Bryson City Tales (22 page)

“Coach, I don't think so. I feel like the Lord's got a lot of things for me to do just yet. So . . . I don't think I'm ready. At least not today.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Me neither, Doc. Me neither. But one day I'm gonna take some time and go walking up on that thar hill. Suspect them stones got some stories to tell.” He turned back to the field. “Speaking of dead, Doc, this team's a lookin' a bit dead to me. They're lookin' a bit beat. Whatcha think?”

I paused for a moment. For a coach to ask a question like this was not surprising. But to ask so early in our relationship
was
surprising.
Was it a test? Or did he really want my opinion?
I wondered. Yet, if he could discuss eternity with me, why not the physical and psychological condition of his kids? But they were
his
kids, not mine—at least not yet.

“Coach,” I replied, carefully, “I don't know your players very well yet. I don't know their spirits or their limits. But they do look a bit whipped. They've got a big game Friday night. Might be encouraging to them to hear a good word from you, get a little reward. And a rest might not hurt them. Tomorrow you can polish up the game plan with them. But I'm just guessing. It's your call.”

The diplomatic dilemma of a confidant: How do you offer advice without being pushy or bossy? How do you inform or correct without hurting or offending? How do you support and befriend without intruding or repelling? When do you draw close, and when do you stay away? I knew all of this had to be learned over time and with experience.

“Doc, I think you're probably right. Let's shut things down a bit early today.”

He blew his whistle and called the surprised kids and coaches around him. When they were quiet, he explained, “Men, you're tired and you're trying too hard. I appreciate your effort. You know how bad I want to beat Sylva. I know how bad
you
want to beat Sylva. But right now you're beating yourselves. We're gonna call it off early. Captains, after showers I want you to have a team meeting. Seniors, this is your last chance at those Sylva boys. The rest of your life you're gonna have to live with the results of this game. You're probably gonna be working with these boys the rest of your lives. I want you all to talk about it a bit. Then I want you to spend some time tonight thinking. Really thinking. What can
you
do—what
must
you do to do
your
part to beat those Sylva boys this week? Friday's game will be the most important game of your life.”

He was quiet. You could hear the crickets in the grass and the deep breathing of the exhausted players. Then I saw the first of a hundred examples of great coaching.

“Men, whether we win or lose, I want you to know something.” He paused to look at each one of them, eye to eye. “I want you to know just how much I admire you as a team and as individuals. I'd be proud to have any one of you as my own son. I want you to wake up Saturday morning knowing that, no matter the final score, you gave your all, you done your very best. You do that, you'll have kept my admiration and you'll have earned my respect.” He nodded his head, and they silently turned and began to walk toward the locker room.

As the stands and the fence line emptied of spectators, Coach Dietz and I were alone on the field.

“Doc, mind taking a walk?” He turned toward the cemetery and I followed. We walked up the stadium steps, through a gate in the chain-link fence, and into the field of headstones. He would stop, only briefly, to look at the larger stones and monuments.

As
we came up to the peak of the cemetery, the view of the town and the Smokies was both impressive and magnificent—lit up in the setting sun, ablaze with fall colors. I paused to gaze, amazed again at the beauty of the hills. He continued on as though on a mission. He paused at a huge granite rock, and I walked up beside him. Embedded in the stone was a bronze plaque:

HORACE KEPHART
1862–1931
SCHOLAR, AUTHOR, OUTDOORSMAN
HE LOVED HIS NEIGHBORS
AND PICTURED THEM IN
“OUR SOUTHERN HIGHLANDERS.”
HIS VISION HELPED CREATE
THE GREAT SMOKYMOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK.

“You know who this is?” he asked, his eyes glued to the tombstone.

“Can't say that I do.”

“Maybe the most famous fella that ever lived in these parts. Educated fella. They say he studied at five universities before battling alcoholism and a mental breakdown. They say he looked at maps and books to discover what he called ‘His Back Beyond.' He wanted to find the remotest part of the country. He considered the Rockies and the rain forests of the Northwest. He thought about the deep swamps of Georgia or Florida. He finally come out here at the turn of the century—1904 if memory serves me right—and settled on Sugar Fork. That was a branch off Hazel Creek, deep in the woods west of here.”

My admiration for this man was growing. I knew he knew football; I didn't know he knew the local history, especially having been born and bred in Sylva. He went on. “He recovered from his demons in these woods. And he wrote and wrote—lots of books and outdoors articles. I've read his
Camping and
Woodcraft, Sporting Firearms,
and
Camp Cooking
. But the one I like the best, and the one that brought him so much fame, was
Our Southern Highlanders.

“He'd often leave the woods and come up here to Bryson. In fact, he kept a room at what was called the Cooper House, a long-gone boardinghouse. Locals came to call it Kephart Tavern. They say that it was from this place that he took up the battle to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

The coach looked up and gazed across ridge after ridge of mountains—all the way to the horizon. “Kephart hated the huge timber companies he saw as destroying the land around him. ‘Why must the virgin forests be doomed for their profit?' he wrote.” The coach's voice picked up in tone and intensity. “‘Stop the carnage,' he'd preach to any politician who'd listen. ‘I want to preserve this pristine and shrinking wilderness,' he said, ‘so that others can come here and recover, as I have.'

“Let me show you another,” the coach said. He took off walking and I followed. Just a bit over the ridge and to the west of the Kephart grave site, he stopped at another tombstone:

KELLY E. BENNETT
1890–1974
THE APOSTLE OF THE SMOKIES
THIS STONE FROM DEEP WITHIN THE SMOKIES
ALONG WITHMT. BENNETT IN THE DISTANCE
ARE LASTING TRIBUTES TO A MAN
WHOSE EFFORTS AND LOVE FOR THESE MOUNTAINS HELPED
IN THE CREATION OF THE GREAT SMOKYMTNS. NATIONAL PARK
He pointed to another small tombstone that just read,
DR. AURELIUS BENNETT
1861–1941

“A. M. Bennett. He was a country doctor—just like you, Doc. His son, Kelly, became the town's pharmacist and unofficial photographer—for decades. Kelly even served as a state legislator. Even though he was almost thirty years younger than Kephart, they became best friends. Together they led the efforts to form the national park.”

Coach Dietz smiled, almost to himself, then continued, “Doc, these men had a passion and a mission. It gave them meaning. It gave them life. It gave us this beautiful place.” He paused to look out over the town toward the national park. “Kephart became the first living American to have a mountain named in his honor while he was still alive. Can't see Mount Kephart from here. It's deep in the park out thar. A monument to his passion—to his life's work. Bennett also had one named after him—after he died.”

The coach paused. “Doc,
my
monument's them kids.” He turned to look at me. “For most of them, this team's the highlight of their lives. This here's their glory days. These become the lifelong memories they'll relive the rest of their lives. When they're working in one of the mills around here, or lumbering, or working in the furniture factory, they'll look back on these days and they'll talk about 'em. Their memories are my legacy. I just don't want to let them down. I love what I do, and I love the kids I do it for.”

He took in a deep breath and then let it out slowly as his eyes turned from mine to gaze down at the gravestone. “Kephart died in an automobile accident. April 2, 1931. Died not too far from here. He was 69. Bennett lived into his 80s. Their work didn't go unnoticed or unrewarded. In 1940 ol' President Roosevelt came out here to dedicate the park. Bennett was there in the flesh, Kephart in the spirit.

“So Mr. Kephart and Mr. Bennett are both buried here, looking out over the park they helped create. But their monuments aren't really here—they're out thar.” The coach swept his arm over the expanse in front of us.

“I hope that a hundred years from now, there'll be folks who'll see in my kids' kids' kids, some of me. That'll be my monument, Doc. That's what gets me up in the morning. That's what stirs my cocoa. That's my legacy.” He smiled and said in a near-whisper, “My legacy's not property, it's people. When I'm gone, I'm gonna leave behind relationships. I'm gonna leave behind kids that's better than they would have been. That sound crazy to you, Doc?”

“No, sir,” I responded. “Not crazy at all.”

“Better be going. Don't want to keep you from your family.”

We turned to leave. We walked quietly down the hillside, through the monuments to people now departed from this earth—perhaps with their legacy buried here with them. The idea of investing in others and not in oneself was amazingly appealing to me. I thought there'd be no better place to start than with my family.
After all,
I thought,
what if I get to the end of
my career with a great practice and a big estate but with a marriage
in ruins and kids with no integrity or character? What will
I have gained? What use were all the riches I could earn if I
ended my life with regret about what I gave—to my family and
to others around me?

I wasn't sure whether Coach Dietz was a religious man, but his sermon that day resulted in my praying a simple prayer of commitment as I sat on my bench that night, looking out over Kephart's and Bennett's monuments.
Lord, help me know you
better. Help me make you known, first to my family and then to
my patients. Lord, help me be the best husband, the best daddy,
and the best doctor possible. I want my legacy to be my family.

To this day the Lord is at work answering that prayer.

chapter nineteen

MY FIRST HOME VICTORY

F
riday finally arrived. Tonight would be my first football game as a team physician in private practice. Gary Ayers's morning news was basically all about the rivalry—past and present. He was predicting a record turnout and advising fans to arrive early for the best seats.

When I got to the office, Helen gave me a funny smile. “We've got something for you, Dr. Larimore.”

I followed her to the staff lounge. There was a gift-wrapped package, with maroon paper and white ribbon—the Swain County colors. I unwrapped it under the curious eyes of the staff. Inside was a white golf shirt with maroon-tipped sleeves. Over the left chest was embroidered “Dr. Larimore” and, just below that, “Team Physician.”

Leave it to Helen to burst my bubble. “Better not let Mitch see that,” she warned. “They've never given
him
one like that. And after all he does for them! I guess to get a shirt you need to be the new kid on the block, or from Duke or something like that.”

I tried to defend the difference between being a sideline and a
grandstand team physician, but the explanation was lost in a cacophony of comment and argument.

Late that afternoon Mitch caught me in the hall. “Heard about your shirt, Walt.” He paused. I braced for the coming onslaught. I was certain his next comment would be,
You stupid?
It wasn't. “Walt,” he sighed, “I think that's great. Folks normally don't take a shine to a newcomer so quickly. That's a good sign, son.”

After finishing up the afternoon's paperwork and stopping by home for a quick dinner, I was off to the stadium. I arrived an hour before kickoff and was waved into the reserved parking area. Joe Benny was the attendant. “Been expecting you, Doc. We done put up a special sign for you right over by the gate.”

I thanked him and drove on. Another attendant waved me into a parking spot next to the fence. “Dr. Larrimore, Team Physician” were the words on the freshly painted sign wired to the fence. I don't mind telling you that, despite the misspelling, I was feeling pretty special indeed. At least “Larimore” was spelled correctly on my coaching shirt. But I was secretly hoping that my senior colleagues didn't see this sign. I could only begin to imagine the professional jealousies. Perhaps petty jealousies, but nevertheless very real.

It was already getting dark, but the stadium lights lit up the field like day. The lighting system was as good as any college field I'd seen. Fantastic.

For a die-hard football fan, there's nothing quite like the feeling of walking out on the cool turf on a crisp autumn evening. The crowd gathering in the stands, the smoke from the hamburger-stand grills, the band warming up. I drank in the sights with childhood memories surging through my mind. From my earliest memories I have deep-seated impressions of
Death Valley.
That was the name opponents gave to the football stadium in Baton Rouge. Games at LSU are almost always played at night, and the turf is and always has been genuine—thick and luscious. My dad and I would go to the games together, and not only can I still name my childhood and adolescent heroes, I can also remember some of their most spectacular plays.

As I walked onto the field, a thousand memories flooded my soul and my arms looked like gooseflesh. I felt at home. The kids from both teams were already on the field warming up, and to my surprise the visitor
and
the home stands were nearly full—one whole hour before the game! Fans were beginning to claim spots on the grassy mountainside. And all along the chain-link fence around the field, the men were a dozen deep.