Bench Warmer Betrayal

A Bench Warmer Memory from Bob Cairns

In nineteen sixty our Eagles had lost that barnburner at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House to Surrattesville by a lousy four points.  Not a lot of happiness at Francis Scott Key High School as we came home to clean our lockers out and decide if we had enough left in us to try out for Coach’s baseball team.   Then when we were just at our lowest, he called us all in and we had a post-season team meeting.  Some highpoints for sure, some laughs but the cherry on top of the cupcake came last when he shared the fact that the Eagle’s Booster Club, chaired by our Principal Henry Kanowitz, had come up with the bucks to honor this great runner-up team of ours.

“They want to buy us jackets,” Coach said.

“Benchwarmers included?”  I shouted.

“Benchwarmers included even the one who dressed out  in his phys ed shorts under his warmups!”  Coach countered.

Big laughs from that one.

When the meeting broke, coach gave me that “Come hither look” and I was off to his office.

“Beetle, we have a bit of a problem with the jackets,” Coach said.

He continued, explaining that Henry (our principal) wanted to give us blue blazers with a little white triangle for the lapel announcing our second place finish.

“Coach, we thought we were getting those cool letter jackets with the leather sleeves, the kind of coat that’s freaking catnip for girls.”

That’s what I thought, he said and then went on to tell me that the vote, counting the adults in the Eagle club who were funding this and our principal were, going to go for the blue blazers.

We knew that I was the team politician so I left his office with a promise that I would deliver the winning votes. There were two kids who came up from the JV that were just prissy enough to vote for the blazers but the rest of us would be a hundred percent for the leather sleeves.

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this one Coach,” I said.

I went immediately to Dougherty, our big forward, and told him to threaten anyone on the team who even had a thought about a blue freaking blazer. When I gave the coach our numbers, we knew we were a lock---leather sleeved letter jackets.

Problem!

The following morning as I was on line to take the bus from New Windsor grade school to Francis Scott Key, I was jacking around, and a real prick social studies teacher at New Windsor was bus monitoring and when he told be to get in line or shut up, I unfortunately told him to, “Go ^%$& himself.”

He mentioned that he was going to write my wiseass up. I flipped him off and rode away to Francis Scott Key.

Approximately thirty minutes later the aforementioned speaker cracked and popped in our home room summoning Robin Cairns to the principal’s office.  When I arrived, I took my usual seat in his waiting room, thinking nothing about the fact that about ten minutes later the two JV pussies who we had sufficiently threatened in regards to the jacket vote, exited the principal’s inner office, gave me a look and were on their way.

Now, I was never sure about much but this time, I was positive. I had been ratted out by the bus monitor in New Windsor and was moments away from getting a vacation from school, tossed out for a couple of days.

When I walked in Kanowitz was busying himself with some paper work. “Do you know why you are here, Mr. Cairns?”

“Yes Sir,” I said.

“Well, good I need your help with something! On the matter of the blazers vs. those leather sleeved letter jackets. We, the boosters and I, think the blazers will enhance our image and give FSK just another touch of class. So, I have these names here on this piece of paper, and if you’ll just add your name and sign it, we will put this silly voting on the jackets issue to bed.”

Wonderful, no expulsion!

“Where do I sign, Sir?” I, hands trembling said, folding like a lockeroom towel!

And within weeks, the team was tossing their new blazers in the drive through at Goodwill and I, well as the deciding vote, never told coach. All I said was that those JV’s, one of which who had taken my uniform for the finals at the University of Maryland, HAD CAVED!