The Coach - Part One

*** Three: The Coach.

My first day in the gym did not go well at all. Liam ignored me most of the time and when he did pay attention to me, he yelled at me for not trying harder and then to top it all, he insulted me. By lunch time I was exhausted, disheartened and very upset.
After lunch, I went to see him in his office. I knocked and heard him call for me to come in. As I walked in, he looked up from the work he was doing at his desk and frowned.

“What are you doing here?” He asked. “You should be resting. Training begins again in . ,” he glanced at his wrist watch, “. . . in another hour.”
He went back to his paper work.
“We need to talk,” I said.
“About what?” He asked without looking up, his attention still on the papers in front of him. “And I hardly think you’re in a position to dictate to me.”
“The way you treated me this morning,” I said, “I noticed that you didn’t treat the other guys the same as me.”

He put his pen down and looked up at me.
“Really,” he said grimly. “So tell me, what was so different about my treatment of you as opposed to the other men.”
“Well,” I began. “for one thing, you yelled at me the whole time and then you insulted me.”
“Really?” He said, his voice cold. “And how did I insult you, pray tell?”
“You told me that you’d seen a better cruciform from a sewer rat!” I said, regretting this confrontation now. I was beginning to sound petty.
“Yes, I remember,” he said calmly. “Perhaps I said it because I might have seen a sewer rat perform better. What is your point?”

I stared at him aghast. He was going out of his way to be nasty to me. I changed tack.
“Liam,” I asked, “why are you doing this? I thought you were my friend.”

He stood up and came around to the front of the desk. He stopped in front of me and glared at me, his eyes icy cold.
“Now you listen to me Kevin, very carefully,” he began, his voice hard. “Whether we’re friends or not is not the issue here. I’ve seen you perform and I know what you are capable of. The nationals are coming up and I would like Middleton to do well. Don’t you understand that you are the best damn gymnast on our team now and I need you to be in top form and what I saw out there this morning was crap. You were distracted and you did not have one iota of focus. Whatever was going on in that thick skull of yours was affecting how you perform. Get rid of it, dump it and for God’s sake, concentrate.”

I stared at him speechless. I had to admit that he was right to a degree. I had been a little distracted because my mind had been on him most of the time, but that did not mean that he had to insult me or for that matter yell at me like he did.
“So,” he said and went back behind his desk, “there you have it. Purge your mind and focus on what you’re doing, and maybe I won’t yell at you, okay?”
I nodded but inwardly my thoughts were in turmoil. How can I ‘purge’ my mind when the object of my distraction was there constantly.
“Go on,” he said, “go rest up, you’ll need it.”

I turned dumbly and opened the door.
“And Kev,” he continued, “just because we’re friends, don’t expect me to make any concessions for you. You will work hard, harder in fact than any of the other guys, because I expect it of you.”
I nodded again.
“One more thing, Kev,” he said, “I hope that we can remain friends. It would distress me to think that you didn’t consider me as such anymore.”

I stared at him silently wanting to tell him that I hoped that we could be more than friends but I knew that I couldn’t.
“Friends?” He asked.
“Friends,” I confirmed and left his office.
I was beginning to realize that being coached by him was going to be hell.