The Line Was Long

Summer was making a late season surge, and I was running late. 

In the past year alone, I’ve made this drive more often than I’d like. The players and students from my first years in coaching are starting to get older. Their parents even more so. As much as I love catching up, I hate that these reunions keep taking place at the funeral home. 

The drive was not unlike the others, but the feeling inside was different. 

This was the first time I would say goodbye to a former assistant coach. 

Mortality has a curious way of introducing itself in new ways as we age. I have more or less come to terms with the passing of my parents and others of their generation. However, losing a colleague with whom I once shared the sideline is a no-so-subtle reminder that my generation might not be immediately on-deck, but we are surely in the hole.

I was thinking about this as I pulled up Mulberry Avenue where I first encountered The Line. Despite temperatures approaching 100 degrees, scores of people stood patiently, waiting to pay their respects to the family of a beloved coach and educator.

I wish she could have seen it.

Coach Bashore worked in the district for decades. She marshaled students through the elementary school, and years later, she marshaled their kids. She helped wherever she was needed, and had a particular knack for telling students and players what they needed to hear. Her honesty had a blunt force to it, but as many a player can attest, nearly all found themselves wrapped in a hug before the conversation was over.

One former player described her this way, “She was the one who taught me I don’t handle tough love well and hugged me so hard I think I can still feel it. I could ALWAYS count on her to listen when I had something to say, and then tell me exactly what I NEEDED to hear. She was kind and loving.”

As I made my way to the end of the line, nearly two blocks from the entrance of the funeral home, I reconnected with a number of familiar faces. It didn’t take long to realize that this player’s description of Coach Bashore was common to everyone that worked with her, played for her, or found themselves under her care at school.  

And now we were all there, sweating together, to say goodbye to one who left an indelible mark on us all.

On my way home I thought about the seasons we coached together, having her kids in class, and the stories others shared with me as we waited in line. It was obvious that there will never be another one quite like her, but in her passing, she left me with one final inspiration...

The Line.

The Line was evidence of a life lived on purpose, a life lived in full authenticity, and always for others. Her husband's words kept ringing in my ears, “She was always about them kids.” This was simply who she was, and The Line was her legacy.

It was exactly what I hope to leave behind someday - a line of individuals whose lives were somehow better because I was in it.

The start of the school year is always hectic, and truth be told, I am underwater with things to do. There are emails that await responses, basketball schedules that need to be finished, podcasts to edit, and kids to shuttle from one place to another. It can be suffocating. 

However, it was precisely when the tyranny of the urgent threatened to overwhelm that I needed to be part of that line. I needed the visceral reminder of why we do what we do. 

My friend TJ Rosene likes to remind coaches that we are sowers. We cast seeds that, when done right, will produce a harvest long beyond our years. Sometimes those seeds take root right away. Other times they take years to grow, and some never find the soil at all… and yet we sow.
We sow because one day the fruit will be found in The Line, whether we see it for ourselves or not.

Food for thought.

Nate Sanderson