Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Punishment Run

I don't know much about the Washaun Ealy situation. In fact, I've only just read about it in the past ten minutes. But, I certainly don't understand it.

February, 2000 - One frigid morning, at 4:30 am, my alarm went off. I should have jumped out of bed, grabbed my morning breakfast (a banana) and headed off to Butts-Mehre. That's what I should have done. What I did was hit snooze. Three times. By the time I actually got to the locker room, the team was already on the field, and any hopes of me sneaking in after stretching and no-one noticing was gone. I trotted down to the field and jumped in with my group. No one said a word. I went through the entire workout, pushed through every drill. At the end of the workout, Coach Donnan called the team together and praised us for what we'd done. Then he said, "Dukes, see Coach Fears about being late."

I hadn't gotten away with anything.

Coach Fears told me to come back in the afternoon, after my classes were done. So, I did. I put on my workout gear and reported to the weight room. He walked me out onto the practice fields and said, "Start Running." I asked "when do I stop?" His reply: "When I tell you to." I started running laps around the three fields. Now, these fields were stacked horizontally...meaning I was covering between 550 and 600 yards per lap. Sixteen laps in, I saw Coach Fears emerge from Butts-Mehre. As I rounded what I thought to be the final turn, he had a smile on his face. "Keep up the pace." That was all. I kept running. At lap 20, Mark Kirschbaum (and I know I'm demolishing his name) came out...and laughed. I was finishing lap 24 when Coach Fears came back out and said simply, "you're done." Sweating and exhausted I grabbed the water bottle he had in his hand. "You gonna be late again?" he asked.

Never.

And for the remainder of my career, I never was.


So, like I said, I don't understand Washaun's situation. How is it that someone can continue to screw up? Isn't that the whole point of punishment?

GO Dawgs.

4 comments:

Booger Presley said...

Ben, it takes some people a little more to be broken. We will see if he wants to fall in line and see his potential. He could carry the ball a lot the next couple years and at the next level or he could join Quincey. We'll see. Life goes on for the rest of us either way.

Unknown said...

Ben, I think that you are absolutely right. And that's something ,considering you and I used to josh about all manner of things in the laundry room at Creswell Hall. I'm not sure how it is possible that players aren't disciplined immediately when they do something stupid or aren't following the mandates of the coaches. Everyone knows if you don't start disciplining when the problem crops up, it'll be too late to start later. Setting standards are not a bad thing, but you have to have the guts to stick to them and make sure that everyone follows them; be they the journeymen or the supposed "superstars". Of course, you would think that all of those kids playing would know you don't get something for nothing. In any case, hopefully things will turn out better this upcoming year. Since this year's recruiting class is supposed to be ranked in the top ten. Of course if it doesn't, then I guess I'll be lamenting like my brother, cousin and sister-in-law do about there alma mater the Clemson Tigers. :) Go DAWGS, Sic 'Em

Ben Dukes said...

Kimberly...thank you for acknowledging that I actually know how to do my laundry. There are those who wouldn't give me that kind of credit. : )

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