Chapter 4 - Rivals and Fools

When I was in high school – not yet an adult but beginning to hear the term “young adult” being used in describing my age group so I knew I was getting closer to the pinnacle of worldly wisdom, knowledge, and cool stuff. I would later come to learn that the term young adult was simply a tool used to get older kids or the "young adults" to do stuff they didn’t want to do anymore. Like mowing the lawn, walking the dog, taking out the trash, use the .22 to shoot the raccoon in the corn crib. You know, stuff like that.

Turns out, apparently the local newspaper guy was getting a bit old and becoming tired of going to all the local high school sporting events and decided that I, being a young adult should be afforded the opportunity to be the sportswriter for the local rag. Rag, that’s newspaper talk for… Well, for Rag. We had only one newspaper and one newspaper guy. He was the chief correspondent, editor, and owner. His wife oversaw sales and marketing and his daughter was charged with distribution. I guess there were three newspaper guys. And me!

It was a win/win situation as I enjoyed writing and I got to see my writing in the local paper and the owners of the local paper did not have to pay a reporter to fill their columns.

There is a mild intoxication when you see your name and your words in press and you know hundreds of thousands of people are reading your words and conversations are going on around kitchen tables, in bars, and restaurants about the words you’d written. Okay, I may have overstated a bit. I said hundreds of thousands were reading my words however in my case it was more like hundreds. Our local paper like all the small-town papers then had a good following, but a small one.

I would run into people I didn’t know who would say “You’re the guy that writes about the ball team, huh?” “Yeah.” I would reply with my best awe-shack head weave and shy grin.

One of my most unique, strange, odd, and in some ways a bit creepy stories to cover was that of a local rival school. As with most schools, they have rivalries. Ours were the Norsemen. I think what probably started the big rivalry was two-fold.

First off, the audacity of any town’s leaders to name their school mascot the Norsemen - as if they were any more Norse than any other of small communities around the area - was tantamount to stealing the outhouse from atop a homecoming bonfire - which in itself is ironic because it was general knowledge that in most cases the outhouses used to top of the annual homecoming bonfire was indeed, often stolen, and often stolen from a farm in the rivals district. Come to think of it, our rivals probably had more Polish and German inhabitants than Norseman.

The second pillar of this rivalry is a bit more complicated, but understand, that the town I grew up in was so small there were a limited number of males and females with which to partner up. Another problem with trying to “connect” as a young adult man was most of the women, we knew were either platonic friends, relatives, or just not that attractive. Not that I was getting any casting calls. A young adult has to be able to play the field and just staying within our small communities that a bit of a strain on the ole gene pool. So, with the local field of dreams being pretty small so the guys would often go to parties in neighboring towns and pick up women. We would have great some great parties. We always called them beer parties as that is pretty much what we drank. They would often go until the early morning, and we would try to ride off into the sunset, or in many cases sunrise with a few of the fairer maidens from the local town. This of course complicated things because obviously when invading a neighboring party, we were hitting on their limited number of females. I don’t have to explain the problems that might arise, do I?

On this particular night, the Norsemen had arrived at our gymnasium to play basketball. The fun thing about our rivalry was that we were very competitive in sports. One year they were better at wrestling, and we were better at basketball, or they were better at volleyball, and we were better at football. No, upon further recollection, they were always better at football, but more Norsemen girls were dating our high school boys, so I guess we’ll give them the football thing. I had written in my sports column the previous week about this back-and-forth competition between the two schools, but this year the Norsemen had a highly-ranked team, and I ended my column with a question alluding to the possibility of an upset. Would they be able to live up to their rankings or would we be able to take advantage of the home court and conquer the invading foe?

Their head coach Dean Larson, whose son played on the team, did not find my article to his liking. Coach Larson was known for his over-the-top antics during games and twice had been slapped on the wrist about hollering at referees and walking onto the court during games. He almost started an all-out fistfight at a game once when he attempted to toss the basketball into the stands and the ball inadvertently hit an elderly man on the side of the head as he sat in the first row. A few folks sitting in the stands took exception and came down on the floor.

This action motivated a few of the Norsemen fans from the other side of the court to come to the coach's defense and the floor was soon filled with about twenty adults mulling about waiting to see if the situation would escalate.

That was history and on this night the game was exciting, but the visiting Norsemen were able to pull out the win. After the game, I was in the rather subdued home team locker room doing my after-game interview with our coach when suddenly the door burst open hitting the wall as it swung. Coach Dean Larson came barging in waving a newspaper clipping from the previous week’s paper. He yelled out my name and then continued to holler “Where is the son of bitch?” Lucky for me, the referees showered in our locker room and yet halfway dressed grabbed the coach before he got too far into the locker room. I looked at his face and thought I could see the Old Norse god Oor himself (Oor is known as the “frenzied one” in Norse mythology).

Had I gone out with this guy’s daughter - or his wife? Damn, the way this guy was coming unglued perhaps he thought I went out with, and perhaps had taken advantage of his… His SON?!!! I just stared in amazement at this adult. Was he going to have a stroke? Was he having a stroke or maybe a flashback to the war?

Our coach started yelling at Dean Larson “Get out of here Dean, Jesus he’s a school kid”. The coach glanced at me and told me I should leave, and that he would continue the interview later. I walked by Dean Larson and was amazed to see how his eyes bulged and the veins protruded from his neck. I took a seat on a rolled-up mate on the stage. “That was odd.” I thought to myself. I realized I was a bit shaken but calmed down quickly and started making some notes about the game. Moments later here comes Dean Larson out of the locker room, and he picked up immediately where he left off in the locker room. He started walking across the gymnasium floor towards the stage – towards me. The stage was built about four feet higher than the floor and I managed to gain a little courage I stood up and walked towards him to the edge of the stage. “What is the problem?” I managed.

Before he was able to get too loud and obnoxious four or five adults from the community corralled him and turned him around. I think he realized it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to continue his intended path, so he headed towards the door and the awaiting buses. Eyes still bulging, veins still protruding, and still cursing at an imaginary young reporter. My friend Steve was standing by me now and we watched as coach Larson left, stage right. My friend Steve was a young tuff who didn’t have any time for fools. I don’t remember him ever taking any guff from anyone. Including adults hollering across the gymnasium floors. No sir, Steve was not a guff taker. He did not even like the look of guff.

“Dude. Don’t stroke out on us, it may take a while for anyone to call an ambulance for ya, do some meditation or some shit like that dude. Take a lude… Or hell, take a handful.”

This guy was a bit over the top but there must have been some adult reason for him to react to this school kid’s article that I just didn’t grasp. I decided maybe these antics were all part of a brilliant way to motivate his team. But even after the game was over? Hey, he’s the all-knowing adult in this story. I should have hoped perhaps someday I would understand this adult tirade as another logical brilliant adult antic however from the reaction of the other adults around I could have questioned this theory. Maybe he was just a nutball, but if he was indeed a nut then other adults would have made the determination this guy should not be in the position, he was in. Right?

When I became an adult and grew into being a consumer of the news, both print and television media amazed me as I watched with my adult eyes and thought over-the-top with my adult brain. What I read and what I watch amazes me as much as I was amazed by Coach Larson’s display so many years ago. Coach Larson was oftentimes an over the top, out-of-control idiot, and those adults that did nothing other than to scold him simply had not outgrown the fear that the playground bully had instilled in them when they were children. Coach Larson was, to put it politely, a moron. Just another cracked Krumkake. Just like those on the playground who attempt to rule by intimidation. He was an ornery jerk that for some reason had not learned the lessons of socialization. Most other adults do not want to deal with others of his ilk.

The argument was that he was just not worth the trouble. Those adults who would face him down were often told so. “Just leave him alone. It’s not worth it...” This nut-ball adult picked out a high school kid, namely me, to take out his aggression, and I see Coach Larson’s every day on the news and read about them in the newspapers. And unfortunately, very seldom is anything ever done about them.