5.10.06

Snitchy Switchy

I was thinking today, "Okay Brent, your nickname is Switch right? If you ratted out someone, you could be Switch the Snitch...not a bad 30s gangster name for a ratfink. If we followed a futuristic, sci-fi kinda theme, you could go with Swytch the Snych...oooooohhhhh, except 'snych' looks too much like sync(with an 'h') and people would get that wrong all the time..."
"Hey Brent, why they call you Switch the Synch(sink)?"
I sigh.....

Okay, so I thought about this cause I think I became a snitch! Sort of innocently, telling a story I thought was silly, I ratted out someone who will pay the price for my story! The story is true, mind you, and the price paid is due to an assortment of infractions of which my story is merely the last straw...but that would still make me a snitch! A rat! NO WAY!!!!!

I've been coaching a high school football team this year. It's a grade 9/10 team and it is really fun! The head coach is an older fellow (73/74 - somewhere in there) and has coached longer than I've been alive so there is lots to learn! One of my fellow coaches was a former player of the older fellow and thus respects him a ton. Nevertheless, he was what we might call 'an independent type.' Despite his respect for the head coach, he tended to do his own thing and perhaps sent some mixed messages to the players, thoroughly confusing these newbies (many first timers to organized football). That had him on the hotseat.

Said coach also has a bit of a temper and flared up many times during our half a season so far. Occasionally, his ire would fall on the right culprit at the right time yet too often it fell upon unwitting, innocent victims. This also had him in the hotseat (with parents and other coaches).

My story, you ask? What was this yellow fiber that caused the C4 and C5 vertebrae of the desert mammal to finally fracture? Well, following practice, said coach gathered the players around him to speak. Looking straight at me, he said, "Do you mind going?" To which I responded "ME?" I was surprised that a fellow coach would request such a thing in front of the players...unless he was going to come out of that huddle with a birthday cake and a song for me...

"Yeah, coach, could you go?" he repeated - which prompted a Nelson-esque "HA HA" from the starting quarterback as I walked away.

Curious as to why I would be asked to leave, I asked said coach why he chose such a course of action. His response: "I knew I was going to be off-color, so I didn't think you'd appreciate it."

He knew I work in the church and am a Christian, so he was merely being polite. Nice guy I suppose....

Except this is a high school football team, so if you think I wouldn't like to hear it, why would you tell it to the team (of 14-15 year old boys)? I was a little concerned, so I told my story to the other coaches (who weren't there at the time) and that was it... I became a snitch.

I wasn't telling on the guy. But isn't that always what snitches say?

Yeah, well, I'm a big boy and I suppose I can handle an expanded nickname...sigh.