The Large Man Chronicles

Coach Artz was a great man.

Coach Artz was the Running Backs coach when I played football in high school. I was not a running back; I was a wide receiver. Well, by official title, I was a wide receiver… that’s what it said in the program they handed out on those wonderful Friday nights that I’ll never forget. I was a practice player, mostly on offence, and mostly in the backfield. Coach Artz was part of my everyday life from those hot muggy days in August through the chill of autumn and into the cold of winter.  

Jim Artz just looked like a football coach. He was a short round man, with a big presence. He smiled a lot. Sometimes he was loud but not intimidating… when he wanted to be intimidating , he was rarely loud. That’s good coaching.

He was an amazing storyteller. Wherever he was, whether it was on the football field or in the classroom, and later in life on the golf course, he always seemed like he was just happy to be there. He also always seemed like he was glad to be with you. Whether it was just a short, “Hello. How you doin’?” and a handshake, or a five-minute conversation about sports or your family, or life in general, his smile never faded, and those twinkling eyes never left contact with you. In almost any interaction, he made you feel like you were the most important person in the entire world.

As a coach, he was a teacher. He taught you how to be smart on the field. As a teacher, he was a coach… a “Life Coach”. He taught a class called ICT… Industrial Cooperative Training. Had it not been for ICT, The Large Man would have likely had to attend summer school to graduate. I did not start my high school career as a motivated student; early on, I failed a few classes and fell behind on the academic credits needed to graduate. Coach Artz’ ICT class gave you 2 credits if you also had a job. When he learned about my academic situation, he told me about his class, and he got me into the class my junior year. So by the skin of my teeth, and one additional academic credit in ICT, I got wear the cap & gown and walk across that stage. That’s not all Coach Artz helped me with.  

When I learned of this beloved man’s passing, I realized that I didn’t realize, how much this good man meant to me, and the real influence he had on my young life. I am SURE that I’m not alone.

*****

August, 1977

August in VA, on a football practice field… sucks. In the dog days of summer, the ground is as hard as concrete, and as hot as asphalt. What little grass there is crackles under your cleats as you walk from the locker room to the practice field, the crackling has almost a “sizzle” sound that is foreshadowing how much you are going to sweat and hurt. It’s the upfront price you pay for those glorious nights in October, but when you’re 17 and you’re in that August afternoon heat, you ain’t thinking about October, you’re thinking about just getting through these next 2-1/2 – 3 hours.

The receivers, running backs, and quarterbacks would go to our section, do warm-up calisthenics and stretching, run a few laps around the field, and then line up for passing and receiving drills. Early in August, it’s not full contact practice yet, so we’re in helmets, shoulder pads, shorts and cleats. It’s full contact with tackling dummies and blocking sleds, we’re just not tackling each other yet. It’s also full contact with that “hard as concrete” ground.

I was slow, our quarterbacks overthrew me a lot, so I had to make a lot of diving catches. I had to do it so often, and I made so many of those catches, it kinda became my thing. Most of the time in sports, and in life for that matter, it’s a good thing to be good at something… anything. I think one exception might be diving to catch footballs on ground that is hard as concrete when you are wearing gym shorts that have about a 6” inseam. It was the 70s, Michael Jordan’s knee length shorts were not a thing yet. Three days into practice my senior year, I had an open wound on the outside of my right thigh that just would not heal.

I could NOT miss any practice. I was the poster boy for the player who was “on the bubble”. I had to be at every practice, and I had to show some type of value, or I would surely be cut, and my dream of one last “Boys of Fall” campaign would ooze away just like the wound on my leg.

Coach Artz was also the team trainer, he patched us up, taped us up, before practice… and iced us up after. 5 days into that first week of practice, he told me I needed to see a doctor about my leg. He told me he thought it might be infected.  After the doctor’s visit the next morning, guess what? It was determined that the wound was infected, and I had blood poisoning. I was put on antibiotics, and I was told not to practice for at least a week to let the wound heal. When I got to practice later that day, because not practicing was not an option for me, I told Coach Artz my situation.

I don’t remember his exact words from almost 50 years ago, but I remember his first sentence:

 “You probably need to call it, son.”

He explained to me with empathy that was not generally part of the high school football culture in 1977, that even if I made the team, I wasn’t likely to play a lot. He told me that this infection could become a lot worse, and something like “You could lose a leg if it got worse”. My memories can be a little dramatic… I’m a storyteller, but Coach Artz was definitely concerned.

I cried. I cried as hard as I can remember crying. I tried to explain to him through my tears that this was it for me. I would never be able to put on the pads and suit up again. He comforted me as best he could, and he told me that he would do his best to help me, “… after I talk to your parents”.

Well… shit! Yeah, that was gonna be a problem. When my dad dropped me off at practice after taking me to the doctor that morning, he thought I was going in to clean out my locker and let the coaches know I was done.

My father never wanted me to play football. He wanted me to play Bluegrass music… and I probably should have taken that route, but Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, and Lynn Swann and the mighty Pittsburgh Steelers were my influencers in 1977. I wanted to play football and avoid banjo music at all costs.

Coach Artz and our head coach talked to my dad. Shockingly, my father was convinced, and I would be allowed to play if I took the next few days off, and slowly worked my way back in to practice. I would go with the team to camp, and if you went to the camp, in God forsaken Fort Picket in Blackstone, VA, you most likely wouldn’t get cut. I went to camp, I didn’t get cut. Coach Artz advocated for me, even though I most likely would not be a contributor to his team’s success, he helped to keep me on that team. I never asked him why he did that. I wish I had.

I got to be on the football roster at Gar-Field High School in my senior year. I got to be on the roster of a team that lost a heartbreaker in the VA state championship. I got to have one last Boys of Fall season, and all the memories that go with it, because of Coach Artz. During that awful week at Fort Picket, Coach taped my nasty, smelly leg with the same care that he gave to his first team, All District, running backs. I’m sure our head coach walked by the training room a time or two and wondered why his running backs coach and trainer was wasting all this tape (and it was a LOT of tape!!) on a guy that probably wasn’t going to play anyway. But that’s who Jim Artz was. He gave the same care to everyone… the all stars and the scrubs were treated with dignity and care. If you were lucky, he’d tell you a story while he was doing it.

A lasting memory that’s funny… at least now it’s funny:

Coach Artz constructed a special pad that went over my wound. He would apply an antibiotic salve called Strawberry Ointment to the wound, cover it with the special pad, and then tape it all in place. Then when the regular football pants went on, the wound stayed protected.

During a morning practice at camp, we were just in shorts and tee shirts again, after I was taped up, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I was not to dive for a football, and mess up Coach’s masterful tape job. He did not want to do it twice.

That lasted about :30 minutes. I dove, the tape slid off, and as fate would have it, it was right in front of the man who told me not to. AND… I didn’t even catch the ball.

That was an ass chewing that I will never forget. This gentle spirited, jolly man was angry… no, he was pissed! He called me names, some of them I didn’t even understand, he told me I could tape my own wounds from now on, or something like that. Then he sent me on a jog that lasted the rest of the practice. As I trotted away, I could see him walking away, shaking his head in disgust, or disappointment, probably a lot of both. I was crushed!

And then, before the afternoon practice, he called me over to the training table, looked at me with those twinkling smiling eyes, and said, “Get on the table. You’re an idiot. Catch the ball next time!”, and then he just shook his head and laughed. And then he taped me up.

I’m just one person who has a story about how this great man went out of his way to help them. There are literally hundreds of people who have similar tales. Coach Artz was a gentleman, a loving husband and father, and he was a teacher.

Coach Artz was a great man.