Mtr Mary Trainor

Dear friend,

Cool Coach Carl.

It’s what everyone called him, from the most misbehaving student in our school to the most sophisticated member of our board.

And Carl was cool, in that Rudyard-Kipling-“If”sort of way: he could “walk with kings nor lose the common touch.”

My office window overlooked the basketball court. That’s how I came to know how cool Carl was. Our students were remarkable in many ways, but they didn’t fit in most places. Behavior and low academics produced students who had failed time and again. They were angry and disappointed. They hated school.

But they loved being on that basketball court with Cool Coach Carl. He was street smart, tough, yet also gentle. He was authentic and never lied to them, as so many before him had done. Carl was who they wanted to be. He was the real deal, a truth they could recognize even at their age and after all they’d been through.

 The Office Gospel today (Mark 15:33-39) recounts the crucifixion of Jesus in very specific detail. Jesus cries out to his Father. He is mockingly offered sour wine. The Temple curtain is torn in two. Jesus takes his last breath.

And a Roman centurion, whose job was to stand facing Jesus, sees something that changed his life and changed history. He recognizes that “Truly this man was God’s Son!”

An encounter with Jesus can be life-altering. Things that never seemed possible are now doable. Old ways are mended, and new patterns taken up. We may look the same on the outside, but our insides are changed forever. People may sense the difference without ever understanding its source.

We came to know it was that way for Carl. He died at age 42 of pancreatic cancer. He had no family except for some very frail, elderly aunts in rural Mississippi, who could not make the trip for a funeral. With no family to plan a service, his friends at the school cobbled together readings and songs, some people spoke, and we arranged for a military honor guard.

It fell to some to clean out Carl’s apartment. The place was what one might imagine a bachelor’s quarters would look like, or at least a bachelor who would rather be watching a Lakers game than washing a dish. 

There were no frills. We saw no art on the walls. Until, that is, we entered the bedroom. It took a moment to notice. A small picture frame—maybe five by seven—hung on the wall facing the side of the bed, at what was probably eye level.

And there we found it, the source of Carl’s cool, the inspiration that led him to dedicate his life to helping the toughest kids imaginable.

It was a yellowing certificate from a church in Mississippi some thirty years earlier. It documented the time, date and place of Carl’s baptism.

This was the only art on Cool Coach Carl’s walls. Apparently it was the only art he needed to see.

Mtr. Mary