One Shot at Forever (5 page)

Needless to say, McClard found a welcoming community in Macon. Britton had hired him because he was talented and came highly recommended but also because he knew the school needed someone to play the role of bad cop. Needless to say, McClard's zealous embrace of this role went over well with the school board. Meanwhile, the other teachers—an inclusive, collegial bunch—invited him to play cards, drink beer, and, on the weekends, attend raucous pig roasts. His wife, Viola, a pretty and gregarious brunette who went by “Vi,” quickly became a fixture on the social scene, attending the women's club meetings and, to many, serving as better company than her husband. The couple was happy in Macon, and McClard saw the job as an ideal stepping-stone to bigger and better things. An ambitious, intelligent man, he had visions of larger school districts, maybe eventually a job at the state board of education in Springfield. He had only one problem. Its name was Lynn Sweet.

By the time McClard was established in Macon, Sweet had settled in quite nicely, or so he believed. He'd become friendly with a group of teachers, was beloved at the taverns, and knew the best spots to go fishing and hunting. Still blazingly single, he used his $450
monthly take-home check
to rent a tiny month-to-month apartment over the Laundromat on Front Street that, while spare, suited him just fine, even if it didn't allow him to be much of a host. When one of his teaching buddies came over one night with dinner, Sweet looked around for plates only to realize he didn't have any. Instead, they ate right off the table.

Sweet had expected some blowback to his unconventional teaching methods. Even so, he found he'd underestimated just how traditional Macon High was. All it took for a reminder was a walk down the hall to the class of Jack Stringer, a bowtie-wearing ex-Marine who had the bottom of his ear shot off in combat. Early in Stringer's tenure, a tall, petulant student made the mistake of talking out of turn during class. Stringer strode over to the boy, picked him up by the shirt collar, and threw him up against the wall. Then he stared the student in the eye and yelled: “BIG BOY, IF YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT TALKING AGAIN WHILE I'M TALKING, I WILL COME RIGHT BACK HERE AND ME AND YOU ARE GOING TO GO ROUND AND ROUND.” When the boy started talking again minutes later, Stringer threw down his chalk, took four quick steps, and put the student to the ground, using a knee to pin him. “I TOLD YOU I'D BE BACK, BIG BOY. REMEMBER, I KILLED MEN BETTER THAN YOU IN KOREA. JUST GO AHEAD, JUST TRY IT AGAIN.” And that was all it took. Stringer became so feared at Macon High that one time, when he had to leave school at noon feeling sick, his next class of students arrived and sat in absolute silence for forty-five minutes awaiting his return, lest Stringer come back and find them talking.

Sweet, however, refused to engage in corporal punishment or intimidation. As he liked to say, “If you do it right, you don't need the hammer.”

If the students had balked at Sweet's methods, or overrun his classroom, it would have been easy for McClard to rein him in, but the opposite was the case. The students adored Sweet, whom they saw as young, interesting, and suffused with big-city cool. Other teachers expected to be addressed as “Mister” or, on the field of play, “Coach.” Sweet instructed his kids to call him only “Sweet.” So they did.

Carl Poelker, the young, blond math teacher hired away from Caterpillar, at first wondered if there was a trick to Sweet's methods. Then he watched how Sweet played cards with the kids during lunch and invited them to bring meat to grill on the barbecue he stashed outside his classroom, the smell of burgers and dogs wafting into the nearby parking lot. He noticed how Sweet hung out with students after school, how he took them on hunting trips, and asked about their parents. And then it hit Poelker:
He just really cares about the kids as people, so they don't want to let him down
. If Sweet bucked the system, or didn't adhere to school regulations, Poelker noticed he usually did so on principle. If a rule didn't make sense, Sweet saw no reason to follow it.

McClard, however, didn't care how anyone
felt
about the rules. They existed for a reason and were to be respected and obeyed on principle. And Sweet not only flouted the school's rules—
McClard's
rules—but refused to demonstrate the proper respect for a principal's authority.

From the start, the two men clashed over small matters: grading policy, how Sweet chose to spend his class time, and of course the junior class play, which Sweet thought would be more entertaining if he “modernized” parts, like making the lead male in
Just Ducky
a recovering alcoholic who suffered from hemorrhoids.

It must have been difficult for McClard to ignore other differences between the two men. While McClard was brusque and at times awkward in social situations, Sweet had a way of getting along with most everybody, even those, like Burns, the brawny football coach, who were as right wing as Sweet was left. Likewise, Sweet was a natural in front of the students, hamming it up. McClard, for all his authoritarian bent and considerable administrative talent, had a habit of becoming a nervous wreck during public speeches. His hands shook, his movements became erratic, and he became so anxious that, when possible, he tried to delegate his duties. Linda Shonkwiler, who graduated in 1971, remembers her shock when, upon being elected class president, McClard told her to stand up and give the assembly addresses in his place. (Little did McClard know that Shonkwiler's greatest fear was also public speaking.)

With each passing year, McClard and Sweet's relationship continued to sour. It seemed inevitable that matters would come to a head.

It sounded like a grand plan. A dozen teachers and administrators would take off on a Saturday morning in the spring and drive down to St. Louis in the VW bus of Phil Sargent, the athletic director. They'd hit some taverns and then head to a St. Louis Cardinals game. Sweet was charged with organizing an itinerary and, as usual when it came to such matters, took great delight in doing so, especially since he was a diehard Cubs fan. The Friday before the trip, he passed out a sheet to all involved.

Scanning the paper, superintendent Britton began chuckling. On it, Sweet had included a roster of “Members of the Excursion” under three headings.

The first read “Cardinals fans and gentlemen of position” and included McClard, identified as “Principal of Macon High School, Macon, Illinois”; Ralph Coate, “Head of the Science Department, Macon High School, Macon, Illinois”; Britton; and three others.

The second heading, however, read “Cubs Fans—people of questionable background including deviates and assorted degenerates.” In this group Sweet included himself, identified as “known alcoholic and chaser of females”; a teacher named Guy Carlton (“Wino and part-time street fighter”); a teacher named Ralph Lancaster (“Pepsi addict and known cigar smoker”); and a Champaign buddy named Fred Schooley (“A friend of Sweet's, suspected sex fiend”).

Finally, a third header read “Others: This group is made up of people who know
nothing
about baseball.” Here Sweet included his friend and former baseball coach, Tim Cook, described as a “Yankees fan, non-drinker, ex-Coach, and suspected psycho,” and a teacher named Dale Sloan who, based on his allegiance, was demeaned as a “Giants fan, non-drinker, henpecked dullard.”

Then there was the itinerary itself:

The crew, and the game, did not disappoint. By the end of the evening Sweet had purchased five Styrofoam Cardinals hats and gleefully smashed them up in front of St. Louis fans; the Cardinals had won; and everyone save Tim, Dale, and Phil Sargent was lit. On the ride home, Britton suggested a game of poker. Cards were produced; hands were dealt.

Half an hour into the game, McClard started needling Sweet about his teaching. Sweet laughed it off.

Ten minutes later, McClard came at him again. Sweet chuckled once more, but he was becoming annoyed. Sweet liked to think of himself as someone who could get along with most anyone, but he didn't like to be pushed around.

“Look, I'm going to teach English how I want,” Sweet finally said. “Your authority means nothing to me.”

The VW bus went silent. McClard's face turned pink, then blossomed into an unhealthy red. This was most definitely not how a lieutenant spoke to his commanding officer.

“I'll fire your ass!”
McClard yelled, nearly knocking over his pile of chips.

“Go ahead and try,” Sweet responded, now yelling himself.

And, best anyone can remember, that was the precise moment when McClard began endeavoring to do just that.

Britton could only protect Sweet for so long. Baseball would have to do the rest.

4

The recruiting began in earnest some months later, on a snowy January night in 1970. Worn out after work, Sweet made the short walk from his apartment on Front Street to Claire's Place. Just down from the bank and across from the railroad tracks,
Claire's was the kind of small, smoky bar
where people went to do some serious drinking. Canvas hunting coats hung from the stools like drapery, and a few beat-up booths gave way to a cigarette-stained pool table in the back, not far from a card table where locals played a game called pitch, a descendent of euchre. The bar had seen its share of fights, especially on Saturday nights, but it was relatively quiet on this afternoon. The regulars were present, of course, a row of old-timers atop their designated stools, settled in from three to seven
P.M
. each afternoon. There were the Panchot brothers from the grain elevator across the street, and Big Joanne, as well as Stan Farlow and Roger Goin, whom everyone just called “Get.” And, at the end of the bar, Comet Johns, who proudly drank nothing but Michelob. Since the bar stocked only one twelve-pack of such a high-end beer at any given time, Sweet and his buddies loved to tweak Comet by walking into the bar and announcing loudly, “One Michelob down here, please!”

On this afternoon, Sweet ordered his regular, a Pabst. He drank it not because he loved the beer but because, at a quarter, it cost a dime less than premium beers like Budweiser and Schlitz. As he cracked open the can, he heard a voice.

“Hey, Sweet, you always drink alone?”

Sweet looked up and smiled. It was Bob Shartzer. The two men had spent some good nights drinking together, and were friendly. Shartzer pulled up a stool next to Sweet and order a Pabst himself.

“So, you hear the boys still don't have a baseball coach?”

Sweet had and, frankly, it didn't surprise him. There were few less-desirable gigs at Macon High. Baseball may have been the national pastime, fueled by the popularity of players like Bob Gibson, Pete Rose, and Carl Yastrzemski, but central Illinois was football and basketball territory. Even track was more popular at Macon High, and with good reason. There was little to no fan support for the baseball team; games were often rained out; and, despite some promising young players, the Ironmen had a long history of losing. Three years earlier, the Ironmen had gone the entire season and
managed only one win—and that came on a forfeit
when the opposing team thought it had a home rather than an away game. The Macon boys celebrated anyway.

The job of head coach had become viewed as an enlistment of sorts at Macon High—serve your time and get out. In the previous three years, the boys had gone through three coaches, the latest of whom, Jack Burns, claimed, with little dispute, to know “not a shit” about the game. Even the players were dubious. One of the town's most talented boys, a junior named Mark Miller, had opted not to come out for the team as a freshman and sophomore, saying he was too worn out from football. No one much blamed him. Dale Otta, the team's junior shortstop, sat in bed at night wondering why no one wanted to coach the team.