I’ve been medicating myself as I’m suffering from a disease that I really don’t like to talk about. But since the idea for this blog resulted from this experience I’m going to have to reveal my ailment. I will put it as delicately as possible so hopefully I won’t offend anyone. It’s very easy to offend people now days you know.
So here goes nothing. I have jock rash. 🙁 Even though I haven’t worn a jock since about 1974 during my town team baseball years. So I’ve become acutely aware that wearing a jock is not a necessary requirement in developing this disease.
My present sports that I participate in such as golf, walking, bowling, bike riding and horse shoe pitching are not ‘jock wearing’ requiring sports. Heavens to Betsy, think how serious my jock rash would have been had I been wearing a jock during all those activities and a jock was a requirement for the rash!
Because the topic is politically incorrect to discuss in a blog I will say no more about it other then that little fungal infection caused me to do some reminiscing.
My memories brought me back to my high school locker room in Clinton. That’s where I began my jock wearing experiences.
In the middle of the locker room floor was a round, cement pan filled with a white powder. It was a very essential part of our basketball team preparing for the grueling season of basketball.
Blisters were a common injury especially early in the season. To prevent blisters back in those ancient times we would smear an orange, sticky material called Tough Skin on our feet and then jump into the cement pan filled with the white powder.
The powder coated our sticky feet and allowed us to pull our socks on and also to pull them off after practice. The combination of the Tough Skin and the white powder supposedly protected our feet from developing blisters.
Looking back I’m surprised we didn’t have a pandemic of athlete’s foot but I digress.
My memory kicked into overdrive and jumped ahead seven or eight years when I was coaching junior high boy’s basketball in Wheaton. Now stay with me because Tough Skin is going to make a return and challenge my ability to solve problems as a coach.
We traveled to the little neighboring town of Beardsley to play their junior high basketball team. It was one of the first games in my coaching career so I was stoked and ready to kick butt. We really were expecting to win handily since Wheaton was a much larger school.
We were not ready for the Beardsley seventh grader that looked like a ninth grader and played like a senior. My seventh graders were drubbed badly. But don’t despair we could still look forward to the eighth grade game.
I did not coach that game. Instead I sat very humbly on the bench and kept the books. As I look back on it now that was a blessing because as the Beardsley eighth graders raced onto the floor for warmups guess who was still suited up? Yep, the kid with the ninth grade body and senior high ball skills. 🙁
Drubbing number two!
But little did I know things were about to go from bad to worse.
Little Timmy a meek little seventh grader came up to me as we were preparing to load the bus and head back to Wheaton.
Little Timmy was holding his jock in his hand and explained to me that someone had filled his jock with Tough Skin!
Now little Timmy was not very athletic and I think he probably came out for basketball to make friends. He was my first experience with a student being bullied. Yes, there were bullies back in 1969 too.
We had a quick meeting on the bus where I explained to the team members that behavior such as that was wrong. I explained that I expected the culprits to admit what they had done once we returned to the Wheaton School.
If no one confessed I reminded them that Monday’s practice would include large amounts of “Crushers” a warm up activity that was brutal and nobody’s favorite.
The bus ride home was very quiet.
I was worrying what if no one confessed? What then? Running large numbers of Crushers wouldn’t really be sufficient because the real culprit(s) would have gotten away with a despicable act.
Every now and then as the bus bounced over the highway hushed voices could be heard each deny guilt.
Arriving at the high school the bus interior lights came on and students sat staring at me with confused looks on their faces.
Again I reminded them of the seriousness of the Tough Skin incident and the student’s in one voice emphatically denied having anything to do with the jock strap defacing.
The little athletes marched off the bus each with their heads hanging.
Then the most amazing thing happened. Little Timmy and his tough skin filled jock was the last boy to leave and he approached me shyly.
“Coach,” he said so quietly I had to bend down to hear him. “I-I-I put the tough skin in my jock myself.”
The little guy was close to tears and my heart went out to him shortly after I had an initial urge to strangle him. 🙂
Word spread quickly and the other boys cheered in relief as they were not looking forward to Monday’s practice.
You know its been so many years ago I don’t even remember what punishment I doled out to the little guy for his self destructive act. Hopefully what ever I did didn’t scar him for life. Actually having the ability to come up with that tough skin shenanigan little Timmy might be in politics today. Maybe even in Congress! 🙂
The fungal cream is destroying my disease and I’m kind of glad it offered me the chance to reminisce about those ‘jock wearing’ years.
Say maybe I should try to organize a three on three basketball tournament for seventy year olds! That would require a new jock and with pandemic safe distancing being required that means I might be able to loft some three pointers pretty easily. We didn’t have three pointers back in 1962.
If I got hot and ripped the net for twenty three pointers I wouldn’t be worried about any rash anymore. I’d just be a ‘jock’!
One’s never too old to become a jock. The sport may have to change however. We might have to substitute horse shoes for basketball. 🙂
Until next time.
