Chapter 6

Thursday morning dragged. I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep and I wanted to talk with Kim about the conversation I’d overheard. It turned cool and Kim had been wearing my letterman jacket but now Mel was wearing one and she was all giggly about it. Our conversation would have to wait.

After baseball practice, I ran over to the track and told Kim I’d be a couple of minutes. I ran to Mr. McClusky’s office. I stepped into his outer office and his secretary hollered back to him. “Aquaman. You free?” she hollered into his office. For some reason, that just cracked me up.

I stepped to his door and he motioned me to take a seat. “What’s on your mind, Mr. Pierce?”

“I remember what you told me the first day of school. About being a good example.”

“I appreciate that. I notice that you haven’t knocked anyone out this year and that’s good,” he said, smiling. “You’ve actually done pretty well this year. So, what’s on your mind?”

“What could I do better?” His eyebrows arched up in a big, friendly question. “And, do you think Colonel Lovejoy would talk with me? He spoke at graduation last year.”

“I know who you mean. We have lunch together a couple of times a year. He’s very approachable. I could give him a call if you like. Thinking about going to The Citadel?”

“No sir. I respect people that do but I still plan on going to Georgia Tech.”

“I suppose you already know that’s where he went to school.” I nodded. “Any particular topic, or is it none of my business?”

“Do you know anyone who would know more about leadership than he does?”

“Leadership? No. Probably not. If you call his office, they might get you in to see him, but I have a hunch a call from me will work a lot better. Why the sudden interest?”

“That’s a great question. I don’t even know. Maybe if I knew more about it. I asked Coach Hamilton about it and he thought talking to Colonel Lovejoy was a good idea. Then he said I should ask him if leadership is an art or a science.”

“It does seem like a good place to start. I’ll call him and let you know.”

I thanked him and raced out to my car where Kim was sitting in the driver’s seat. “I want to drive,” she said.

“I want to talk before we go,” I said, sliding into the passenger seat. She was ready to drop the top but I told her this conversation needed to be private. I gave her a quick rundown of the conversation Dane and Mom had, and how I was interested in the leadership topic but conflicted on whether I should pursue it.

“Who’s the best leader you know that’s our age?” Kim asked when I finished.

I didn’t have to think very long about it. “Vince.”

“That’s what I thought. Has he asked you for advice on anything?” She knew the answer. I thought she was going to say more but she didn’t.

I drove back to my house. We had a great workout and I was feeling far more energetic than I should have. When we finished our regular workout, I asked them to spot me as I did five more exercises. I checked Doctor Legare’s chart before each one. I didn’t really need to. I’d practically worn it out.

Then I tried to do a one-rep max for what we considered to be the big five. At the very least, they were a pretty good barometer. I started with squat, then deadlift to get the heavier exercises out of the way. I switched to bent row, and finished up with bench press, and military press. For the first time, I’d lifted at the ‘elite’ level for all five exercises. It had taken almost two years to get there and I was pretty happy. They both congratulated me.

“What’s next, Mr. Hulk?” Mom asked. “There isn’t a higher level than elite.”

“I start over on the eighteen- to twenty-year-old chart.”

“Of course. How could I have not known that?” Mom said and Kim laughed. She’d already known the answer to that.

Kim went home to work on a paper for geology. I ate and hit the sack early, to make up for my restless night.

I had Vince’s schedule in my wallet and called him from the cafeteria telephone the next day. There was a reasonable chance he’d be at his apartment for lunch.

“Hey, Vince.”

“Hey, Aquaman. How are you doing? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Great. Better than great, really. I’ve got a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“How did you learn about leadership?”

“I don’t know. That’s a weird question. Why?”

“You didn’t study famous leaders or anything like that? Didn’t read any books on the subject?”

“No. None of that. What’s this about?”

I gave him the short version and told him I was hoping to talk to Colonel Lovejoy about it. “I’m not sure if I’ll ever be in a position to take that role but I don’t want to be unprepared if the time comes.”

“You know what? I did learn from someone. I guess I just didn’t realize that’s what I was doing. I started playing Pop Warner football when I was six. I’ve always been a quarterback and my dad taught me. You’re the one calling the plays so it makes sense.”

“Doesn’t much apply to swimming, though.”

“No. Pretty obvious on the football field. Baseball is weird because it should be the pitcher but he doesn’t pitch every game. I guess it could be anyone.”

“Thanks, Vince. A couple of people think I would be good at it but I don’t have a clue and have to go at it a different way.”

“Let me know what you find out. Now, I’m all curious. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong,” he laughed.

“Who were you talking to?” Kim asked when I sat down at the table.

“Vince.”

“Oh. OH! Good for you. Any insight?”

“Yeah, but I’d have to go back in time if I wanted to learn about it the Vince Delinger way. I’m going to research it, though, hopefully, starting with Colonel Lovejoy.”

Mr. McClusky caught me coming out of chemistry class that afternoon. “I talked with Colonel Lovejoy. He’s got a packed schedule but would like very much to talk with you. Every Friday afternoon, they have parade at The Citadel. He’s always there and he’s always in civilian clothes directly opposite the flagpole. If you can be there at two-thirty tomorrow, he’ll talk with you while the parade is going on. I’ve been. I think you’d find it interesting.”

“That would be great but I have baseball practice then,” I said, at first happy, then deflated when I heard when it was.

“I already cleared it with Hamilton, if you’re interested. Get on my calendar for some time next week and tell me about it.”

“Thanks. That happened pretty quick. I’m a bit surprised that I’m excited about it. Go figure.”

“Go figure, indeed. Quickly, Pierce. Quickly. Come talk to me next week or I’ll let Mrs. Middleton know you need remedial training on adjectives and adverbs.”

I know I rolled my eyes but we were both laughing as I turned to go. He patted me on the back and I felt safe from the wrath of Mrs. Middleton.

Friday afternoon, I found my way to The Citadel and was directed to the parade grounds. I’d been all around the outside of The Citadel before but never inside. It was a lot bigger than I’d imagined and the parade ground was probably the size of four football fields. There were hundreds of guys dressed in light blue uniforms on the east side of the field, getting organized to do something. I found Colonel Lovejoy, watching and waiting on the north end of the field.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I said as I approached.

“Afternoon, Mr. Pierce, or should I call you Aquaman?” he said, holding out his hand. We shook and he smiled. “Art McClusky tells me you’re planning on going to Georgia Tech to major in engineering. That right?”

“Yes, sir. Biomedical engineering, to be precise.”

“Going to design an artificial elbow, I hope. This one has betrayed me, I’m afraid,” he said, rubbing his left arm. “Art says you’re interested in leadership and think I might know something about it.”

“Well, sir, I figure that if you don’t, all these students are probably in the wrong place.” He laughed.

“What do you know about it? Or perhaps, where do you get your ideas about leadership from?”

“Literature, I guess. Lord of the Rings had a lot of examples.”

“Not a bad source. Team sports?”

“Not a lot of experience. I asked a friend of mine who was quarterback at Porter-Gaud last year and he said he learned from his dad and that he’d been playing since he was six. I’m playing baseball this year and it’s my first time really playing a team sport.”

“Baseball is an interesting sport that way. You’re a team on defense but not so much when you’re at bat. Football requires teamwork on both sides of the ball. Sounds like we’re starting from scratch. I have to keep my eye on these guys but I’ll share a few lessons I’ve learned along the way and you can ask questions. Feel free to raise the bullshit flag at any time. Fair enough?”

“Yes, sir. That would be great.”

He turned to watch the cadets and started in. “We have courses on leadership here. Several of them. Full semesters. There are a lot of theories and not surprisingly, they don’t all agree. Some people think it’s an art and some think it’s a science. Some think people are natural born leaders and others think it’s a cultivated skill. And some, unfortunately, don’t know the difference between management and leadership.”

“I know that I don’t.”

“You manage processes and inanimate objects. You manage inventory. If you try to manage people, you end up with inanimate objects. Sad, really. The business world is full of them. You’ve got two fields where leadership is essential for success. Oh, there’s more than that, but these two fields provide a pretty good milieu for leaders to showcase their skills. Military is obviously one and the other is athletics.

“Your friend, Mr. Delinger, I assume that’s who you were talking about.” He turned to look at me. “I tried hard to recruit him. Fine young man. He learned from his dad. Football is a good classroom for leaders. His dad coached him. His dad mentored him and you could tell a lot about his dad from what kind of leader Vincent is. Mentoring is, in my opinion, the best way to learn leadership. You look at the coach of a successful football team and you’ll see what I mean.

“Clemson was number one by the end of the season and Danny Ford won a Coach of the Year award. Some might say he got it for leadership. Maybe. But his quarterback, Homer Jordan, earned MVP honors in the Orange Bowl. Ford mentored and Jordan led. Neither of them would have done so well without the other.

“What did Jordan do to earn the honor? He motivated a bunch of men to consistently perform as a team at a very high level.”

“How did he do that? I think that’s the bottom-line question, isn’t it?” I asked.

“That’s exactly it. Here they go,” he said, checking his watch as cadets began to march. “Let’s see if they can do better than last week’s fiasco. People look for certain characteristics in a leader. If you read a hundred books or ask a hundred leaders, you’ll get a hundred different answers.”

“What tops your list?”

“Integrity. You have to be a man of integrity. That’s first and nothing else is close. You have to lead by example. Nothing speaks more powerfully to a man than a man of integrity who says, ‘follow me’. In those two words, he conveys commitment, courage, respect for his men, humility to do it himself, and a commitment to the goal. Imagine that you’re at war and your sergeant says, ‘Pierce, take that hill.’ Now, imagine he says, ‘follow me.’ Pretty big difference.”

“No kidding. That’s laying it on the line.” We watched as groups of fifty men at a time marched by. I’d never seen anything like it before. Everyone knew where they were supposed to be and what they were supposed to do. Colonel Lovejoy wasn’t as impressed. He hmphed a couple of times and shook his head. He obviously saw things from a different perspective.

“How do you think a college football team responds when it’s third and nine, the quarterback has no open receivers and he runs for it. He’s made it six yards but to get the extra three, he has to butt heads with a defensive lineman that outweighs him by fifty pounds. So, he puts his shoulder down and gives it everything he has, making the first down. You think they’re going to be motivated after that?”

“Definitely.”

“Damned straight they’re going to be motivated. Hill, what are you thinking? Turn! How many times are you going to miss that cue? Sorry. Where were we? Motivation. You can read all the books you want to but first, be a man of integrity, and then lead by example. If you just get those two right, it will go a long way.”

“That sounds like a pretty good start.”

“I’ll send a copy of FM 22-100 over to Art’s office and he’ll get it to you. That’s the Army Field Manual on leadership. Not a bad place to start. Pick up a copy of They Call Me Coach by John Wooden, and How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. If you want a movie to watch, try Twelve O’clock High with Gregory Peck. That will give you something to think about. I’d love to talk more but I need to talk to some of these knuckleheads before they break for the weekend.”

He turned to look me in the eye and shook my hand. It was the kind of handshake that seemed right for a colonel. “Pierce, I like winners. I think you’d do well here, but feel free to call my office anytime and I’ll talk with you again.”

“Thank you, sir. I really appreciate it.”

“God gave you a set of skills and abilities. Make the most of them. Wooden says to make every day your masterpiece.”

“Sir, does The Citadel have a bookstore?”

He laughed, then pulled a business card out of his wallet, wrote on the back, and handed it to me and checked his watch. “You’ve got about twenty minutes before they close for the day.” He pointed me in the right direction and with that, he was gone, rubbing his elbow as he walked.

I watched him walk over to a group of men that I guessed were in charge of the parade. He was close enough that I could see them clearly. I watched everything he did as though there would be some magic lesson in it. He was calm. He put a hand on one man’s shoulder and pointed as he talked. Then, it looked like he invited a response. A couple of them had something to say and there was a lot of nodding in agreement. They saluted him, even though he was in civilian clothes. He saluted back and walked back toward the campus at a pretty good clip.

I took off at a jog toward the bookstore. On the back of the card, he’d written, “As my guest, Lovejoy.”

I found the two books and a couple more that looked good and took them to the cashier. We were the only two in the store. She rang up the sale and saw me looking at the card. “I’m not sure what he meant by this,” I said, showing her the back.

“Ah,” she said and voided the sale to ring it up again. The price was lower the second time around. “Faculty price. He doesn’t hand out many like this, but I know what he means.” Sweet.

“Can I borrow your phone, just for a sec? I just realized how late it is and my mom doesn’t know where I am.”

“Oh, oh. Are you sure you want to tell her?” she laughed.

I called. “Hey. I didn’t realize how late it is. I’ll be home in thirty minutes. Sorry, I didn’t let you know. I just enrolled in The Citadel,” I said and the cashier laughed.

“You better not have. You didn’t let Kim know, either.” Oops. “Relax, Romeo. Art knew where you were going. He told Kim, she got a ride from Bobby and Mel, and we already worked out. You’re on your own for that.” Whew.

I had been so focused on getting to The Citadel on time that I completely forgot that I was Kim’s way home. How the hell did that happen? I couldn’t remember a time I’d been so angry with myself. I had to remind myself to slow down on the drive home. What an idiot.

Marie’s car was in the driveway so I wasn’t surprised to hear dance music when I walked in. “You are just in time. We need another dance partner and Marie is tired of being a guy,” Mom said. “What’s the matter?”

I looked at Kim. She was ready to dance. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe I left you at school. I was just in such a hurry ... No. There’s no excuse for that.”

“Relax, Baby. Mr. McClusky caught up with me at track and told me where you were. Bobby and Mel gave me a ride home. It’s fine.”

“But how could I forget something like that? I’m an idiot.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time Ronnie and I went shopping at Citadel Mall? We had different things we were shopping for with a plan to meet back at Macy’s. I finished shopping and went to Macy’s and he was nowhere to be found. Thirty minutes later, I called the house to leave a message or see if he’d left one for me. He was home. The bonehead finished his shopping and went home!”

“You know, that doesn’t really make me feel better.”

“Let’s dance, then. That will make you feel better. Watch. We’re doing spins,” Kim said, as Marie spun her. Apparently, she wasn’t at all that mad at me. I was pretty happy about that but still pretty pissed at myself.

We didn’t have the chance to dance long before Kim had to leave. She invited me to her house for dinner so I changed clothes and drove us to her house.

“I cannot believe I left for The Citadel without talking to you. I can’t believe I left you. What an idiot.”

“Relax, Jack. You’ve had your own car for less than a month. You’re not used to having a passenger or being responsible for one. It’s not like you left me at the beach or something. Write it down in your journal of life lessons. ‘Do not leave Kim behind’ and move on.” It was quiet until I pulled into her driveway. “How often do you make the same mistake twice? You don’t. I can’t remember you ever making the same mistake twice. Okay?”

“Okay. I still feel like a shit.”

“If you’re going to be all doom and gloom, then go home. Really. I want you here for dinner but treat it like baseball practice.”

“Now, you really lost me.”

“You struck out. It happens. If you dwell on it, you’ll probably strike out again and you’ll be miserable. Take a deep breath and let it go.” She was right. I took a deep breath and we went in.

We weren’t there ten minutes when dinner was ready. We had pulled pork, black eyed peas, sweet potatoes, collard greens, and Coleslaw. It doesn’t get much better than that.

“Kim says you went out to The Citadel to talk to Frank Lovejoy. How did that go?” Mr. McTighe asked.

“I liked him when I heard him speak at graduation last year and I like him even more, now.” I went on to share practically our entire conversation. None of us had much exposure to anyone in the military, although Mr. McTighe had met quite a few Citadel graduates.

“The idea of being out front all the time is interesting but I don’t think it’s always practical,” Mr. McTighe said. The quarterback might be the leader of the team but after he hands the ball to a running back, he’s no longer out front.”

“I guess that’s true enough. I don’t think he was trying to make it simplistic. I just think he was short on time. He did say they have semester long courses on the subject.”

“I’ve got an old textbook somewhere called Management of Organizational Behavior, or something like that. Blanchard was the author. He describes four roles. Let’s see,” he said, stroking his chin. “I might not get them all right but it will at least give you an idea. If it interests you, you can borrow the book if you can find it.”

“It’s probably right next to your favorite pen,” I said, and he laughed and nodded.

“The first level was directing, I believe. That’s when you’re dealing with someone who doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing and they aren’t particularly motivated. The second was coaching. That’s for the person who is able but lacks confidence. I think the third level was supporting and the last was delegating. I think when a quarterback hands off the football, he’s delegating the rest of the play to the running back and his blockers. You could probably figure out all kinds of applications in that.”

“This definitely doesn’t seem like a one-book-holds-all-the-keys sort of thing.”

“No. Definitely not. I guess if it was, The Citadel could graduate generals instead of lieutenants.”

“Do you think he was right about the top two things? Integrity and setting the example seems pretty important, that’s for sure.”

“I think a lot of very successful leaders would have their own list. I certainly can’t fault his top two but I would add vision and decisiveness to the top tier. He may be thinking things like communication skills or problem-solving skills are just a given. I think a good leader is going to be a very well-rounded person who would be a good example for the people following him.”

“This is definitely an art sort of thing rather than a science sort of thing,” Kim said.

“Yes. I agree with that,” Mrs. McTighe said. “I think you’re right to be exploring this, Jack. I think you have a natural ability. People look to you. They value your opinion and trust your answers.”

“Kim, too. Look how they did in cheerleading this year,” I said. Kim smiled, even though she was trying not to.

“A leader is a change agent. People don’t like change. To complicate matters, different people respond to different leadership styles. If you look back at the decision to try to win at cheerleading, who was the most important person for you to convince that you should all try?” Mr. McTighe asked.

“Jan. Definitely, Jan. Lisa would have been next,” Kim said.

“Instead, you decided to talk to them as a group, rather than one at a time,” he said.

“Well, it seemed like if we weren’t all in then it wouldn’t matter. It seemed like it had to be a group decision.”

“I think that was the right call. How high on the list of leadership traits was the ability to understand the group dynamic?” he asked.