Quit, a verb meaning to leave, depart, or withdraw from. For the competitor, the word quit carries a meaning so potent, it seems something closer to suicide or euthanize would better define it. I guess it depends on how it relates to your life. Quitting doesn’t belong in an athlete’s vocabulary, but I had been throwing it around a lot lately . I never felt more guilty for using the term then there in his office. The place was a shrine to overcoming adversity, full of pictures of long shot guys hosting trophies over their heads. But this wasn’t like beating an undefeated team or hitting the goal in overtime. This was life, outside the playing field.
I wasn’t defeated, not broken or beaten by the game itself. Maybe before I got started with the game I believed it was something it wasn’t. I guess you could say I was infatuated with it. I thought it would make sense of life, like young lovers think marriage will fix everything. But life is too complicated for any career change to make sense of. After five years of baseball, there seemed more loose ends then tied ones.
I was ready for the game to divorce me, maybe even looking forward to it. No more workouts in rusty weight rooms or cold, dreary machine shops. No more sleeping on the floor eating high calorie mystery meat. No more poverty level pay checks. If the Padres organization gave me the axe, that might not be a bad thing and I wouldn’t have to be a quitter.
I could move forward with life instead of keeping everything on hold, which is the other untold anguish of this game. I’d parlayed my life, waiting for my baseball lottery ticket to pay out. Who knew how long that could be, or if it would ever pay at all? It’s a long time to hold your breath. In the end, it could very easily be all for nothing, and I’d be right back where I started. Was it wrong to think that way? If not, then why did I feel so guilty?
I exhaled deeply. “I don’t think I’m ready to quit, but I’m ready to be done. Is there any shame in me feeling that way?”
“I don’t think there’s any shame in changing your mind for real reasons. But you’ve invested so much into this dream, do you just want to walk away from it?”
“I don’t know.”And I didn’t.
I felt like some instinct was keeping me committed. Some deep fear of letting go. Like I was a contestant on a game show and the audience knew the answer and I didn’t. If I chose wrong, I’d always be the guy who did the stupidest thing ever.
“I know there is a lot of sacrificing involved in this game, but….” I looked away, into some distant space that people look to when the words they want to use are hard to lift. “I could play and be fine, but I could stop and be fine. I look at it like a job. Actually, like a bad job. It’s the ‘once in a life time dream’ mantra that keeps you locked in. I don’t look at it that way anymore. I look at the rest of my life like a once in a life time thing now. Do I want to spend all of it chasing something that may never happen?”
Mr. Miller took off his glasses. He had looked rather like some old sage staring down at me through the bifocal lenses. He placed them down on his desk and smiled. “Well, I don’t think I can answer that question for you.”
“I know you can’t. You’d be the best teacher ever if you could.”
“You mean you don’t think I’m the best teacher ever, now?” he said, smiling again.
“You’re up there, but I’m sure Jesus or Gandhi is edging you out.”
“Gandhi doesn’t have guns like these,” he said, flexing again. He did have some guns, bigger than mine anyways, but that’s not setting the bar very high.
“I don’t know if it’s good to look at my career this way, but I think I’d be OK if I was released right now.”
“Really?” Mr. Miller was slightly taken aback.
“Yeah,” I said sheepishly.
I never actually played for any team Mr. Miller coached, but I felt like he was just as much a coach to me as any other. In fact, we may have been good friends because I was never coached by him. Sometimes you can’t be as open with your real coaches, like an employe doesn’t tell their boss all the detail they feel about work. I knew him as a PE teacher and always liked talking because we could extend our topics beyond sports only. He wasn’t connected to the beer buddy coaching rat pack that ruled the local school system so I could be real without fear of fall out.
Furthermore, he was a true role model for me because he gave freely of himself for the betterment of the kids. I saw that about him, even when I was young and arrogant. If I needed help with weights, he’d spot me. If I needed help with times, he’d man the clock. If I needed help with life, he’d supply an open ear.
Even though he was a great councilor, he was still a dedicated coach and like any good one, he did not like the sound of the quitter talk. What he said next though, shocked the hell out of me.
“Well, looks like you’re in a great situation then.” The irony. Of all the things I expected from a man with a poster of mountain climbers screaming “Achievement!” on it to say, I didn’t think it would be that quitting put me in a good spot.
“Whaddaya mean?” I was afraid I was walking into something.
“Well…you can try whatever you want now, be dynamic because you’re not afraid of the worst case scenario. You’re playing with house money, Dirk.”
I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I was too caught up in my fears about looking like a quitter or an idiot. I was afraid that walking away from my big dream would make national headlines: “Dumbass blows one big chance! Women vote Hayhurst most ineligible bachelor.”
“Dirk, it’s common to have second thoughts about things. One roll in life doesn’t define the rest of it. I’ve dealt with a lot of winners in my time, but I’ve also dealt with a lot of losers too.”
I jumped forward, pretending to be extremely offended. “Are you saying I’m a loser?”
“No. Well maybe- I’m kidding! I’m just saying, what do you think happens to the people on the other side of the W in the box score? They go on to live their lives too.”
We sat there in silence for a minute or two. He turned back to his emails just so we both weren’t staring at each other like two fruits in a tiny, overly positive office. I half expected Barney to come in and sing a song with us.
“Do you think I should keep pushing?” I asked.
“Have you seen my office?” he pointed sarcastically at the motivational posters wallpapering the room.
“Well, I want to play, but with the right perspective. If I’m not hell bent on it, what other way is there to play?”
“There are other ways to play; you’ll find one that works for you.”
“I don’t know Mike, I mean, all the talk about fire in your belly, being hungry- I don’t have much of an appitite.”
“You just aren’t hungry for what you used to know. Things are changing for you now. You are looking at the game differently. You aren’t a kid anymore. Some people never allow themselves to look at the game as something smaller then the rest of their lives. The game is their life. When it ends, for whatever reasons, they have no idea what to do next. You’re just putting things into perspective.” He smiled at me like he knew something I didn’t, which wasn’t that hard to pull off.
You’re a bright kid, you’ll figure all this out. I have faith in you.”
“Aw shucks, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I came at him for a big, goofy bear hug. He put his hand in my face and shoved me back to my chair. “You know what I like about you Mr. Miller? You always seem to say like ten words but it makes the same impact like a thousand.”
“It just seems like ten because you always talk so much.”
“Touche’”
We chatted for a while longer, but nothing deep. He told me the high school baseball program was going to have a new assistant coach. When I found out who it was, I remarked that I felt sorry for the team. The new selection was another parent-coach vying for more control of their son’s destiny. So many of the coaches in my town were parents who didn’t know much about the game, trying to live vicariously through their children. They believed they should have been stars themselves, but since they couldn’t be anymore, their kids would have to carry on the torch whether they wanted to or not. I’ve seen a lot of talented athletes hang up their cleats, burnt out by the pressure of an expectant parent. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that to my own kid, no matter what happened with my career.
I’ll admit, for a moment, I contemplated coming back to high school full time and saving the kids from the terrors of parent coaching. But while I may have had questions about where my life was headed, I knew the answer was not moving back home and becoming the next high school assistant coach.
Mr. Miller looked at his watch and then abruptly got up to go teach his badminton class. He explained that if he showed up late, the kids would start clubbing each other with the rackets. Before leaving, he unlocked the room with the stereo in it for me.
“Keep the volume at something respectable, and no gangsta rap, or I’ll be out of a job.”
“Sure, no problem. I’m a strict death metal man anyway.”
He smiled, grabbed his clipboard and whistle, then jetted off to his badminton appointment. I turned the radio to NPR.
It was leg day, and in between reps with the rusty, outdated weights, I thought about the conversation we’d had. Mr. Miller was right, the way I was looking at the game had changed. My perspective was different. I could not define what was happening, but I was unable to relate to the game the same way I once did. The question was, would I ever be able to relate to it again?