Free Staggerford by Jon Hassler Page A

in disgust. “I’d rather lose than tie!”
    “Let’s talk about something else,” said Miles. “We’ve never been able to agree on the subject of athletics.”
    “No, I’d like to hear you explain what’s good about a six-six tie. A tie proves absolutely nothing, except that Lee Fremling is a fat-ass weakling.”
    “Look, Owl Brook has been the best team in this conference since I was in high school, and if I were the coach of a team that played the Owls to a tie, I would take it as a sign that my team was equal to the Owls. And I would be very proud of my players. And I would tell them so.”
    “That’s why you aren’t made of the stuff coaches are made of.”
    Beverly served Coach Gibbon his coffee, rang up his money, then took the stool on the other side of Miles. She lit another cigarette.
    “Let’s talk about wrestling,” said Miles. “What does your wrestling team look like for this winter?”
    “Looks good. I’ve got Lawrence Winters at a hundred ninety pounds, and Willy Samuels at a hundred eighty, and Clyde Albertson at one seventy, and Bill Clifford at one sixty, and John Innes at one fifty, and Jack Worley at one forty, and Charlie Zeney at one thirty, and Doug Smith at one twenty, and some little pipsqueak of a freshman at one ten. Now, what I’d like to do is take ten pounds off Lawrence Winters and wrestle him at a hundred eighty, and take ten off Willy Samuels and wrestle him at one seventy, and take ten off Clyde Albertson and wrestle him at one sixty, and take ten off Bill Clifford and wrestle him at one fifty, and take ten off John Innes and wrestle him at one forty, and take ten off Jack Worley and wrestle him at one thirty, and take ten off Charlie Zeney and wrestle himat one twenty, and take ten off Doug Smith and wrestle him at one ten, and take ten off that little pipsqueak of a freshman and wrestle him at a hundred.”
    “You’re always trying to take weight off your wrestlers. I can’t understand that.”
    “It’s the name of the game. If you take off ten pounds you can wrestle in a lower weight division.”
    “But what’s the advantage of wrestling in a division below your normal weight?”
    “Use your head. The advantage is that when you lose ten pounds you don’t normally lose any muscle. All you lose is fluid and fat, and in the lower division you might be wrestling an opponent who is wrestling at his normal weight and who hasn’t lost fluid and fat and—zingo!—he’s pinned. Fluid and fat never win. Muscles win.”
    “Then how come we don’t win more wrestling matches?”
    “Because all the other coaches take ten pounds off
their
wrestlers too. Balls, if I didn’t know any more about sports than you do, I’d be ashamed to open my mouth.”
    “That’s why we’re now going to move on to a different subject. Are you and Stella going to the Workmans’ party tonight?”
    “I’ll bet you were never much of an athlete, Miles. I’ll bet your fluid and fat go back to your high school days.” (Conversations with Coach Gibbon seldom took an unexpected turn. They proceeded and backed up along the single track that had been running through his mind since he began coaching.)
    “As a matter of fact,” said Miles, “I played on the Staggerford football team for two years.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “You can look it up in the Stag yearbooks from the fifties. I won two letters.”
    “You’re kidding. What did you play?”
    “Guard. I was right guard for two years, but I wasn’t very aggressive. I was sort of the Lee Fremling type. I think if I had ever played a whole game I might have been pretty good, but it took me half the game to get indignantat my opponent and by that time the coach always replaced me. What I really liked much better was basketball.”
    “You played basketball?”
    “No, I never made the team, but I tried out every year. I think I could have been pretty good at basketball. I had the size and the endurance. I wasn’t quick, but my