0:15

Pushkin early

0:21

nineteen sixty five, Harold

0:23

Silvester was a sixteen year old basketball

0:26

star in a segregated New Orleans school

0:28

system. He played

0:30

for Saint Augustine High School. They

0:33

were the best high school basketball team in Louisiana,

0:36

at least the best in the league for black kids.

0:39

They never faced the white kids, so no one can actually

0:41

say who was the best. But the

0:43

priests who ran Saint Ogg were pushing

0:45

for integration. They wanted to challenge

0:48

the state's best white team, Jesuit

0:50

High also in New Orleans.

0:52

And finally, our principal

0:55

advice principle, we're able to

0:57

negotiate this game. That's

0:59

Harold talking about one of the most

1:01

intense basketball games ever played.

1:04

You know, we played on a Friday.

1:07

Malcolm X was assassinated that Monday,

1:10

you know, and we're playing and what our

1:12

skunsilers the first integrated

1:15

athletic contest in the history of the state

1:17

of Louisia. Yeah,

1:19

so I had that kind of cloud,

1:22

you know over it. Some of the white

1:25

parents protested, and two

1:27

of the Jesuit starters refused to play.

1:29

The priests decided that they needed to play the game

1:32

in an empty gym nobody was invited

1:34

except parents and faculty,

1:37

you know, So that was a kind of sparse

1:40

crowd. It was the sort of

1:42

game that they make movies about, and

1:44

they did much later. It

1:47

was called passing Glory.

1:50

So we'll scrolling you people out there and fall

1:52

fall, the fall, and you gotta put

1:54

it in you playing these guys. Then

1:57

how come you're playing I'm like they made out of porcela.

2:01

You scared to bump up against the Mics team. Let

2:04

me tell you something, they don't rob off. Harold

2:06

Sylvester was one of the biggest players on his team

2:09

and the best. He usually

2:12

did the intimidating, but

2:14

the white guy who was guarding him was a different

2:16

beast. Billy Fitzgerald

2:18

was his name. Harold knew him

2:20

by reputation. I certainly knew who

2:22

he was, Yeah, because he was

2:25

you know, he had a couple of other cats, you know, were

2:27

the big guys. Man. It didn't matter

2:30

that there was no crowd. Billy Fitzgerald

2:32

played like the whole world was watching, with

2:35

a fearlessness Harold had never seen. He

2:37

was among the toughest players I've

2:40

ever played. Kids. You know, you know that once

2:42

his mind is on something, he's

2:45

on the lenny. When you say

2:47

he was tough, like, what do you

2:49

mean? Like? Was he physical? What was it like

2:51

to be against him? Anyway you can

2:53

think it tough? Was Bill Fitzgerald?

2:56

His demeanor, the look on his face

2:59

always felt like he was going to bite your head off.

3:04

No, no, no question. You

3:06

know, if the competition with Billy, you

3:08

know you in for sight of your life. I

3:10

don't know how to better characterize the

3:16

same. Two black priests who set up the basketball

3:19

game against the white kids had a plan for Harold

3:21

Sylvester to integrate big

3:23

time Southern college basketball. Tulane

3:26

University had never had a black basketball

3:28

player. There was still a wall between

3:30

black athletes and white southern college

3:32

sports. The priests wanted Harold

3:34

to help knock it down. But when

3:36

he got to the other side, he found something

3:39

more intimidating than the color barrier. He

3:42

found Billy Fitzgerald, the

3:44

intense white guy from the Jesuit High

3:46

school, had gone on to play for Tulane.

3:49

Now they were teammates, and

3:51

being Billy Fitzgerald's teammate was

3:53

almost worse than playing against him,

3:56

because now he was wearing you out

3:58

every day. There were two anything

4:00

that books to

4:03

make sure that you were playing you're very

4:06

best. Yeah. He always

4:08

assisted that you you're all you

4:11

know. And I think those of us to put

4:13

alongside of him as well as against

4:15

him, you always respected that. If

4:19

Dylan was a wild he gave it everything

4:21

you heared. So

4:23

he had the capacity to scare his

4:25

teammates. You did. I've

4:30

got a special interest in Billy Fitzgerald,

4:32

as you might be guessing, But Harold

4:34

Silvester is his own story too. After

4:37

Tulane, he left New Orleans and made a career

4:39

as an actor. You've seen him in something

4:41

an officer and a gentleman maybe or married

4:44

with children. In nineteen

4:46

ninety nine, he wrote the script for Passing

4:48

Glory, the movie about that basketball

4:50

game played without a crowd. The

4:53

movie took certain liberties, like

4:55

just about every film set in New Orleans, the actors

4:57

all sound like they're from Mississippi, and

5:00

there seemed to him to be no way to

5:02

capture the intensity of the character based

5:04

on Billy Fitzgerald. So

5:06

Harold and Ventnor for him a scary

5:08

racist dad. You get off that floss

5:10

on someone for him to fight? Are

5:13

you coming? Or do I have to drag

5:15

you off. But

5:18

I check go through life, you

5:21

know, without talking about the tough

5:23

people that I've known, you know, and

5:25

he is amongst the toughest.

5:28

And so so when I leave that to

5:30

plug into that tough reservoir, I

5:33

go to Bill Fitzgerald. You know, he's

5:35

not a forgettable guy. Not a

5:38

forgettable guy. Harold

5:40

assumed that Billy Fitzgerald would go on to become

5:42

a professional athlete. If

5:44

I told you he was going to end up being a high

5:46

school coach, would that have surprised

5:49

you? It would have, But

5:51

you could imagine it. I

5:53

can imagine, and I can imagine if I knew

5:56

how tough he was, then I

5:58

would have gone somewhere else, to school, that

6:01

is, to any school where Billy Fitzgerald

6:03

was not the coach. Harold knew

6:05

enough to be scared. I

6:07

did not. I'm

6:12

Michael Lewis, and this is

6:14

against the Rules. A show

6:16

about various authority figures in American

6:19

life. This season

6:21

is about the rise of coaches. This

6:23

episode is about the power of

6:25

a coach to change a life, in

6:28

this case mine

7:04

the winner of nineteen seventy three. Billy

7:07

Fitzgerald takes us by some prize we

7:10

know nothing about him except that he plays

7:12

baseball for an Oakland A's minor league

7:14

team. Yes, baseball, but

7:16

for some reason, he's spending the offseason coaching

7:19

eighth grade boys basketball at our school.

7:22

Our practices are easy, sort of like recess.

7:25

The eighth graders practices are not. Coach

7:30

Fitzgerald is this six foot four inch

7:33

man with the face of a street fighter. He

7:35

hollers at the eighth graders for three straight

7:38

hours, then runs them till they

7:40

drop. As they lay gasping

7:42

around his feet, he pulls a book

7:45

from his back pocket and reads

7:47

them quotes from Bobby Knight, the

7:49

scary basketball coach of the Indiana

7:51

Hoosiers. Let you hear, Let you hear. Bobby

7:54

Knight just threw his chair were

7:57

across a three throw line. There's

7:59

a good chance Bobby Knights, but a jackets this basketball

8:02

game. Seventh

8:05

graders all know who Bobby Knight is, but

8:07

this new coach seems bigger and scarier.

8:10

After a few days, one of my teammates

8:12

says, oh God, please don't

8:14

ever let me get to the eighth grade. But

8:17

eighth grade is inevitable. So is Billy

8:19

Fitzgerald. He and his wife have

8:21

a son and decide that minor league

8:23

baseball is no place to raise a child. We

8:26

don't know any of that. We don't

8:28

know about the wife, we don't know about the kid. All

8:30

we know is that this terrifying man is no

8:32

longer the eighth grade coach, but

8:35

the head baseball and basketball coach at

8:37

our high school. The Isidore Newman School.

8:40

Newman's one of those small, wealthy private

8:42

schools that every American city has at least

8:44

two of, one of them called Country

8:47

Day. Our school

8:49

is not the most obvious place to

8:51

create a training camp for Spartan Warriors,

8:55

but that's what this new coach sets out to do. I'm

9:00

not going to tell you everything that happened over the next

9:03

five years, in part because I've already

9:05

written a little book about it called Coach.

9:08

But I want to tell you two stories incidents,

9:11

really, just to give you a

9:13

flavor. First

9:16

incident. It's two years

9:18

later, and Billy Fitzgerald has

9:21

just become my coach. I'm

9:23

now fourteen years old and a total

9:25

mess. To say that I'm troubled

9:27

isn't quite right. Inert is

9:29

more like it. My teachers can't

9:31

understand why I have zero interests in

9:33

what they're saying. My own mother

9:35

one day breaks down and more or less admits

9:38

that I'm ruining her life. And

9:40

my mom's great. It's not her fault.

9:43

I just don't much care about anything except

9:45

performing the occasional acts of vandalism.

9:49

The only human being on the planet that I don't

9:51

feel I can safely ignore is my

9:53

baseball coach. I'd

9:57

quit playing baseball a few years earlier, but

9:59

Fitz found me at school one day and asked me

10:01

to come out for his summer team. I'm

10:04

one of the younger players, and he's new to me.

10:06

He's indeed tough, He's indeed scary

10:09

when he wants to be. He suspends

10:11

kids who break the rules, no matter how good they

10:13

are. He never lays a hand on a

10:15

player, but he breaks all kinds

10:17

of things, especially after games that don't go

10:19

well. No object in the

10:21

locker room is safe. He destroys

10:24

an ancient wall clock with a catcher's mitt

10:26

and a big orange water jug with a single

10:29

swing of an aluminum bat. He

10:31

takes us out onto a hard field at ten o'clock

10:33

at night after a game. There

10:35

we slide until our uniforms are red and brown

10:38

with dirt and blood. Then he

10:40

declares that they aren't to be washed until

10:42

we meet his expectations. Ten

10:45

games later. Our uniforms are so filthy

10:48

that people will come to our games just to see

10:50

them. We look less like a team

10:52

than a cult of insane rich

10:54

kids who refuse to bathe. But

10:59

now, once, and I really mean not

11:01

once, do I have the feeling that this

11:03

was about anything but me and my teammates.

11:07

Coach Fitz never talks about himself.

11:10

He never tells us how close he got to playing

11:12

in the big leagues for the Oakland A's, for example,

11:15

other people talk about it. His young

11:17

players spend lots of time swapping

11:19

stories about him, crazy stories

11:22

which everyone repeats his gospel. Then,

11:24

in high school, Fits refused to ride the team

11:27

bus after they lost and instead walked

11:29

many miles across the city of New Orleans

11:31

in his catcher's gear. That rusty

11:33

stab who went on to have a famous big

11:36

league career, made the mistake of taunting

11:38

Fits, and Fitz ran out onto the field

11:40

and beat the crap out of him.

11:43

Then there was the most incredible story, the

11:45

one we love the best, that during

11:47

a college basketball game, Fitz

11:50

had not only singlehandedly kicked

11:52

Pete Marevich's ass, but also

11:55

beating up Marevich's dad, the LSU

11:57

coach, in the same brawl. To

12:00

this day, Pete Marevich holds the college

12:02

hoops scoring record. Getting

12:04

into a fight with him, well,

12:06

it felt then like getting into a with

12:09

Lebron James would now. It

12:11

made Fits a legend in our minds.

12:16

The incident that summer night that I want to tell you about.

12:18

It's made possible by all these other stories.

12:21

Our baseball teams actually very good, but

12:23

we're playing the only team in the league that might

12:25

be better. I'm the new young pitcher,

12:28

and I really don't belong in the game. Our

12:31

older, better pitcher has it all under control,

12:34

but his fate would have it. Fits

12:36

is forced to pull our older pitcher in

12:39

the last inning with one out

12:41

and us up two to one, and them

12:43

with runners on first and third and

12:46

lots of grown ups in the stands screaming

12:48

and yelling and going bat shit crazy.

12:53

I'm not an imposing sight. I've

12:56

not so much hit puberty as delta a glancing

12:58

blow. I look like a scoop

13:00

of vanilla ice cream, maybe with pickup

13:03

sticks jutting out of the sides. The

13:06

other team has facial hair and muscles.

13:09

They're actually laughing and dancing with glee.

13:11

As I walk out to the mound, Fitz

13:14

just stands there, looking

13:16

like he wants to punch someone. The

13:19

situation's terrifying, but strangely,

13:21

I'm not terrified because

13:24

Coach Fits is on my side, and

13:26

he's by far the most terrifying thing

13:29

in the entire city. And

13:32

he looks at me and says, there

13:34

is no one I'd rather have in this situation,

13:38

which is total bullshit, but

13:40

such is the force of the man that I believe

13:42

him every word. Then

13:44

he hands me the ball and says, stick

13:46

it up their ass. Before

13:49

he leaves me out there alone, he nods

13:51

towards the kid with a little mustache on third

13:53

base and says, pick his ass off.

13:58

I didn't have the words for how I felt just then,

14:00

but I did later. I'm

14:03

about to show the world and myself

14:05

what I can do. The

14:07

strength of this coach was inside me like

14:10

a superpower. I picked

14:12

the kid's ass off third base, then stuck the

14:14

ball up the ass of some other kid, and we

14:16

won. But that's

14:19

not the full magic of this moment. The

14:21

magic is what Billy Fitzgerald uses

14:23

it to do. After the game, he

14:26

gives a little speech to the team about the nature

14:28

of courage and how if you want to know

14:31

what it looks like, you just need to watch

14:33

me pitch. I'm hearing

14:35

myself being described in an entirely

14:37

original way and

14:39

wanting to believe it that

14:42

incident is more the beginning of a longer

14:45

story than the end, because what

14:47

that coach did in that moment is

14:49

to hand me the start of a new identity

14:52

by giving me a new narrative. I was

14:54

no longer this pointless human being,

14:57

this nightmare of inertia.

14:59

I was brave, a

15:01

hero, almost, and I

15:03

ran with it. Four

15:06

years later, when the letter arrives

15:09

saying that I'd gotten into Princeton, I

15:11

run to the school to find Coach Fitzgerald

15:14

to let him know not

15:16

to say look what I did,

15:19

to say, look what you

15:21

made it possible for me to do. At

15:38

any point in the decade after my high school

15:40

graduation, you could drop in

15:43

to see Billy Fitzgerald at the Newman School

15:45

and feel that you were basically in the same world

15:47

that I grew up in. You know, if we were in

15:49

practice, you know he would he

15:51

got to a point where he didn't have to tell me to go run a line, Gerald,

15:54

I would just go and run it myself, because I knew that was the next

15:56

thing out of his mouth. Philip Skelding

15:58

played basketball for coach Fitzgerald in

16:00

nineteen ninety. Okay, I'll just go run, you

16:02

know, and beat him to it. Save his breath, you

16:04

know, which is kind of like that whole like internalizing

16:06

his voice thing. A

16:09

few years later, Philip would win a Rhodes scholarship

16:11

then go on to become a doctor. But

16:13

he's talking about when he was sixteen years old,

16:16

just another kid trying to meet this coach's

16:18

great expectations. One

16:22

night, his team lost in the championship

16:24

game of a tournament. It was a game

16:26

they all knew they should have won. So this bus

16:28

ride was just a miserable, quiet experience, I'm

16:30

sure, with all of us just pouting in

16:33

listening to our walkman's and trying

16:36

not to laugh too loud if anybody said anything, because

16:38

that would have just sent him off the handle. But

16:41

we got back to locker room, and we would get into the

16:43

locker room like always and sit around

16:45

and wait for a while while he collected his thoughts. It

16:50

was like sitting at the base of Vesuvius

16:53

watching the smoke, waiting, and

16:56

he came in and we had gotten a

16:58

trophy for winning a second place, which was a

17:00

pretty big trophy. Anyhow,

17:02

maybe two feet tie off the table

17:05

there and they're just sitting on the table, and he

17:07

came in and paint

17:09

around a little bit like he was typically going

17:11

to do when jingled the coins in his pocket,

17:14

and pause every now

17:16

and again and just make eye contact

17:18

with one of us and then probably

17:21

like you know, do like a halfway side

17:23

xho and keep the pacing going. And he did

17:26

that for a minute or two to build a suspense, and then he

17:28

just said, y'all know what I think

17:30

a second place and he picked

17:32

up the trophy. You felt the

17:34

heat before you saw the fire. Everyone

17:37

in that room felt it. I

17:39

bet everyone in that room still feels it.

17:45

I remember it like yesterday. There was a humongous

17:47

trophy. It was really nice. That's

17:50

Randy Livingston. He was on that team

17:52

too. He'd go on to become

17:54

Gatorade National Player of the Year, the best

17:57

basketball player in the entire country.

17:59

He'd played for eleven years in the NBA,

18:02

but Fitz never treated him differently. He

18:05

treated him as just another identity to be

18:07

created. He literally

18:10

smashed that trophy into

18:12

pieces and just said, we're

18:14

not playing for second place, and I will

18:16

never forget the head. You know, back

18:18

in the day that had the man on the top of the trophy

18:21

and he's in a shooting or he's in a standing position.

18:24

The head of that trophy miss one of the players

18:26

head by inches and it would

18:28

have wiped him out. That's how forceful

18:31

he smashed that trophy.

18:34

The little man on top of the big trophy went

18:36

flying through the air. Different

18:39

kids reacted differently to the eruption. That

18:41

was a memorable one because I think there

18:43

were some kids who maybe left a team over that. In fact,

18:46

but I thought it was great. I

18:48

didn't want to be second place either. Several

18:50

kids actually told their parents about

18:53

the trophy that Fits had demolished. Something

18:56

had changed. These

18:58

moments were no longer just things

19:00

that happened between a coach and his players.

19:02

A third party had entered the

19:04

conversation. It must be some level

19:07

of just

19:09

just discomfort with that much

19:11

intensity, because it is really intense. I mean he was

19:14

a really intense guy then, but I know there are some

19:16

kids who left the team or whatever had issues

19:18

or the parents, you know, speaking for their kids. So I'm

19:20

not letting you play for that guy. He's a maniac. But

19:24

for me and many of others, I think it more kind

19:26

of stealed our resolve. I mean to say, yeah, this

19:28

is this is something we can do. We

19:30

can do better than this, we can

19:33

do better than this. That

19:35

was how I had felt. But now some

19:37

kids didn't feel that way, and

19:39

they must have sensed that the coach was vulnerable.

19:42

Because if you took his most dramatic

19:44

moments and you replayed them in your family kitchen,

19:47

they felt different than they had in the locker

19:49

room. Taking anything out of context can

19:51

make it different in terms of how people interpret

19:53

it. And I think we had essentially signed

19:55

up for it, and we had all, you

19:58

know, voted with our feet and said like,

20:00

we're okay with this. We want to

20:03

you know, work together as a team and see what we can

20:05

accomplish.

20:08

Would did you do? What did you do with the pieces of the trophy?

20:11

So yeah, the little man who is at the top

20:14

of any basketball trophy, that's just sitting there with

20:16

a ball getting ready to shoot, he went flying intact,

20:18

but he separated from the trophy and went flying

20:20

off and landed in the lap of the guy

20:23

next to me, and we stuck him

20:25

up on the ducting of the air

20:27

conditioning that we could all reach as tall guys,

20:29

and we just tapped him on the way out the door every

20:31

time for the rest of the season, a sort of a reminder,

20:34

let's just play our best game, touching

20:37

the little man on the way out the door. They

20:40

played better and better. They end

20:42

up winning the Louisiana State championship,

20:45

which shocked even them. Then they

20:47

do it again the next year and the year

20:49

after that. Their higher

20:51

standard becomes second nature, but

20:54

only for the players who stayed and

20:56

let the coach work his magic. The

20:59

players who left, well, they missed

21:01

out, but they gave you a hint

21:03

where the world was heading. More

21:08

than a decade passes, it's

21:10

now two thousand and three. I

21:13

get two phone calls about Billy Fitzgerald,

21:15

one right after the other, David

21:19

Pointer calling from Michael David.

21:22

The first comes from a former Newman basketball

21:24

player named David Pointer. How are

21:26

you? He set out to raise the money to remodel

21:29

the school Jim and name it for

21:31

coach Fitzgerald. Because it's

21:33

fitz David finds the fundraising

21:35

easy. You know, fitz didn't sit down

21:37

and put on a blackboard the values

21:40

that he thought he needed to impart

21:42

upon us. And maybe

21:44

ten years later we finally figured out what those

21:47

values were. Former

21:49

players said things to David. He

21:51

taught me life. Parents

21:53

said things to David like he

21:56

did all the hard work all in.

21:58

Couldn't agree with you more. Can't

22:01

believe the school is letting you do it, Which

22:03

brings me to the second phone call from

22:05

a former teammate of mine. He

22:07

said he'd heard that the Newman School was on the verge

22:10

of firing Billy Fitzgerald. Some

22:13

parents had complained to the headmaster. The

22:15

headmaster was sympathetic. How

22:18

did Newman get itself into the position

22:20

where it listened to those parents? Oh,

22:23

fundraising. I don't

22:25

think it's Newman in particular to you.

22:27

No, I think it's money gets

22:30

money. It was the money, but

22:32

it was more than the money. It

22:34

was about what people think coaches are for.

22:40

I flew back to New Orleans to try to make

22:42

sense of the situation. Eight

22:44

parents of current players had formed a

22:46

coalition. A few of them

22:48

were rich people who might give the school a lot of money.

22:51

They'd gone to the headmaster to complain, but

22:53

not about anything Coach Fits had done. That

22:56

was one of the strange things about the situation,

22:59

because it turned out coach Fits it sort of

23:01

mellowed. His days of breaking

23:03

trophies were now over. His crime

23:05

seemed to be that he held kids

23:08

accountable, suspended them when

23:10

they violated training rules, for example, or

23:12

pointed out that they put on ten pounds of fat

23:14

when they promised to lose fifteen. The

23:17

other odd thing was that one of his teams

23:20

had just won the Louisiana State baseball

23:22

championship. In sports,

23:24

it's almost a natural law. Winning

23:26

teams are happy and losing teams

23:29

are not. After the fact,

23:31

everyone says the team won because of its

23:33

great chemistry. But which usually happened is that

23:35

winning has just made everybody like each other more.

23:38

But here was a team that had just won it all

23:41

and it was falling apart. It

23:48

was Marti Gras time at the time. I remember

23:50

her. You know, there was drinking

23:53

going on. There were young kids that were doing things they

23:55

shouldn't have been doing, just like anywhere. Jeremy

23:58

Blish was a junior on Newman's winning baseball

24:00

team that year. It was

24:02

a Lord of the Flies situation and he

24:04

was Ralph Piggy and

24:06

a few of the other younger players were on his side,

24:09

but scared to say it because the older

24:11

players, the seniors, were

24:13

in revolt. You know, as high schoolers, we signed

24:15

training rules that said we wouldn't drink like

24:18

that's that's asinine to begin with,

24:21

right, So anyway, so we signed training

24:23

rules to not drink alcohol

24:25

at sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen years old. You

24:27

mean it's asinine because you shouldn't have to sign a document

24:30

exactly, like who should

24:32

be drinking like that in public? Who should

24:34

be drinking like that? Whatever? That's not you

24:36

know, right, it's not my kids or whatever. But my point

24:38

is is, like fits did

24:41

held people accountable for

24:44

for rules broken? And

24:47

yeah, was there some vulgarity involved?

24:49

Of course? Was there some talks

24:52

where they were intense? Absolutely?

24:57

So, yes, this is New Orleans and

25:00

coach Fitz asked his students to

25:02

forego their god given right to get

25:04

shitfaced during Marty Raw. But

25:06

this kid, Jeremy Blish,

25:08

he wasn't some anti social leader

25:10

of a child temperance movement. He

25:13

just wanted to commit to really

25:15

work hard at something. His

25:18

dad was a five foot six inch cardiologist.

25:21

No one in his family had ever played sports,

25:24

but Coach Fitz was teaching him how to push himself

25:26

as he had never done before. And looking

25:29

back, I had no idea what my identity was,

25:31

right, I mean, we're we still look for these

25:33

things every day. But it was a perfect

25:35

opportunity to put your foot down and

25:37

say, no, this is what I want to do. You

25:40

know, I'm Jeremy Blish and my identity

25:42

is I want to go play college baseball.

25:44

You know, I want to put myself in the best

25:46

position to try and play college baseball. So

25:48

I took a chance. I took a chance

25:50

on an identity that at that point I had no tangible

25:53

feeling of what it was. Coach

25:57

Fitz had something important to say to his players,

26:00

and Jeremy was internalizing it. The

26:03

message was always the same, and it was always

26:05

consistent, don't be good, be great at

26:07

the end of the phone call. Until years ago,

26:09

until I was in pitching in San Francisco

26:11

for the ace, don't be good, be great. Jeremy

26:18

wound up not only going to Stanford on a

26:21

baseball scholarship, but being a

26:23

first round draft pick of the New York Yankees,

26:26

he would one day pitch in the big leagues. On

26:29

his high school team, he was by far the

26:31

best player. In a normal

26:33

environment, his teammates would have been following his lead.

26:36

But this was no longer a normal

26:38

environment. Now

27:00

I want to tell you my second story about Coach

27:02

Fits, or second incident. It's

27:04

nineteen seventy six, nine months after

27:07

I've established myself as a hero in

27:09

my own mind, I'm now

27:11

a high school sophomore pitching

27:13

for the varsity baseball team. Early

27:15

in the season, during Mardi Gras break, I

27:18

leave New Orleans with my parents. We're

27:21

going on a ski trip and I'm going to miss a week

27:23

of practice. There's

27:25

no written rule that says you can't do

27:28

this. It's school break, but I

27:30

sense an unwritten one. Coach

27:33

Fits is not pleased. The

27:35

day I return, he throws me right into a game

27:37

against a really good team. The look

27:39

on his face as he hands me the ball says, I

27:41

hope it goes well if you're out there, but it really shouldn't.

27:46

It doesn't go well. I

27:48

can't find the plate up to that

27:50

moment. Fitz has not said one

27:52

word to me about my ski trip. But

27:55

as I throw ball three, I hear his

27:57

voice. Where was

28:00

Michael Lewis during

28:02

Marty Gras the voice

28:04

booms from our dugout, I

28:06

try not to look at him, but out of the corner of my eye, I

28:08

can see him pacing, jangling

28:10

the keys in his pocket. I

28:13

walk the first batter and the second.

28:16

Now he's really hollering. Everyone

28:18

else was at practice, but where

28:21

was Michael Lewis? The

28:24

other team can hear him, The people

28:26

in the stands can hear him. More to

28:28

the point I can hear him,

28:30

and all I can think is, please,

28:33

don't say skiing, Please,

28:37

I'll tell you where Michael Lewis was

28:40

skiing. He packs

28:42

into that single word an idea

28:44

that usually requires an entire speech

28:47

for him to convey. Privilege

28:50

corrupts. You're always

28:52

doing what money can buy instead of what duty

28:54

demands. You're always

28:57

skiing. You're

28:59

living your life as if nothing matters so

29:01

much that you should suffer for it.

29:05

But now something does matter to me so

29:07

much that I will suffer for it. Baseball,

29:11

or more exactly, coach fits.

29:14

He's pouring himself into me. And

29:16

even the fifteen year old me, in

29:18

rare moments of clarity, even I

29:21

can see the positive effects.

29:24

But there in the dugout, my coach

29:26

is still on a roll. Can

29:29

someone please tell me why

29:31

Michael Lewis thinks it's okay

29:34

to leave town and go

29:37

and go. Please

29:39

don't say skiing again. That's

29:44

my final thought before the one hopper back

29:46

to the mound hits me in the face and knocks

29:49

me out. When I

29:51

come to, I'm looking up at Coach

29:53

fits. My nose

29:55

is broken in five places. But

29:57

I do not feel wronged. I

30:00

feel cared for in a new

30:02

way by this coach.

30:05

I mean he cares enough to save

30:08

me from a lifetime. I was skiing on

30:11

the way to the hospital. I tell my mother that the

30:13

next time the family goes skiing or

30:15

any place else, they'll be going without

30:17

me, and she just smiles because

30:21

I think she kind of gets it, all

30:23

right. I want to talk about what happened between

30:25

the time I left Newman School and

30:28

the time I came back, what had changed parents.

30:32

In the middle of the crisis with his state championship

30:35

baseball team back in two thousand and three,

30:37

I found Billy Fitzgerald in his office

30:39

alive. Surprisingly, parents,

30:42

parents and the culture. So how

30:44

many games did your mom and dad come

30:47

to? Well, how many

30:49

games did in that period did

30:51

the parents come to? Well, not only did they come

30:54

to the games and you

30:57

sit on the sidelines

31:01

and on the fences, but they

31:03

were coming to practice, and they were

31:05

wanting to know what you were running and why you were

31:07

running it, why are you calling that pitch?

31:12

If he sounds more relaxed then you

31:14

expected, it's in part because he

31:16

truly had mellowed. On the other

31:18

hand, he'd always had the ability

31:20

to seem extremely calm, which

31:23

was why it was so unsettling when he wasn't

31:27

all of a sudden. You have parents doing things they

31:29

weren't doing before. It's

31:32

not only that, it's the

31:35

assumption that they

31:38

know how to coach.

31:41

So they got more and more involved

31:43

in their kids little league

31:46

and you know, bitty league basketball

31:48

and whatever else, and so they

31:51

became these experts

31:55

where they thought that

31:58

it was their right to

32:00

say, well, you know, my son

32:02

ought to be hit, and third, I mean, you

32:05

know, he crushes the ball. It

32:07

just got crazy. So

32:09

what's the price the kids pay for this?

32:12

Oh my god? Well, They're caught literally

32:15

in the middle, and there is absolutely

32:18

no way out. The kid was

32:20

trapped, you know. And I tried

32:23

to tell kids, Look, I love

32:25

my dad, but I knew my dad

32:27

didn't know everything about everything,

32:30

and you have to decide,

32:33

you know, for yourself, how

32:36

you're going to manage this, and they

32:38

couldn't. Obviously

32:44

I had questions, and I'm sure you do too.

32:47

What I wanted to know was what happened each

32:49

time he was hauled into the headmaster's office.

32:51

What happened in there at the same time he's

32:53

being memorialized on the school gym.

32:56

Walk me through what that looked like if I was a

32:58

fly on the wall just watching what

33:00

happens in those meetings. So

33:04

I walk in and it's

33:07

just the two of us, and I

33:10

intentionally walk in under

33:13

the guise of you

33:16

are going to remain calm, you

33:18

are not going to raise your voice,

33:21

you are going to have a civil conversation,

33:23

but you are going to set the record straight

33:26

as well. Then I

33:29

basically am

33:31

listening to the headmasters

33:34

say that several parents

33:36

have come in and one

33:38

parent says you said

33:40

his son was fat. Another

33:44

says, you belittled my

33:47

son in the baseball

33:49

meeting that you had after

33:52

the last game of the season, and

33:55

it goes on. It's a kind of a rap sheet.

33:57

It is. It is a rap sheet. I'd

34:00

present the other side of the story, but the

34:02

other side never left the shadows. No

34:05

one who wanted to coach fired ever confronted

34:08

him in person or in writing. They're

34:10

a bunch of well to do people used to having their

34:12

way, and so they took their case straight to the

34:14

higher court where money could

34:16

buy a decision. They

34:19

never even tried to grapple with the coach himself

34:21

or what he stood for. My job,

34:24

as I perceived it was,

34:27

Look, I've got to educate you on how

34:29

to swing, how to throw, how

34:31

to work a hitter, you know, But

34:34

I'm also teaching you that, hey,

34:37

you know you're going to strike out, You're gonna fail

34:40

in life, and you've got to find a

34:42

way to deal with the failure

34:44

and use the failure to get better

34:47

and to be successful. So

34:50

I didn't feel like I could let anybody

34:52

off the hook. Well, the minute you let

34:54

them off the hook, you lose the ability to teach

34:56

them about the failure exactly.

34:59

That's the that's the big issue, and not letting

35:01

them off the hook makes

35:03

them uncomfortable, right, and making them uncomfortable

35:06

is what nobody is comfortable is nobody

35:08

wants see us. The

35:13

office in which i'd found Coach fits all

35:15

those years ago, Well, it looked more

35:17

like a closet. The gym was

35:19

still under construction, and plaques with

35:22

inspirational quotes were stacked in a box

35:24

by his desk. I pulled

35:26

one out, Victor Frankel's

35:29

famous line, what is

35:31

to give light must endure

35:33

burning? Coach

35:36

Fitz laughed, but not a happy laugh,

35:38

and said we won't be

35:40

putting that one up again. Before

35:47

I left him, I couldn't

35:49

resist asking about the stories about him

35:51

we'd told his kids. Was it

35:53

true? Did he really walk home across

35:55

New Orleans every night in his catcher's gear after

35:58

his team lost? Had

36:00

he really gone after Rusty Stab? And

36:03

did he really fight Pete Marovitch with Marevich's

36:05

dad hanging from his back? I

36:08

got about halfway through trying to fact check

36:10

my middle school life, and

36:13

then he started to laugh at me. What

36:15

fool would walk across New Orleans in his

36:17

catcher's gear? He asked, why

36:19

would he get in a fight with Rusty Stab? They

36:22

went to the same school, and fitz

36:24

was in the eighth grade when Stab was a senior. Billy

36:28

Fitzgerald was scary enough in real life,

36:31

but we'd made him even scarier because

36:34

we needed him to be of

36:43

one thing. I am totally certain

36:45

if I'd never met Coach Fitz, I'd have never

36:47

become a writer. It

36:50

would have felt too risky, too

36:52

hard. But

36:54

I became a writer, and eventually I wrote

36:57

up the story of Coach Fitz, first

36:59

for the New York Times magazine and then as a little

37:01

book. Writing's

37:03

hard to predict. You work on something

37:05

and then you throw it out there at readers or

37:08

listeners, and either they get what you

37:10

mean or they don't. A

37:12

long time ago, Coach Fitz

37:14

sent me a poem that makes a connection

37:17

between writing and pitching. It's

37:19

called The Pitcher by the American

37:21

poet Robert Francis. Here's

37:23

how it ends. The others

37:26

throw to be comprehended. He

37:28

throws to be a moment misunderstood

37:31

yet not too much, not errant,

37:34

errant, wild, but every

37:36

seeming aberration, willed, not

37:39

too yet still still

37:41

to communicate, making the batter

37:43

understand too late. A

37:52

picture, like a writer is delivering a message.

37:55

Both want the message understood, if

37:57

in different ways. That

38:00

essay I published about Coach fitz made

38:02

the batter understand too late, and

38:06

it generated this fantastic outrage

38:09

not towards the coach who pushed kids

38:11

harder than they ever been pushed, towards

38:14

the people hoping to get the coach fired. They

38:17

got run out of town. More or less. The

38:20

headmaster left the school too, and

38:23

the school created a committee to find a

38:25

new headmaster and put Billy Fitzgerald

38:27

in charge of it. This

38:35

is where it all started, right here for

38:38

us eighth grade, nineteen seventy two.

38:40

So another decade passes. Twenty

38:43

fourteen brings the retirement ceremony

38:45

for coach Billy Fitzgerald. Hundreds

38:48

of people fly or drive to the Newman

38:50

School. So many people turn

38:52

up that they need to move it outdoors. The

38:56

ceremony is held on the same basketball

38:58

court where I first watched him

39:00

holler and read from the collected works of

39:02

Bobby Knight, just around the corner

39:04

from the gym now named for Billy

39:07

Fitzgerald, that you're going to coach,

39:10

teacher, co worker, and athletic

39:12

director. The four of us are here

39:14

tonight to tell you that you've been a great father. People

39:17

get up and say what he meant to their lives. Thank

39:20

you. Then

39:24

it's the coach's turn at the podium

39:27

and he talks about coaching. I

39:30

happen to believe that coaching is teaching

39:32

in its most perfect and rewarding form,

39:36

no matter the sport, coaches

39:38

give information, wait for a

39:40

response, and then

39:42

give feedback that response. But

39:46

as my career progressed, I

39:49

came to believe that coaching means

39:51

finding ways to awaken our

39:54

students to new and

39:56

different possibilities. You

39:59

can see this awakening in students

40:01

eyes as they begin to

40:03

reach those possibilities. So

40:07

I'm a firm believer in Gerda

40:09

quote. Treat a man as he is,

40:12

and he remains as he is. Treat

40:14

a man as he can and should be, and

40:16

he will become as he can and should

40:19

be. This has been

40:21

an incredible run and

40:23

I can't thank you enough.

40:26

Thank you, coach.

40:37

It's really not a job for just anyone.

40:40

Oh anyone can step into the role, of course

40:42

and call himself a coach. But

40:45

it's like a tight rubber suit. It

40:47

takes on the shape whoever's in it.

40:49

It hides nothing. It

40:52

expands and contracts with the character of

40:54

the person who wears it. In

40:56

this case, the man makes the

40:58

clothes. This

41:05

is a strange thing, man. The

41:07

things that I remember about Bill. One of the things that

41:09

I remember happened, what maybe five

41:12

years ago. Harold Sylvester

41:14

had gone back to New Orleans for a funeral

41:16

of her friend. He'd walked into

41:18

the church and found himself face to face

41:20

with the man who had seared himself into his imagination

41:24

back in nineteen sixty five in

41:26

a basketball game played in an empty

41:28

gym, and Bill came up, and you

41:30

know, we chat up a little bit, and he said, yeah, hey,

41:33

man, I am a little sorry for

41:35

the way things went down. You know back

41:38

in the day. What was he apologizing

41:40

for. He was apologizing

41:42

for the times. But he said, you

41:45

know, I'm sorry for what you had to go through. And

41:48

when he said it, I was surprised.

41:51

I don't remember ever having a conversation

41:53

about race. And I always

41:55

thought that Bill was fair. You

41:58

know, I have no qualms,

42:00

you know about his toughness or his

42:03

attitude or whatever it was. I admired

42:05

him. But bottom line

42:07

is the fact that he said it. Lady

42:11

who could rise a March. You

42:14

know, in my opinion, he

42:17

was a good guy. He's a good guy to have

42:19

as a friend. I'm

42:30

Michael Lewis. Thanks for listening to Against

42:32

the Rules. Against the Rules is brought

42:35

to you by Pushkin Industries. The

42:37

show's produced by Audrey Dilling

42:39

and Catherine Girodo, with research

42:41

assistance from Lydia Jeancott and

42:43

Zooe Wynn. Our editor is

42:45

Julia Barton Mio o'bell

42:48

is our executive producer. Our theme

42:50

was composed by Nick Brittell, with additional

42:52

scoring by Stellwagon Sinphonette.

42:55

We got fact checked by Beth Johnson. Our

42:57

show was recorded by tofur Ruth and Trey

42:59

Schultz at Northgate Studios in Berkeley.

43:02

Special thanks to the Isidore Newman

43:04

School for providing audio for this

43:06

episode. As always

43:09

thanks to Pushkins founders Jacob

43:12

Weisberg and Malcolm Gladwell. We're

43:24

down there on the baseline and all of

43:26

a sudden, Billy were asked back and

43:28

punch Us Bogs in the head. You

43:31

know, he just knocks the shit out of him. Uh,

43:34

you know, and I'm saying I'm looking around, you

43:36

know, I mean they gonna Remi's pretty

43:38

big, and and you know, my

43:40

four black friends were gone, you

43:43

know, And and I'm there sensitive

43:45

by myself, and so so all I

43:47

see is Billy hitting

43:50

peak and then the lsu Ben's

43:52

rising up and coming at us um.

43:55

And that was it what precipitated

43:58

this, Like, why did Billy punch

44:00

Pete Merrims, I asked,

44:02

Billy, you know why

44:04

not? We we had heard that story.

44:07

We had heard a story where he had gotten in a fight, start

44:09

a fight with Pete Marrivage and

44:12

that there was you know, that he was punching

44:14

marriage and Press Marriviach was on his back

44:16

and it was just like and

44:18

and I went and asked him about it because

44:20

I knew about it when I was playing for him. It was like part

44:23

of the legend of Billy Fitzgerald. And

44:25

he said, and he said to me that never

44:27

happened. Holy

44:30

shit, So

44:34

it did happen.