Let bygones be bygones, youth of Springville 1st Ward

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Let bygones be bygones, youth of Springville 1st Ward (Published in the Springville Independent News) I haven’t led a sainted life by any stretch, but I’m a generally honorable fellow. However, there is one skeleton in my closet — not an entire skeleton, really; more like a couple vertebrae and a pelvis — about which I ought to clear the air. A year ago I was assigned to coach my church’s youth basketball team — a duty that anybody will tell you is fraught with peril, especially when you’ve got a roster of roughly 7,000 boys between the ages of 12 and 18, as does the Springville First Ward. I didn’t really have a head for X’s and O’s, but that didn’t matter, seeing as how all my time and energy went into divvying up playing time fairly, which requires a master’s degree in organizational behavior and a stopwatch with nanosecond precision. I was elated when I reached the end of the season having bluffed my way without incident. Well, it turns out, I hadn’t. It turns out it wasn’t zone defense, clock management or the pick and roll — but scheduling — that became my undoing as a coach. I forgot about our final game. None of the players showed up and we forfeited. Now, I could make a case that the fault lies with the league organizers, who had distributed multiple versions of the schedule, and it was an outdated version on which I was relying in that fateful lapse. I could also argue that the ward’s hesitance to offer me a contract extension had become a distraction. But I’m ready to own my blunder; I’m ready to move on: youth of the Springville First Ward, I am sorry. There, I said it. Here is the response I recently received from Andrew Creer, 15: “The day I was informed by the league official that we had missed our scheduled game, all time just seemed to stop. Was this man crazy? Why did we miss our game? Many questions needed to be asked, but all I needed to do at that moment was talk to Mr. Matthew Reichman. He came into church with a big, stupid grin on his face, not in the least expecting what was going to happen next. The moment he sat down the group erupted and let it all out; Matt had no answer for his mistake. “I have often wondered, ‘What would happen if we had actually gone to our game?’ Yes, there is a possibility that we could have lost, but I had watched the team we were scheduled to play, and let’s just say they weren’t that big of a threat. If we won that game, we would have headed on to the church-ball tournament — a dream to many. I moved on to play for the Springville High Freshman team, but others had to wait until next season to finally get another chance to play basketball. “Will I ever forgive him for his serious mistake? Yes, but in time. A good supply of Beto’s, gifts and money will always ease the pain. Whenever we talk about basketball, his forgetting our game will always pop up, and that will never change. Matt Reichman ruined a great season, but in time I know that he will be able to make up for it.” At long last, Andrew, I’m at peace.