Mike Barbour raises his hand. “I move to call for a review on the letter requirements for the swim team.”
Before anyone can respond, Carly says, “Call for discussion.”
There is agreement.
Barbour says, “The letter requirements were misrepresented to the council, I believe.”
That’s way more articulate than Barbour is. Somebody has been coaching him to imitate a human.
Simet knows how to play this game. “Misrepresented? You’re saying I deceived you?” He turns to Barbour. “That’s the gentleman’s way of saying ‘You callin’ me a liar?’”
That throws Barbour for a second. Even he isn’t in the business of calling a teacher a liar. “No, well, what I mean is, I don’t think the rest of us knew whether the requirements were hard enough to earn a letter.”
“So you basically made your decision without sufficient knowledge.” It isn’t a question.
“I think what Mike is trying to say,” Benson says, “is that we believed you were setting a standard for yourselves that would meet criteria that would set your team in an equal position with other sports teams.”
Simet and Benson lock eyes. Simet says, “I haven’t been a member of this council very long, but in almost every formal meeting I’ve attended elsewhere, the chairperson’s job is to run the meeting and let the other members debate, to avoid an appearance of bias.”
That pisses Benson off, and the jacked muscle in his jaw tells us so, but he’s cool and hands the gavel to Roundtree. I don’t think Benson knows how any formal meeting is run. He’s used to saying what he wants when he wants. It doesn’t matter which of them is chair, it still takes a vote away from the bad guys unless we’re in a tie.
Carly says, “I wasn’t here the day of the original vote, but it seems to me that if the council made a decision and the swimmers swam their entire season with that goal in mind, it would be unfair to change it now.”
Go, Carly!
Barbour says, “We didn’t know every kid on that team was gonna get a jacket.”
“Neither did I,” Simet says.
“But I think that may be the point,” Benson says. “It’s a brand-new sport here at Cutter, and every athlete lettered. What other sport in the school’s history has lettered every athlete in the program?”
“Actually,” Simet says, “the chess club lettered all its athletes in 1989 and again in ’93.” Now how in hell would Simet know that?
“The chess club!” Barbour blurts out. “That ain’t no athletic team.”
“It was then,” Simet says. “Before ’95 it was considered a sports team, and the members earned letters. In those two years, every athlete lettered. No one said a word.”
“Correction,” Roundtree says. “Someone did say a word, which is why the chess club is no longer considered an athletic team. Chess is a game, not a sport.”
“I won’t get into that argument with you, Coach. Don’t know whether I’d argue for or against chess as a sport. My point is, when it was considered one, everyone lettered. In context, there is precedent for all the athletes on a team lettering.” The council is quiet, probably digesting Simet’s words, but he raises his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, I don’t even think it’s a big deal, or has anything to do with the point of this issue. It’s just a fact.”
“Okay,” Roundtree says. “Then let’s focus on the issue. The item under discussion is whether the council had enough information when we took our last vote to make an intelligent judgment regarding the letter requirements of the swim team. Mr. Barbour thinks not, and it appears Coach Benson agrees. Is there more discussion, or should we vote to reconsider?”
My hand goes up. “Wait. How many other coaches had to bring their letter requirements before this council? I haven’t been here before, but you guys didn’t discuss basketball or volleyball or wrestling or any other winter sport, did you?”
Benson says, “The letter requirements for those sports have been set for a long time. Most often it’s a question of rubber stamping, because the requirements are reasonable.”
“So there are bylaws that say the council has the right to pass judgment on a coach or a team? Like, you could show me where all this is written down?”
Benson is really tightening up now. “It is understood at this school, Mr. Jones, that the Athletic Council oversees all athletic matters. This unquestionably falls under our jurisdiction.”
“But it’s not written down,” I say
“It doesn’t have to be written down.”
“But it isn’t.”
“I’ve said all that needs to be said,” Benson says, “and I’m asking that this be brought to a vote.”
“Actually,” Simet says, “I think it does have to be written down somewhere, Coach. I can’t imagine that the purpose and criteria for this council isn’t recorded somewhere. Is it possible to postpone this long enough to look into that? I won’t order the letters yet, and we can hold off on making a decision until we see exactly how this is all laid out. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
Benson thinks it isn’t and says so, but when put to a vote, waiting seems reasonable to a simple quorum. Thank God for women’s sports and for Carly Hudson.
“I just wanted to regroup,” Simet says back in his room. “That would have been too close to call. It will take them a while to dig up the paperwork, if there is any, and set up another meeting. We might have been able to pull the votes, but I didn’t want to take a chance if we can do it without. If we can work up a little compassion for Chris and play down Mott’s two-gun salute to the student body, we could have a shot.”
Carly tells me afterward we should have gone ahead and called for a vote. She’s afraid Janet Lindstrom might vote with Benson. It’s a chance we’ll have to take.
Workouts are a kick. We have put the supine surgical-tubing station (which Dan Hole began to call muscle masturbation-thereby placing him forever in Mott’s good graces) into mothballs, and now the guys simply line up in an endless forty-by-infinite-yard relay, where they go after me forty yards at a time, and I build up incredible yardage. In the second week we’ll taper me again, with medium-speed yards coupled with quality sprints, until I supposedly peak at some cardiomuscular apex that will allow me to lay waste to the swimmers on the coast, none of whom have I yet seen up close and personal.
To stay with me, each of my guys starts from a dive, which adds a little twist to my workout one out of four times when Simon hits the water hard enough to surf me into the next lane. When this is all over, I may try an open-water swim. I say one out of four times because Chris Coughlin works out on the other side of me, swimming as hard as he can, then waiting for me to lap him before coming after me again. He really does have some potential down the road, and Simet is keeping him in shape to see if he can get on an age-group team as soon as the state meet is over.
The music from the boom box is so loud Simet has to cup his hands and holler directly into my ear to correct the tiniest imperfections in my stroke, but it adds to the overall ambience and is not to be squelched. Somewhere near the end of the season, Jackie Craig became captivated by the music of John Philip Sousa, so now “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” is sandwiched between “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis.” Jackie didn’t say a word; simply handed Simet the Sousa CDs when Simet called for new music as he did at the beginning of each week.
For the past two weeks we’ve been getting a lot of telephone hang-ups at home, which I assume is Rich Marshall slamming down the receiver every time he calls and Alicia doesn’t answer. She does answer the phone as regularly as anyone else in the house, so sooner or later he’ll get her.