess onto the v-man.

He is now in control....once again.

v-man(...hanging on the wall): I don't want to swim! I'm not going to swim!

Coach S (my twin): How many laps did Papa tell you you had to swim?

v-man: Papa didn't say I had to swim any laps.

Coach S: Fine. I'm calling Papa... (calls our dad on her cell phone...from the pool deck)

Coach S: Papa's on his way down here to the pool...

Not another word out of the v-man. He got in the pool and finished his workout.

side note: Big Ron...Coach Ron...suffered a quintuple bypass almost 5 years ago. He was cutting stumps for 3 days and felt "fluish". This man...worked out his entire life. A minimum of two hours a day in the gym....not including his "projects" around the farm. A victim....of bad genes.

I took him surfing....for his very first time....ten months after his surgery. As he belly rode the white water in....he grinned at me and said..."I can see why you're addicted to this."

Maybe he's not so much....the hard ass.