![]() He started working harder in school and at practices. I didn't have words for it then, but I do now: I am about to show the world, and myself, what I can do."Īnd it worked! Lewis pitched well enough to win the game, and he suddenly felt more purposeful in his life. I can still recall, thirty years later, the sensation he created in me. I have no idea where the man's intention ended and his instincts took over, but the effect of his performance was to say: there's no one I'd rather have out here in this life-or-death situation. It was just him and me now we were in this together. ![]() "Then Fitz leaned down, put his hand on my shoulder, and thrusting his face right up to mine, became as calm as the eye of a storm. He handed him the ball and told him to put it where the sun don't shine. Lewis said: "I was fourteen, could pass for twelve, and of no obvious athletic use."īut when Lewis got to the pitcher's mound, coach was waiting for him. It was the last night of the season, the team was tied for first place, and Lewis was suddenly called in to pitch. Lewis shares the story of a baseball game that was memorable for him. While there is some discussion of the complaints against the coach, most of the book focuses on the impact Fitz had on his life and and other students (one of whom was Peyton Manning). "I've had to learn that you can't save everybody," Fitz said. Lewis described "it" as the importance of battling one's way through the easy excuses life offers up. The trouble is every time I try the parents get in the way." When Lewis talked to Fitz about it, he said it was more difficult to have a meaningful relationship with the kids. And it's only going to get worse." Fitz sat at the top of the list of hardships that parents protected their kids from indeed, the first angry call McLeod received after he became headmaster came from a father who was upset that Fitz wasn't giving his son more playing time. "It's true in sports, it's true in the classroom. "The parents' willingness to intercede on the kids' behalf, to take the kids' side, to protect the kid, in a not-healthy way - there's more of that each year," he said. The current headmaster's name was Scott McLeod, and, he said, the school he'd taken charge of in 1993 was different from the school I'd graduated from in 1978. So Lewis went back to New Orleans to investigate. Lewis learned that some parents were trying to have Coach Fitz fired because they thought he was too tough on their kids. Coach Fitz was intense, and was prone to giving sermons, breaking things if he was upset, and adding extra practices if he didn't think the kids were working hard enough.īut that was more than 30 years ago. Michael Lewis attended a wealthy private school in New Orleans, and Billy Fitzgerald was his baseball coach. The book has a lot of meaning, despite being only 90 pages long. ![]() It is also a story of a generational divide, and how modern parents are accused of "helicoptering" and sheltering their kids too much, which makes it more difficult for the coach to do his job. This is a nice story about how a tough coach inspired some high school kids to do more with their lives, including the author. ![]()
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