[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

just as athletes but as people. "You know, it kind of went beyond a
coach and a student. It's kind of hard to explain," Turfy said many
years later, half-smiling. "But [it gets so] you know you are pretty
good. .. you are pretty good, and you just get pretty tight with that
coach, especially if you're one of the main starters and he had a lot of
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interest in you.... You want to do good for your coach and your school."
Turfy did remarkably "good" for his school and his coach. He and Gabby
had a truly symbiotic relation. Gabby could see that Turfy was the most
outstanding wrestler on a squad of top-grade athletes and that Turfy
would represent him well. A coach's "work product" is the athletes he
brings along. Turfy Pleasant had one of the best wrestling coaches in
the state, and a friend/father-figure who had been there for him for
years and who would continue to be there. Turfy already had a wonderful
father in Andrew Pleasant, but Gabby painted pictures of a future for
Turfy that Andrew might never have imagined. Gabby promised Turfy the
whole world. Gabby was Turfy's football coach too. "He was our head
coach on defense." Turfy had the most challenging position on the
football team. "I played monster back,' the toughest position on
defense," Turfy remembered. "You can get trapped sometimes. They
double-team you, they triple-team you and you got to be tough to handle
the position.... I was mostly on the off-side of center either on one
side or the other of our defensive tackle." Turfy played football two
years at Davis High School, but wrestling was his real love, his
avocation, the very center of his existence. He didn't mind the strict
training rules Gabby Moore laid down. "No drinking," Turfy recited the
forbidden activities. "No late hours whatsoever, and, if you can
restrain yourself from it, no physical contact' with any type of lady."
Gabby didn't like his athletes to have girlfriends. "I tried to observe
his requirements," Turfy said with a grin. "To the best of my ability."
Since Turfy had always been a ladies' man, the "best of his ability" was
none too pristine when it came to sex. It was probably natural that
Turfy Pleasant and Gabby Moore were already more than coach and athlete
while Turfy was in high school. Gabby visited a few times at the
Pleasant family home, and he still dropped by the Shopper Market often.
The man and the boy went out to dinner where Gabby preached to Turfy
about what his future could be. "He talked to me," Turfy said. "He told
me to keep on moving.
Don't let your education stop here,' he said. He told me to carry it on
through, and I could probably be the head coach here at Davis myself."
Head wrestling coach at Davis! The very thought of something so
wonderful made Turfy's chest swell. That became Turfy's ambition, the
goal he looked toward all through college. One day, he would pick up the
torch that Gabby handed down. Looking back, Turfy said he considered
Gabby a "second father," who was always there for him. "I would go over
to his house. I would get the best treatment, and I felt like he just
treated me like one of his own kids." During Turfy's senior year in high
school, he was wrestling in three or four matches a week. Gabby, Gay,
and their three children shared a big two-story house, and Turfy was
often invited to stay in the basement guest room. There was a wrestling
mat down there, and after a workout, the young champion and several of
the others on the squad kenny Marino and Joey Watkins, and some of the
others would head for Gabby's house where they would go through another
workout. They were young, in peak form, and tireless. They and their
coach were eating, breathing, and sleeping wrestling. There was no
drinking. Not even beer. The teenagers on his squad got caught drinking
beer once and Gabby had a fit. "He just wouldn't allow it," Turfy said.
"Because you get to messing with all of that stuff and you can't get in
as good a shape as you need to be for that type of sport." Gabby himself
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wasn't drinking then either. None of them could even picture Gabby
drinking. When his boys had to "cut weight," he did too. Turfy smiled
again, remembering. "He would have him a little stomach too, you see,
and he would lose weight right along with us. We had to have our hair
cut, he would cut his." Sometimes the wrestlers, including Turfy
Pleasant, had trouble with their grades. Gabby saw to it that they had
tutors to help them. And if they needed extra credits, he made them
"assistants" in his driver-training classes. How much actual work they
did is questionable, but they made up for lost credits. It wasn't that
he made life too easy for them though. It was more that he was always
there to solve their problems, to make them feel confident, to tell them
that their hopes for the future were attainable. He was a benevolent
tyrant, far more benevolent than tyrant. Gabby Moore seemed to his
athletes to have it all, everything that they hoped to have one day. He
had a beautiful wife and a long-standing, apparently happy marriage. He
had three great kids and a nice house. And he had the job that most of
them thought would be the best job in the world. Most of them wanted to
be just like him. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]