Defense!

I can’t separate in my mind Buckley basketball from Mr. Davis. It’s been 23 years since I last sat scrunched in the small gym, which was the only gym, and heard his raspy voice giving his huddle of boys their next instructions. Defense! the huddle would chant. Always Defense! even if Buckley had possession of the ball. I sat in that gym faithfully through 15 years of basketball season. It’s hard to believe that the whole town fit on those bleachers, but it’s true.

My parents, new to Buckley, would go to the games. My dad to meet people, eat food from the concession stand, and then block out the actual game to write notes for his next sermon. My mom would cheer as if each player were her own child. I remember the bathrooms being on the south side of the gym, which meant being led carefully across enemy territory to potty, taking great care not to step over the line into the game. At that time, there were only 2 cheerleaders. Their names were Diana & Katie. I know this because I named my pillows after them & pretended they were my best friends. In my mind, there was no higher calling in life than to be a cheerleader. Cheerleader trumped Princess any day.

Getting to the gym from the parking lot meant winding your way through a tunneled maze in which you passed through the janitor’s storage area and the boiler room. I’m not sure how the opposing teams actually ever found the gym. During the games you could look up to the north and see staff members watching from an above window, puffing on their cigarettes. OSHA had not yet discovered Buckley.

When I learned to read, I was frightened by the big blue sign: Welcome to Bear Country. I thought it was literal. The cheerleaders clapping, “This is Bear Country, so you beware!” made the fear worse. Of course I didn’t know true terror until I turned 10 and the Dogman song hit WTCM and we learned a farmer near Buckley was found…

Attending Buckley elementary in those days meant being placed in any of numerous buildings around town. Kindergarten in the old one room schoolhouse. First grade on Wexford Avenue, with its own tiny playground. Second and third in green portable trailers. And fourth in the Canning Center. The brick walls connected to the gym were met with a wrecking ball as we children were allowed to watch. It was both fascinating and horrifying. By fifth grade my class was in the new school. The interior was decorated in that year’s trendiest colors: Country blue and Pepto Bismal pink.

Through all those years was Mr. Davis. I was in awe of him, partly because I thought he was secretly President Reagan – running the school was his side job. He sure loved that new school. It was his baby. His pride & joy. The staff had to quit smoking indoors. Except Pete. And we children had our lives threatened if we even thought about creating graffiti anywhere.

Hitting 7th grade meant seeing Mr. Davis in a whole new light. From that point on, your year started with a read aloud of the entire student handbook. And that gravely voice – You aren’t here to make friends. You aren’t here to have fun. You aren’t here to play sports (which was a bold faced lie). You’re here to learn. The only reason you’re here is to learn. As he thundered about learning and his voice echoed through that tiny gym, invariably the fans would kick on and some senior would be motioned to go blow on the thermostat to shut down the system.

He would talk about integrity. And remind us that if we were in a group at a fast food joint after a game, we were to step aside & let adults go ahead of us. We were to dress nicely. Hold doors open for adults. People would judge Buckley by the way we acted in public. At pep assemblies he would talk about sportsmanship… By game time he often had forgotten his own words. I still have a total visual of him chasing the refs off the Leelanau court swinging a towel the whole way & barking his displeasure of their biased calls. They kinda deserved it.

It was $1.50 to attend a game. After paying admission you were given a blue paper program. It had the roster for that night’s game. And on the back it had a poem about not yelling at the players and remembering that they were still just kids. It was titled, “If the Shoe Fits.” Hand to God, my senior year as I graduated Salutatorian and had a full tuition scholarship to college, I still had no clue what the size of the players’ basketball shoes had to do with not yelling at athletes. As an adult, one day out of nowhere, the metaphor hit me. I was also an adult when I realized the Arby logo was a hat.

I went through a phase where I spent a lot of time in Mr. Davis’s office. I would sit with heart pounding until Mrs. Armour motioned me in. Crossing the threshold onto holy ground always triggered a cascade of tears. He would be so exasperated that I couldn’t figure out a way to get along with that one teacher. I have every poster from the wall behind his desk memorized. Doesn’t matter if you’re an antelope or a lion, you better get running. His desk had a daily flip calendar that never once changed in the 6 years I was in secondary school. It said, “The difference between a bias and a conviction is you can explain a conviction without getting angry.” He would tell me, again, how Mrs. Davis always made him vacuum and he didn’t like to vacuum. Sometimes you have to do what you’re asked and couldn’t I please just cooperate and not end up back in his office. I know deep down that he was on my side because I never once got any kind of consequence.

All those lessons – if you’re a worker, you can get things done. He would take a worker over a smart kid any day. If you’re both smart and a worker, you can accomplish anything. If you see trash, pick it up and throw it away. If he saw you walk past the tiniest scrap of paper on the floor, you were toast. Be disciplined. Make your bed every morning. Ask for help if you need it. Do your homework. No, seriously, do your homework. Or you will spend an hour after school that same day seated at a table with him. Never wear a hat in a building. Ever. It isn’t courteous. Don’t buy a car in high school. Because then you have to get a job to support having a car and you have to have a car to get to your job and the only job you should have is to learn. Ironically, he taught us all to drive. But woe be unto any teenage driver who allowed passengers. Statistics soundly back him up on that, by the way. Respect the flag. If you goof around during the crackly vinyl recording of the National Anthem, you can expect to be kicked out.

His players had practice at 5:30 AM. They ran till their feet bled. They were still in first hour on time & were required to maintain a GPA significantly higher than required by MHSAA. There was no greater moment than watching him hold up the trophy for winning districts and saying, “This is for every kid I ever coached.”

My class got ripped off. The legend was that your senior year, Mr. Davis sat down with your class & talked about how much he loved you all & how proud he was. And he cried. We all waited for our cry speech. My senior year, the day of graduation practice, which traditionally was when the cry speech was delivered, the new superintendent (not yet busy on his computer) kicked him out of the gym – his gym! And lectured us on drunk driving. We felt betrayed. And angry.

Mr. Davis pulled me aside in those last days of high school. He cleared his throat a few times and got mist in his eyes. He told me you can take the girl out of Buckley but you can’t take the Buckley out of the girl. He said he knew I was ready for Hillsdale but he didn’t know if Hillsdale was ready for me. It was our last conversation.

We both left Buckley around the same time. I don’t know the politics and I don’t care to. Like anyone with a strong personality, he had those who loved him and those who hated him. I remember he coached for a different school briefly after he left Buckley. I attended the game. Some of the Buckley fans booed him & erupted into huge cheers when his team was defeated. It wasn’t Buckley’s finest moment and I would like to think nothing like that would ever be tolerated again. He never turned around. He just walked slowly away. I wanted to climb out of the stands and walk with him but fear held me back. That was the last time I saw him. And the last time I ever let anyone stand alone.

As my parents packed up their belongings to move from Buckley, he showed up on their doorstep. He told my dad he guessed change was in the air. He told him that although they didn’t see eye to eye on many things, he wanted my dad to know he had parented well. My dad felt like Mr. Davis had a good share in that parenting. I had spent 180 days x 13 under his guidance.

I’ve never been in the “new gym,” and I am annoyed that my parents buried my deceased childhood pets over the property line. Their sacred feline burial grounds were excavated by bulldozers. Sorry Lilybug and Cupcake. We should have thought that through better. I hear the gym is a beautiful facility. And people don’t have to sit on each other’s laps or have the refs keep reminding them to keep their feet behind the boundary line.

Buckley deserves to be proud this week. They are sending their boys to play for a state title for the second year in a row. I don’t know if Mr. Davis will be there. Frankly, I don’t know if he’s still alive. When you’re a kid, all the school staff seems ancient. But if he is, and if he’s watching, I hope he understands. Those boys out there are the offspring of the kids he mentored and coached. And they are good kids, in part because he helped their parents to be good kids. You can take Mr. Davis out of Buckley Basketball but… No, actually you can’t. His influence was too strong. He deserves recognition for the success of this team – the success of kids he has never met.

Mr. Davis, you did well. And you did good. In case it takes me too long to accomplish this and you don’t get to see it, I’m writing a children’s book. And it’s dedicated to you. I hope I’ve done you proud. So many of us entered real life, hoping to make you proud.

Good luck today, Buckley Boys.

Defense!

Carrie Warner Rowan