April 6, 2011
Dear Coach Taylor,
While you’re in Dillon, Texas, being
the moral center of a TV show about football, I’m at a banquet hall
in Westchester. My friend Steph is getting married. She’s on the
dance floor in bridal white lace with her troupe of sisters in blue
taffeta cocktail dresses, the same colors as your Dillon Panthers,
before you were ousted and headed east. They’ve choreographed a
dance which Steph’s sister Maureen has promised to post on You Tube
“Asap”. They’ve got pom poms and bull horns, cheering to that
song, “Hey, Mickey, You’re so fine, You’re so fine, you blow my
mind”. Guess what her husband’s name is? They remind me of your
Panther cheerleaders right before a big game, except these
bridesmaids are flat out drunk. You know about big games, don’t
you? It seems like every week you have an important match-up that
could determine the outcome of the entire season. Stakes as high as
the hair you have down there in Texas. The bride’s updo, I must
say, is coming real close to knocking on heaven’s door, so we can
get pretty high up here too.
Your wife has told you, and I think
it’s true, you are a molder of men. I’ve never had a coach. The
closest I’ve come was in gymnastics class when I was about 5, and
you’re not really coached so much as babysat while wearing
leotards. Mine were always purple, a color I wore my whole life until
my first year in New York when a homeless guy called me Barney. I
loved the idea of becoming a gymnast, even if I did look like a fat
round grape. But it all ended when I was stuck on the trampoline with
a full bladder, afraid to jump off by myself. If you were there, you
would have looked deep in my eyes and told me I could do it. Do you
realize you have a thing you do? You clench your jaw, close your lips
and chew the inside of your mouth. It means the truth is coming. Your
eyes turn steel. You would have made me believe that I could believe
in myself. If you were my coach, I could have walked out of there
without pee dripping down my leg.
Is it a coincidence that the boys you
take under your wing are the ones that don’t have a dad? Matty’s
is in Afghanistan. By choice! And your fullback, number 33, Tim
Riggins, him of the greasy-haired hangover, his father chose hustling
games at the golf course a day’s drive away. And when Brian “Smash”
Williams snapped his knee and lost his scholarship, you made him
believe he still had a chance. You’ve drilled the Panther motto
into them all, Clear Eyes, full heart, can’t lose. His mom, single
with two other kids, tells him, “You listen to Coach.” It made me
think that mothers teach and dads coach. As, I’ve said, I’ve
never had a coach.
You must have had a good father. I see
this missing from many people’s lives. Steph and Mickey applied for
a credit card to cover some of the costs they weren’t expecting. Is
a cake worth a couple of grand? Is a DJ really better than an ipod
just because they provide you with real feathers for the Chicken
Dance? That’s when Steph realized her credit was shot. I mean shot
dead like that rapist Landry killed in the convenience store parking
lot. I know, he used a steel pipe, not a gun, but a dead man is a
dead man. That sounds like something you’d say in Texas, Coach. She
realized that someone stole her identity and racked up so much debt,
she had to file bankruptcy and Mickey’s family had to start a
collection for this wedding to even happen. It was her father.
Needless to say, he was dis-invited. He’s not here tonight to see
his daughter dance, but hey, there’s always You Tube. Maybe you
should consider, Coach, working on the fathers of your players? Or is
it just to late to mold a man already set in his ways?
Sincerely,
Melissa Ragsly
Bronx, NY