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Michael McLeod
RE the coach Walker conversation:
I think some coaches are just coaches, but most are to some degree a combination of coaches/guidance counsellors and life-lesson cultivators/disciplinarians of young men. (I would include female coaches in this too, of course.) Coach Walker was a coach who fit very much into the cultivator category based on my limited personal contact with him. So was Woody Hayes -- a man I'd characterize as an intellectual,of sorts, albeit a humble one, who was quick to disparage uppity intellectuals. I had a chance encounter with him in a public setting in downtown columbus, might have been on a bus or rather while waiting for a bus or a ride, my memory isn't clear on that. I was with my mother at the time and in my early teens. We greeted him, and my mother encouraged me to approach him and teased me for being shy about it. He was very warm and generous. He and I talked for a bit but I can't remember what we talked about -- it wasn't football, I know that much - being so gobsmacked just being in his presence. He said something to my mother about how he tried to influence young men to be graceful and generous and spoke to me about how important it was to conduct myself like a gentleman. And I'm telling you, I vowed to do so in that moment. I'm not saying I turned into Cary Grant. But I was absolutely and incrementally more serious about conducting myself gracefully and as a gentleman after that meeting. Forgive me if this sounds sacriligious but it was as if I'd had an encounter with a consecrated saint of some sort. I just think it's interesting that sometimes the guiding lights along our paths come from unexpected places.
Heck, I even remember a drill segeant from boot camp who just had certain way about him, a sense of humor that impressed me - here was somebody in a position of power who didn't take himself seriously. There was a nun somewhere along the line in my parochial education who had that same quality, can't remember her name.
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