Jess Merriweather

I once heard Coach Taylor tell his team, "Stay away from dumb, gentlemen." Well it wasn't the most eloquent turn of phrase I've ever heard, but that's what I've been trying to do ever since.

That's why I broke up with Vince Howard, after all, even though I loved him like you love a familiar, childhood blanket that's become thread bare, its substance stained and tattered. And that's why I stopped counting on my dad to help me out with college and got a near perfect GPA my first year to earn myself a full academic scholarship instead. And that's why I'm thinking about quitting my job as a Maryland high school QB coach.

I've been working here four years now, you see, and the job doesn't pay well. It seems all I'm paying is an endless stream of dues that will never gain me membership to anything. They'll never let me in their good old boys' club. I have to work a day job in customer service, just like Coach Taub once did, and no matter how much I accomplish, those boosters still laugh at any hint that I could ever replace the head coach when he retires.

I should throw in the towel and throw myself into some other full-time career, maybe on the sports management side, behind a desk somewhere, where I can eventually work my way into a substantial salary, instead of spending hours and hours a week watching game tape and studying playbooks and improving my two quarterbacks only to watch some gray-haired white man take all the credit.

Female coaches are a drop in the ocean in a sea of coaches. "How do you like those odds?" Coach Taylor once asked me when I shared with him my dream. I didn't like them much at all. I still don't. Coach Taylor gave me a chance anyway. He didn't do it out of any politically correct urge. In fact, he did it almost against his own will, but I think now that was the best way he could possibly do it. He never let me doubt I earned it.

That confidence Coach Taylor gave me has taken me far, but I don't know how much farther it can take me, because I've got to stay away from dumb. Too many of my high school and college classmates ran right up the stairs of stupid, and they can't pay their bills. They're busy building a mountain of debt that will one day suffocate them. But before I decide whether to cut the last threads holding my dream in place to earn a more practical living, maybe I should just dig out my cell phone. Dig out that phone, scroll through all those contacts, and give old Coach Taylor a call.

Yesterday I read that he's just signed a contract with the Temple Owls, the only Division I college team in Philadelphia. He's going to be an assistant coach, the offensive coordinator no less. I'm sure he must be busy, gearing up for the summer training season. Coaching college ball is no joke, and no doubt he wants to spend what little free time he has left with his wife and daughter. (What was her name? Faith? Charity? I remember – Grace!) I haven't spoken to him in four years, not since I called to tell him I got this job I'm now thinking of leaving, and I'm not sure he'd welcome the interruption.

Or maybe he would. He had to leave everything he knew behind in Texas and start over in a new world, and he must sometimes wonder about the impact he left in the old one. Maybe he'd answer the phone and say, "Jess, hey, long time no talk. I'm so glad you called." And maybe he'd tell me, "You took a QB with a losing streak and turned him into a winner, and you're thinking about quitting just because someone else got the credit? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know how many years I had to JV coach before I got to be head coach of the Panthers? Do you know how long I spent clawing my way to the top? Do you know how many plays I whispered in the ear of the head coach that got him patted on the back? Don't quit now, Jess. Stay away from jealous."

Maybe he would, and maybe that's just what I need to hear. Maybe I'll fish out that cell phone after all...and hope he hasn't changed his number.