Wouldn’t you just know it!? Right before Christmas my favorite of all time P.E. coach retired, and we got a brand-new coach named Mr. Winters. Right off the bat, he got off on the exact wrong foot with every one of us in Jr. High that had to take P.E.

That Monday morning, when he first came on as our coach, we were expecting someone nice and friendly like Coach Thomas. Coach Thomas always cut up and cracked jokes, and swapped fun insults with us, and ragged on us and let us rag on him. We had a lot of fun and would do anything he asked us. Nothing could have been a more of a flat rude awakening than the day we had to meet Coach Winters.

We all walked in like usual into the gym, dressed out in our P.E. uniforms to see a short, athletic man in a black ball cap, with a perfectly starched white gym shirt, and crisply starched black shorts and perfect socks. He had a long lanyard around his neck, and a chrome whistle attached to it.

He had a flat top military style haircut under that hat, and his sneakers were black, and he looked like he was super buff. We were all immediately intimidated by this short man with the bullhorn, who blew his whistle too much and barked orders at us like a drill sergeant. Come to think of it, I think that is what he was before he came here.

This man, as soon as we all got into the gym, screamed through his bullhorn, “You kids shut your traps and listen up! I am not the same coach you are accustomed to; we will do things differently in MY P.E. class, and you will not like it, you will not like me, and you will not be used to it, and frankly I will not lose any sleep! You will all shut your mouths and form it up! He made us do a military-style formation, and he showed us how.

“What in the world are we gonna do!” I was thinking, knowing that P.E. would probably never be fun again.

Coach Winters barking his orders through his bullhorn snapped me right out of my half-prayer half-lament. This is exactly the speech he gave us:

“My name is Coach Winters; your name is here on my roster. I will call your name out as listed on the roster in a moment. From this point forward, you will address me as Coach Winters, or just Coach. You will refrain from calling me Winnie, Freezy, Icy, Jarhead, Gyrene, Screamy, Snowy, Icicle, or any other ignorant nickname you think up, because I have heard them all! If I hear you say anything else but “Coach” or “Coach Winters” you will NOT like the outcome and will pay the penalty!

During roll call I will call your name, and you will answer with “Aye sir!” You will not say “here,” you will not say “present.” When you are called upon for a response, you will say “Aye sir.” You will not say anything other than “Aye sir.” Is that clear to everyone present? There was a muffled halfhearted answer of “Aye sir.”

Coach Winters continued his little tirade, “You will show courtesy to your peers, the faculty and me. You will show me respect at all times and you will get respect if you do. If you fail in this or deviate in any way you will pay the penalty! Is that clear knuckleheads?”

We all mumbled “Aye sir.” and he screamed through his bullhorn like we stabbed him; “I can’t hear you, sound off the right way!” “Aye sir!” we all screamed in unison. “That is a little better but you are still a bunch of wanna-be’s. Act like a man, and you will become a man!”

“Aye sir!!!” We all screamed in unison, louder this time.

“Good, that is what I like to hear. I do not tolerate smart alecks, dirty jokes, foul language, malingering, mediocrity, blaming others, tattletaling, talking in my class, excessive bathroom breaks, or tardiness! If these rules are not implicitly followed, you will pay the penalty!”

He continued his speech, while walking through our little formation, and all the while it was through his bullhorn. “You people are not properly fit or properly trained or properly motivated in the art of Physical Education! It is my sincere goal to remedy this unfortunate situation. If you fall behind, gripe, complain, whine or quit I will make you run laps until you drop!”

“Furthermore, If I see a dirty uniform, if I smell feet, if I smell odor or catch one of you knuckleheads not taking a shower, you will see me after class and pay the penalty!” He said a bunch of other loud screaming gibberish, but by that time, I had gotten a bit mad. I still kept quiet, knowing I didn’t want to “pay the penalty.”

We all stood in the tense silence after Coach Winters’ initial barrage of shock and awe. Everybody except Darius Evans. Darius was on the Jr. High basketball team and was used to coaches sometimes being a little excessive, but I could tell it was too much, even for him. Darius was glaring a little, and getting hot mad, but he did not let on to start with. By the way, we all called Darius, ‘The Onion’ because he had a short burr haircut that made his head look just like a big old onion.

Darius loved that nickname, and we always called him that. Coach Thomas even had him listed on the classroom roll as Onion. He was a little bit of a smart aleck if you made him mad, but I never had any issue with him. He was cocky too but aren’t we all in Jr. High?

Anyway, Coach Winters started calling the roll, and when he got to each of our last names we would yell “Aye sir!” Everybody except Onion. Coach Winters called out “Evans!” And Onion snidely said, “Present.” He said it real slow, and suddenly you could hear a pin drop in that gym.

“What did you say Evans? You the one they call Onion aren’t you! Speak up! What did I just get through instructing you to say when you were called upon in roll call?! I did not stutter; there is nothing obstructing the sound of my voice! Can you not follow simple instructions?!”

Onion got a little madder at being called out, and it was on. He asked Coach Winters’ the following: “Why are you here, and not our old coach? I can tell you right now nobody in this class likes you. I literally hate your guts already. You ain’t been here no time and all you do is scream at us! You are acting like a real butthole, and I want Coach Thomas back. Why don’t you go back to wherever you came from?!” Onion crossed his arms in defiance and stepped out of formation deliberately.

Coach Winters ran over to Onion just beside the formation of us kids, threw his bullhorn to the ground and got right in Onion’s face. “You trying to usurp my authority right off the bat son! I assure you with every fiber of my being I am not going anywhere! Answer me fast or you WILL pay the penalty!” He was so close I could see the little spit drops almost hitting Onion in the face, when he screamed.

Onion did not back down a bit, and started screaming back, “You actin’ all bad little man, like you some jughead, throwback military freak or something! Why don’t you do something if you so bad? C’mon, I am right here! Do something!” Then Onion got right up in Coach Winters’ face, almost nose to nose, daring him to do something. Onion had his right fist balled up; he was just a little bit shorter than Coach Winters, which created a frightening sight.

Coach Winter’s face turned beet red, and he screamed even louder in Onion’s face, “Oh you want to threaten me, Onion?! I have got some amazing news for you, I do not act like a butthole, I AM a butthole; God made me this way, and you don’t scare me one iota son!? It seems to me YOU are the one acting all bad! You do not respect me yet; therefore, you do not warrant my respect yet; I just bet you are not as solid a basketball player as you believe yourself to be either, and I have only known you for exactly thirty minutes, but we can fix that! Answer me when I address you; I assure you I give as good as I get, and if you do not square yourself away accordingly YOU WILL PAY THE PENALTY!”

Coach Winters said a bunch of other stuff, and all the rest of us kids were speechless, and Onion started crying just a little bit. Coach Winters stepped back, and turned to us and yelled, “Anybody else want to be a standup comic today? Anybody else want to bawl up their fist at me?! Say something, I am all ears! Anybody else got any gripes or complaints besides Onion?! Is Onion the only one here with any guts?! Any further criticisms of how I do what I do? Here watch me take off my hat! Now we are equal! Speak up, because this is the ONLY chance you will get to do so!”

Coach Winters toned it down just a little, I could tell, because he said, “I just took off my hat to let you all know you had permission to speak freely. We will have to work together as a team, because if we don’t, we will just waste air together and drain valuable tax dollars, and none of us will get fit, or get anything else done!” Come on now folks, any takers?! I know you are all just dying to whine about something! Dazzle me!”

Some of the kids spoke up, some saying he was too harsh, and others telling him we never had nothing like this before, not ever. Others saying they wanted to drop P.E. and go to another class, still others were saying that he was scary and it wasn’t cool the way he was doing all this. When we were done, Coach Winters, still in a loud voice told us, “I am putting my hat back on, your free speech pass is over!”

He didn’t pick up the bullhorn, but he started telling us, “Kids, I am hard but I am fair. I do not tolerate insubordination, quitters, whiny babies or non-committed persons in my class. This is an elective; you can go take Ag Shop, or any other class you want. But if you are in my class, get used to this because this is who I am, every single day!”

We all got silent then, when Coach Winters quietly walked over to Onion, who was still sniffling a bit, and asked, “Are we good to go Onion?! If we are, there will be no ‘F” grade for today; if we are settled, then we can keep this little incident between us and the other kids, if they are in agreement. If we are good to go, we don’t have to report this to the office, and we can shake on it, and settle this like men right here and now and let it drop.”

We all turned and said “Aye sir.” Coach Winters said, “Good, now Onion, you run to the showers and adjust yourself and come out ready to work. Emotions will run high sometimes, and we all have them, but we have to learn to control ourselves and get disciplined. Now stop standing there with your mouth half-open son, disappear!”

Onion half-ran to the showers, but I swear I could see just a little bit of humanity peeking out from under Coach Winters’ hat just then, and maybe even a half grin. I still ain’t so sure what to make of Coach Winters, and I know we all really don’t like him. But still, this is kind of interesing.

I will keep y’all posted, and if anything, else happens, I will be the first to let you know.