Chapter 24

Vince picked me up at nine the next morning. We had a two-hour drive to Conway ahead of us. Conway is just inland from Myrtle Beach. If Myrtle Beach isn’t the official home of snowbirds, traveling south to avoid snow and cold weather, then it must be someplace in Florida. Conway didn’t have all the crowds and congestion but it was still close to some fantastic beaches and more miniature golf courses than anywhere else on the east coast.

We cleared Charleston’s downtown traffic, heading north on Highway 17 toward Georgetown where we’d angle inland a bit. Vince’s Volvo wasn’t sporty but it was comfortable.

“Hey,” Vince said, “Did you know the ‘A’ in Volvo stands for aerodynamic?”

“There’s not ‘A’ in, ah. It’s not aerodynamic, either. Do you know why pirates are called pirates?”

“No idea.”

“They just arrrrrr.”

“Okay. I won’t tell any more bad jokes if you don’t.”

“That’s the only kind I know, Vince.”

Vince told me all the good things about Notre Dame and the list was long. He really liked the school. The only thing missing was Lani. Coastal Carolina wasn’t on the same level but he planned on transferring there while Lani finished high school and they could sort through their plans together.

He asked about how Kim and I had made such a serious decision. I told him that at first, I tried to imagine life with Kim and that was a challenge. It didn’t take long before I couldn’t imagine a life without her. Same for her. I told him we talked about everything and were genuinely concerned with each other’s goals and happiness and stuff. The turning point for us, I thought, was when Kim challenged me to change my thinking from ‘if’ to ‘when’.

“A simple word change?”

“Made all the difference. The word ‘if’ lets you off the hook. The word ‘when’ locks things in.” I told him about getting ten acres from Ronnie and buying acreage next to it, then all the planning and work we’d already done.”

“You built a run-in for horses seven years before you need it?”

“We use it to store a Bobcat and some other tools, just to keep them dry and stuff. We’ll run electricity to it in the spring, I think.”

“I’m still trying to figure out my major.”

“I thought you’d settled on neuroscience,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’m having second thoughts. There’s the anatomy and physiology of it, which can go down the road toward research or medicine. Then, there’s the psychiatry of it.”

“Sort of like the difference between the brain and the mind,” I said.

“Exactly. I could decide to study it. Or, I could go to medical school and learn how to surgically fix it. Or, I could go to school to become a psychiatrist to treat the brain medically, or become a psychologist to treat it therapeutically.”

“But either way, you have to learn how it works,” I said.

“That’s the part that fascinates me. After that, I’m not sure which way to go. I have a hard time imagining sitting with a pad and pencil in hand telling the guy on the couch to tell me about your mother.”

“You know, when I was working for Hector, doing landscaping, when we got done with a yard, we could look at it and know we were done. It was satisfying. I dug a pond for a guy and came back a couple of weeks later to see his pond full of water, a pump going, and fish swimming in it.”

“I can see that would be satisfying but how does that help me?”

“If you became a psychologist, you’d try to treat their dysfunction with therapy, right?”

“Essentially.”

“How do you know when you’re done?”

He thought about that for a long time and we rode in silence. I watched the empty basket stands on the side of the road flash by. During tourist season, local women with Gullah roots weave Sweetwater baskets. They sell them from stands by the side of the road and since a lot of people get to Charleston from the north, there are stands all up and down the road. Some of the baskets are really ornate and take hundreds of hours to make. They smell really good, especially when they’re wet. I had watched a lady work on a basket every day for a week one time, then bought the basket for Mom. She loved it, especially when I told her about watching it being made.

“How do you do that?” Vince asked, not really expecting an answer from me. “That’s a pretty critical question. How do you know when you’re done? It seems like that field is more about the process than the result. I’m kind of a results guy.”

“You can get results from research, right? Progress is results, too. I’d like to think that when I work as a biomedical engineer, the results will be some sort of useful tool to make it easier for doctors, or better for patients, somehow. I wouldn’t want to get a patent for something nobody uses.”

We talked for the rest of the way about different options Vince had, sort of exploring each one. He was pretty open about it. I asked about him and Lani and he said they were still sorting things out but they were getting more serious. I told him moving back from Notre Dame was pretty damn serious and he had to agree. I told him about Kim showing up the night before and our conversation. We agreed we both needed to do more encouraging.

When we got to Coastal Carolina, I pulled up the campus map and gave him directions to Hick’s Dining Hall. They were still on Christmas break so parking was easy. Inside, it was easy to spot a couple of coaches and went to their table.

“Hey, Coach Strexel. How are you? I hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

“Nope. Grab a seat and join us. Have you eaten yet?”

“No sir, but we’re on your schedule. This is Jack Pierce, a good friend of mine.”

“Great. You don’t happen to be a free safety?”

“No sir. Swimming and baseball.”

“He looks tall enough to me,” Coach Strexel said. “Baseball? Let me guess. First base?”

“No sir. Center field. At least I hope so.”

“Centerfield sounds a lot like a free safety to me,” one of the other coaches said and they laughed.

I played along. “I don’t suppose I’d get to use a glove,” I said and they laughed again, obviously, all in a good mood.

“Sir, Jack just took first in four different swim events at state finals,” Vince said.

“Really?” one of the other coaches asked. “What events? I’m Jim Throbeaux. I’m the swim coach.”

“He’s the aquarium director,” one of the other coaches said.

“Freestyle and individual medley.”

“Let’s you and me talk while they do,” he said and motioned me to another table.

He asked me about my interests and swim times and then thought to ask if I was a senior. I told him I planned to graduate from Georgia Tech but my freshman year was yet to be decided and that my age was a factor. Like a lot of people do, he thought I was older than fifteen. I told him I was concerned about how much time swimming would take to be able to compete, and that I wasn’t certain if I wanted to compete at the college level.

When I told him my times and that I thought my best event would probably be the mile freestyle and the four hundred IM, events we didn’t have at the high school level. Then, he surprised me by telling me what he thought of this year’s state championships. He’d been there and seen me swim but since I was a sophomore, he filed me in his wait-until-next-year stack.

“They had me listed as a sophomore but I’m graduating in three. Sophomore on paper but junior for all practical purposes.”

“Okay,” he said, thinking about it. “Let me give you a bit of information. First, you’ve got two years of high school eligibility, whether you use it or not. If you wanted to take advantage of that, there’s sort of a sneaky way to do it. You could enroll in college, whether here or someplace like Trident Tech. Then, you could simultaneously home-school for your senior year of high school. Your requirements would be next to nothing since you’ll already have them met. Your college courses could be used both as college and for high school credit so mom and dad wouldn’t have to do anything. Then, you could compete as a high school senior.

“I’m not saying you should do that. I’m just saying you could. If you want to do that, a public school, Saint Andrews is close, I think, has to allow you to do that. They have no choice. But, if you’ve already proven yourself, like you have, they’d want you. If you wanted to stay at Porter, you could simply defer graduation.”

“I get it but what’s the advantage?”

“Great question. You would get to compete at the high school level for an extra year and pad your athletic resume, and do so without having to carry the college-level training program. We expect more. A lot more. And, you would preserve a year of college eligibility. I’m not saying you should do that. Just that you could. With your times, I would take you tomorrow. You would probably qualify for a partial scholarship. I’m not really sure.”

“That’s not an issue for me. We can afford it, either way.”

“Okay, good. Then here’s why you should come to Coastal. We’re closer to home than Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech has a swim program but to be honest, it’s not that great. You didn’t hear that from me. Next, we’re in the Sunbelt Conference. Expectations are lower and so is the workload. No one expects us to compete with Florida State or Alabama. You might not get a full scholarship but tuition isn’t as high, either, and we treat our athletes right. Finally, I think you’ll find our academic program is solid. Check with Georgia Tech, but I think you’ll find you could finish your first year or even two, here and transfer with no problems.”

I thought about it for a minute. “That sounds pretty good. That’s actually a really good sales pitch. If I went to USC would their swim coach give me as good a pitch?” I asked. He was being really helpful and I thought he’d give me a straight answer.

“Probably. Every college and university has its own environment. Your friend, Birch, went to Barbie Town. Santa Barbara has a strong swim program but they don’t have a lot of other athletic programs worth mentioning. I’m sure he’s treated like royalty. They also expect him to be very, very competitive, and that takes a lot of time in the pool and weight room. USC is in the SEC and they have higher expectations.”

“I really appreciate you telling me all this. I haven’t spoken to anyone else. I’m really just along with Vince, but this has really been helpful.”

“Is that what Mr. Delinger told you? He just wants your company?” I looked at him for a minute and he stared back, then laughed. “I’m pulling your chain. Listen, you’re not locked into anything and you have plenty of time to figure things out. Whether you decide to come here with your friend or not, accepting a scholarship is a big deal. If you accept a scholarship, you’re taking a slot. If you decide later that you don’t want to swim, someone has lost out because of you. If you can afford not to take a scholarship, don’t. That will give you and the program some flexibility. Understand?”

“I do.”

“Good. I’d offer to show you the pool but let’s just say it’s blue with some black lines.”

“If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all,” I said.

“Almost. Do you know what makes one pool faster than another?” I had a pretty good idea but I shook my head. “Three things. First is depth. If your pool is three meters deep or deeper, compression waves from a diving start won’t come back to the surface and slow you down. The second is return jets for much the same reason and the third is the gutters. Wide or even extra-wide gutters give the water somewhere to go and waves won’t slow you down. We have two out of three. Barbie Town has them all.”

“I didn’t know all that.” I’d known some of it, but not all.

“A lot of people don’t. A lot of competitive swimmers don’t. Now, you do. Looks like Jason is taking Vince for a walk. Here. Take my card. Call me if you have any questions or just want to talk. I’d love to see you in Chanticleer blue.”

“Chanticleer?”

“It’s a blue rooster. Coastal used to be an extension of USC. They were the Gamecocks and we were the Chanticleers. Chaucer. Look it up.” We shook hands and I raced to catch up with Vince.

I climbed into the back of a golf cart and Coach Strexel drove us over to the football field. When we walked out onto the field, a couple of guys were there tossing a ball around. I watched as he had Vince throw a few passes from twenty, then thirty, then forty yards. Then, one of the guys took off running with another acting like a defender. Vince hit him on the numbers on an easy slant route. Coach Strexel gave them more and more challenging routes. I walked over to Coach Strexel to watch.

After eight or ten nice passes, I asked the coach, “Why don’t you have him throw a bomb? He’s got a good arm.”

He looked at me like a fish out of water, smiled a little, and called his receiver over. “Run a down and out to the fifty,” he said.

“The fifty?” Coach nodded. Vince was standing on the goal line.

“Think he can do that?” he asked me.

“Yes, sir. I think he can.”

The receiver told Vince what to do. Vince nodded and the receiver took off with the defender trying to keep up. The receiver got to the forty-five, turned to the outside, then back toward the middle of the field, losing his defender. Vince almost led him too far but the guy caught it and kept running while the defender threw up his hands. Coach Strexel motioned everyone in.

“What do you think, gentlemen?” he asked.

“Looked pretty good to me,” the receiver said.

“I didn’t have a legit shot at any of them,” the defender said. “He put them on target.”

“Thanks, guys. I appreciate the time,” Coach Strexel said, dismissing them. “Vince, if Notre Dame was willing to offer you a full ride, I think we can do that, too.”

“Thanks, Coach,” Vince told him that he was interested and that he’d be there for spring semester but couldn’t one hundred percent commit for the fall. He had to talk that over with Lani. He’d let him know as soon as they decided.

“Door’s open. But as good an arm as you’ve got, the door won’t stay open forever.”

We’d got more than we were hoping for. We thanked them for the time, said our goodbyes, and realized we had a walk and a half back to the car. Both of us had plenty to think about so we walked in silence.

“Lunch?” Vince asked as we got back to the car. We found an all you can eat Chinese buffet just off campus and did our best to clean them out. Back on the road, Vince asked, “What do you think?”

“I like it. I like the campus and the coaches and they seemed pretty happy to take time with us. I like it.”

“You’d sign up today, wouldn’t you?” he asked and looked over at me, smiling. “Coastal is a tiny college. It looks big and wonderful to you because you’ve spent your academic career at a tiny private school. Of course, they spent time with us and all. They’re looking at the possibility of having a four-time state champ and a Notre Dame scholarship athlete in their programs. They didn’t have to travel to recruit us or offer us the moon. We walked in through their front door.”