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Langston Reynolds was the athletic director at Eastlake High School. He still found it hard to believe. They had offered him the job when Peters died halfway through the year back in ’05, but he hadn’t felt right about it. When Marston came in years later and cleaned house, he had been one of the few remaining high school coaches who had managed to hang on. Now she was gone and once again, he had been given the opportunity to take the reins.
Despite a rough start the team had pulled together as of late and with a single home game remaining they were 5-4. After a string of 2-8 seasons, the Eagles were finally back on the right path. They had even won the Battle of the Bell game against North Lake. All things considered, Langston was pleased.
He was sitting in his car at Sully’s on a Thursday night grabbing a burger before heading home from the school. The JV team had just gotten back following a win to end their season and he was in a good mood. He had a strong group coming up to the varsity next season and he was excited. Head football coach and athletic director. Who would have thought?
He left his car to go over to the picnic tables and visit with Ron Copeland. In his seventies, he was still fit and energetic and had taken on the role of interim superintendent at the request of Ty Mills and the rest of the Eastlake school board. Dr. Marston had been released from her contract and gone to take over another district in central Texas. Apparently, the board members had tired of her pretense as a small town country girl and her ongoing efforts to oust the last of the old familiar teachers so highly respected by the community.
The Bulldog had been sent packing a year earlier after a rather ugly confrontation with Mills. In her absence, Dr. Marston had finally been forced to do some of her own dirty work and several board members had begun to see a different side of her, the one she had kept hidden for so long. The board had begun to question some of her personnel decisions and rumors of an affair with her newest high school principal proved to be the last straw. Now, she was gone and he would follow by the end of the year.
Many had expected Copeland to fire him immediately, or at the very least reassign him. The old veteran surprised a lot of people by choosing to show the kind of compassion that he himself had been denied. He told the principal to start looking for a new job, but he assured him that he would be able to stay at the high school for the remainder of the year, as long as he behaved himself and caused no future problems.
Langston loved hanging out with the man and listening to his myriad tales about his experiences in education. “Ron, you should write a book, you know, your memoirs.”
Copeland laughed. “And who would want to read that? Nobody cares about the life story of some unknown bum from East Texas.”
“I don’t know, Ron. You got some pretty good stories.”
Copeland had just finished relating one from his early years in Eastlake. A new girls’ coach had come to him with a plan to buy new uniforms for the basketball team with a new variation on the mascot in mind. “You know the girls can get stuck with some awful names sometimes, but what can you do? Back in the old days, they didn’t even get to play sports, so all the mascots were for the boys’ teams anyway. The girls always ended up with the feminized version of whatever the school had chosen back in the day.”
Langston filled in the gap while Copeland finished his few remaining fries. “I never thought about that, but I guess you’re right. Everybody ends up being the Lady-whatevers or the Something-ettes.”
Copeland resumed his story. “Exactly. So, Walker, the new coach that year has this brilliant idea to come up with something original. He brings me this design he’d cooked up with the art teacher for his new jerseys and instead of Eagles, he has E-Gals across the front.”
Langson laughed. “Well, that’s pretty clever.”
“It may have been clever, but I told him there was no way I’d let him put that on the jerseys. Here? In East Texas? Hell, everybody we played would think we were too stupid to spell our own mascot. Half our own folks wouldn’t get it.”
They laughed again imagining the reaction. It was true that the citizens of Eastlake were not always eager to embrace new ideas and that was not a bad thing. Langston had come to love the town and much of his love stemmed from the slow and relaxed pace of the community.
He looked up to see three of his varsity players approaching. Ron Copeland rose and wished him a good evening and left him to speak alone with his boys. Jacorius Mills was a senior running back, Brett Holder, junior quarterback, and Bobby Davis, a second string lineman and sometimes kicker. They looked serious and he had a moment of panic seeing the look on their faces.
Jacorius, or Jake, as most called him, spoke first. “Coach, you got a minute?”
Whatever it was, the boys seemed a little unsure and hesitant to begin. He waved them over. “What can I do for you gentlemen tonight?”
One of the great surprises of the season had been how quickly the team had responded to him. Langston had watched with disappointment the series of head coaches who had preceded him and watched as the level of discipline had dropped and the incidents of disrespect had risen. Langston had shaken his head in disbelief as he had watched the players become an unruly, out of control band. Coach Thomas had let the boys run wild and as their behavior in the classroom and the community got progressively worse, so did their performance on the field. With five starters ineligible due to grades and another suspended following an arrest for shoplifting in town, the board fired him and once again turned to Langston.
He promised the board, he would crack down on the discipline. He couldn’t guarantee wins on the field, but he did believe in his heart that an increase in accountability would eventually produce more victories and he was correct. As he had done years before as a basketball coach, he allowed several seniors to walk and the remaining players quickly learned what was expected of them by their new coach. Jake Mills had stepped up to become one of the team’s strongest leaders. He was Ty’s grandson and Langston knew that his grandfather had once been quite a player himself. Brett Holder’s family had run the local bank for years and Bobby Davis was the son of one of the high school’s English teachers. His grandmother had been a teacher in Eastlake for over thirty years and still subbed occasionally even as she approached her seventies.
Jake spoke first. “Coach, me and some of the other players want to do something tomorrow night, but we wanted to talk with you about it first.”
“Well, I appreciate that. What exactly is it you gentlemen have in mind?”
Jake glanced around at his two teammates who sat silently beside him. “It’s not us, Coach. Brett and Bobby just said they would come with me to ask you. Kinda like, what is it, moral support?”
“Okay.” He smiled, proud of his players and the maturity they were displaying. He had preached all year about sticking together, supporting one another, and he was glad to see these three standing before him. He knew that they were not best friends off the field, but on the field, they were a team and when Jake had looked around at Sully’s and seen them, they had readily come to his side.
Jake started up again. “Coach, me and some of the other players are thinking about taking a knee during the pregame tomorrow night before the game, but I told ‘em I was gonna run it by you first.”
“I appreciate that, Jake. I really do.”
“I wasn’t gonna disrespect you, Coach and do something like that without you knowin’ what was up.”
There were eight African-American players on the varsity team and personal feelings aside, Langston thought that the sight of eight of his team refusing to stand for the national anthem would not go over well in Eastlake. He was touched that the players respected him enough to come and ask before doing something so controversial.
“I know the NFL is going nuts over this thing, but tell me why you would want to do this.”
“It’s about the whole police thing, Coach. You know, brutality. Pickin’ on black men, singlin’ us out and all.”
“What does your Uncle Gary think about that? He still works for the sheriff’s department doesn’t he?”
“Oh, Coach, he don’t care if we protest.”
“Honestly, Jake, you think you’re oppressed? Your uncle gave me a ticket just last year. I been stopped several times right here in Eastlake. And I’m white.”
They all laughed and Langston was glad. He didn’t want their conversation to turn ugly. This was a teachable moment, he thought and you should never let one of those get away. “So, why protest during the anthem, while they’re raising the flag?”
At Eastlake home games, the band played the Star-Spangled Banner and the local Boy Scout troop raised the flag at the north end of the stadium. Langston had always found it a touching moment, but then again he had always taken patriotism rather seriously.
“Coach, it’s not about the song. Or the flag.”
“Then why do it then?”
“That’s just how they’re doing it.”
“Because of Kaepernick?”
“Well, yeah, he started it.”
“And do you know what he said about it?”
The boys all shook their heads in the negative, so he answered his own question. “In the press conference when they asked him why he did it, he said he wasn’t going to stand up and show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people. So, Jake, do you take pride in your country? ‘Cause this is definitely about the flag. That’s why he’s protesting during the anthem, he’s showing disrespect for the flag and the country both.”
“But I heard he met with a former Green Beret and they decided that sitting would be wrong, but kneeling was a sign of respect.”
“I heard about that too, Jake, but I don’t buy it. Kneeling at the altar in church or at a grave site may be respectful, but when someone comes over the loudspeaker and asks everybody to stand up to honor the flag or the country and you don’t, or won’t, that’s disrespectful whether you’re sittin’ or kneelin’ or whatever. Just my opinion, but that’s how I feel.”
The three boys fidgeted, but no one spoke.
“You know I have a son over in Afghanistan right now don’t you?” All three boys nodded. “He’s fightin’ for your right to protest and have the freedom to sit or kneel or stand for whatever you believe in. I’m proud of him and I’m proud of this country and personally, I hate to see anyone disrespect our flag or the men and women who have died fighting under that flag.”
The boys nodded again and then Jake spoke up. “So, what if we all stand together and link arms?"
“Why?”
“A bunch of the teams have done that instead of kneeling.”
“But why? Why would we be doing that?”
Brett answered. “It’s like a show of unity.”
Langston smiled. “Aren’t we already a unit? When we go out there and we’re all dressed alike and we’re all sporting our team colors, aren’t we already showing our unity? What’s the front of our jerseys say?”
The boys answered in unison. “Eagles.”
“And the back?”
“Eastlake.”
“You know some of the bigger schools are putting the players’ names on the back of their jerseys already. Just like the NFL. But as long as I’m the coach, we’ll never do that. Know why? ‘Cause this is a team sport. We don’t go out there on a Friday night to represent ourselves. Every time we step out on that field, we’re representing our whole town, our whole community. We go out there and we are the Eagles, we are Eastlake. So, we shouldn’t have to link arms or anything special to show unity. We’re already unified. Or we’re supposed to be.”
He continued. “That’s why we don’t allow you to do any of those stupid end zone celebrations like they do in the NFL. It’s not about calling attention to yourselves as individuals or small groups. Everything we do is about the whole team, the whole community. That’s what we’re representing out there on Friday nights.”
The boys were nodding and Langston realized that he was standing, pacing, preaching. “Sorry for the sermon, gentlemen. Guess I got a little carried away.”
They all smiled. “Listen, guys. I just want to win one more football game tomorrow night. All that other stuff ...” He shook his head. “I just wish we could leave that stuff for a more appropriate time and place.”
The boys stood to leave and Langston reached out to stop Jake. “Tomorrow, let’s just be Eagles, okay?”
“Okay, Coach.”
“And if you want to, we can all go do something later down in front of the sheriff’s department. Your uncle might not appreciate it, but I’d stand with you anytime Jake. I know this country’s not perfect and I know it’s harder on a kid like you, but I’m on your side, you know that, right?”
He nodded. “Thanks, Coach. We’ll see you tomorrow. Go Eagles.”
As he walked away he raised a fist and Langston laughed. It reminded him of the old Black Power gesture from the sixties. He was just a child in those days, but he had seen the videos. He thought it was true that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
