by Mark Tabb
“Thanks, Greg. You know, I figure I can go another fifteen years and coach all my grandsons,” Ed said with a smile. “That’s the plan anyway.”
“I think you’ll get there,” Greg said. The conversation trailed off, and Ed went over to speak to some of the other coaches. Greg watched Ed walk away. From the time he was a little boy, he had always admired his big brother as the kind of man he hoped he could be. With their age difference, Ed was almost like a second father when Greg was growing up. Once Greg graduated from college and started coaching himself, their relationship became more like the siblings they were. Like any brothers, they were fiercely competitive with one another. They played golf on Greg’s wedding day, but Ed didn’t let up on him. He beat his little brother by two strokes.
Greg never felt any pressure from being Ed Thomas’s little brother, as if his brother’s shadow kept him from being able to shine. Instead he counted himself lucky to have Ed as a brother. Greg sought out Ed’s advice constantly—from how to handle certain game situations to which job he should take. The one thing he admired about his brother above all else was Ed’s peace with his calling and mission in life. Their mother had once told Greg that she had always prayed that Ed would become a preacher, not a football coach. He told her, “Mom, Ed is changing more lives doing what he’s doing than he could ever do as a pastor. He preaches every day in the way he coaches and teaches.” To Greg, Ed understood his role on this earth more than anyone he had ever met.
“Hey, Greg,” Ed called over to him, “you ready to start back, or are you going to take a nap over there?”
“I’m coming,” Greg said as he got up and jogged over to the rest of the coaches.
“Hi, uh, can someone help me?” It was the voice of a person Jan did not recognize. He leaned over the counter of the newly rebuilt city hall. “Wow, it feels good in here. Hotter than blazes outside.”
“Yes. Air conditioning sure is nice. What can I do for you?” Jan asked.
The man reached into his pocket. “I found this lying next to Highway 57 over near the ice cream place,” he said as he laid a card on the counter. “I figure it was from the high-speed chase Saturday night. You hear about that? Can’t believe he didn’t hit anyone when he came flying through town at ninety miles an hour. I figure he must have thrown it out the window to keep the police from figuring out who he was.”
Jan picked up the card. It was a driver’s license. “I appreciate you dropping this by.”
“You know who it was, don’t you?” the man asked.
The question struck Jan as rather odd since she had the driver’s license right in front of her.
“Mark Becker,” the man continued. “Good thing he hit that deer instead of a person. That’s a wild way for a high-speed chase to end. But you know, you always gotta be careful around here. Deer are thick this time of year.”
“Yes, they are. Well, I appreciate you bringing this in. I’ll take care of it,” Jan said. As soon as the man left, Jan picked up the phone and called Joan Becker. The two had been friends nearly as long as Jan and Ed had lived in Parkersburg. Joan and her husband, Dave, had been members of Ed’s Sunday school class since he started it back in the late 1970s. Back then, it had been a young marrieds class, since everyone in the class, including Ed and Jan, were young and newly married. Now it was more like the middle-aged married-forever class.
“Hi, Joan, this is Jan. Hey listen, someone just brought in Mark’s driver’s license.”
“Thanks,” Joan replied. “I’ll come by and pick it up.”
Jan hung up the phone and looked at the license. Dave and Joan’s middle son, Mark, had played for Ed for four years, including during the 2001 state championship season. In the years since Mark had graduated, Ed kept in contact with him. Whenever he saw him at church, and those occasions were becoming more and more rare, Ed always tried to encourage Mark to do the right thing and to make good choices. “Mark, you’ve got your whole life in front of you,” Ed said to him time after time. “It doesn’t matter what’s happened so far. You’ve made a few mistakes, but that’s OK. You can turn it around. I know you can.”
Unfortunately, the talks didn’t seem to have done much good. Joan regularly requested prayer for Mark during Sunday school. Most Sundays, Ed was the one who prayed aloud for Mark. Neither Ed nor Jan knew the details of what had gone on with Mark since he graduated from high school, nor did they need to. They just knew that Dave and Joan had been through a rough time with him.
A short time later, Joan Becker came into city hall. “Hi, Jan, I appreciate you calling.”
“I knew Mark would need his license, and you are probably the best person to get it to him,” Jan said.
“I guess so. I suppose you heard he was in the high-speed chase that came through town Saturday,” Joan said.
“I did. It is a small town, you know.” Jan didn’t see the chase herself, but Aaron and Ellie had. They were in town for Father’s Day weekend. They had walked over to the local ice cream shop when a car flew by, with Chris Luhring’s car and a couple of Butler County sheriff’s cars close behind.
“It is that. After the chase they took Mark to Covenant Hospital.” Joan let out a sigh of relief. “We’ve tried to get him to go for a while now, but he didn’t want to. But now he’s there, finally. I think he’ll finally get the help he needs and get on the right meds for his mental illness.” She paused for a few moments to catch her breath. “I’m so glad he’s finally in a place where he can get some help. He should be there for a while.”
“I’m glad to hear it, Joan,” Jan said. Jan knew Mark had struggled with drug abuse in the past, but this was the first time Joan had mentioned Mark’s mental illness to her. Joan did not elaborate as to the nature of his illness, and Jan did not think it was any of her business to probe further. “You know Ed and I pray for Mark all the time, and for you and Dave. We’ll pray that this works,” Jan added.
“Thanks, Jan.”
Joan took Mark’s driver license and left. Jan went back to work. Later that night, she and Ed prayed for Mark, just as Jan told Joan they would.
During the lunch break at the offensive lineman camp, Scott Heitland invited Ed and the rest of the coaches to his house to eat. His house had a large basement that had been converted into living space, which is where he served lunch. It was the coolest spot in the house. After eating, Ed found a spot on a sofa where he leaned back and fell asleep. Through the years Ed had established a reputation as someone who could nap anywhere and everywhere. Once or twice he had caught some heat for nodding off during faculty meetings. A few minutes before 1:00, he jumped up off the couch, wide-awake, and said, “All right, let’s go.” Scott shook his head in amazement. Even asleep, Ed stuck to his schedule.
At the close of the afternoon camp session, Ed asked all the players to take a seat on a grass berm on one end of the practice field. More than any of the techniques Ed taught, this end-of-camp talk was the primary reason Scott had Ed do football camps every year. “Now, fellas, we’ve had a pretty good camp today in spite of the heat. You all worked hard out there, and I appreciate that, and I know Coach Heitland appreciates it as well. Like I told you, the techniques you learned today are not necessarily the only way to do things, but they’ve worked for me through the years. Now, if your coach tells you to do things different, you listen to him and do what he says. He knows what’s best for ya.”
Scott smiled at that line. He appreciated Ed deferring to him, but he needn’t worry about a conflict in their techniques. Since coming to Dallas Center-Grimes High School, Scott patterned most of his line drills after those he learned as an assistant coach under Ed. In fact, he already used nearly every drill and technique Ed went over on that day. That was another reason he had Ed come in for the camp. During his practices, Scott would bark things like, “Coach Thomas would be embarrassed if he saw you get off the ball like that. Line up and do it again.” Or, “There you go. That’s the way to do it. That’s exactly the way Coach Th
omas showed you back in June.”
“You know, guys, I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, for thirty-seven years, to be exact. And I have to tell you that my fire and commitment and enthusiasm for this game are stronger today than they’ve ever been. I don’t know how many more years I’ll get to do this, but I plan on making the most of every one of them.
“And that’s what I want to challenge you young people with today, especially you seniors. Make the most of this opportunity you have to play this game, to leave a legacy. You see, this is about more than the game of football. The way you choose to practice, the way you choose to play each game, the way you choose to devote yourselves to giving your all every play of every game for four full quarters — all of that says a lot about how you will choose to live the rest of your lives.
“Every day that you get up out of bed, every day God gives you on this earth, is an opportunity for you. He gives you each day to do with it whatever you want. You can waste it, or you can use it for good. Just remember, what you choose to do with each day is very important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it, and you don’t know how many days you will have. When tomorrow comes, today will be gone forever. All you will have is whatever you traded this day for.
“You know, I believe the greatest gift God has given any of us is the power to choose. That’s what you get to do with every day you get to spend on this earth. You get to choose how you’re going to use it. I don’t know about you, but I want to choose to use each day for gain, not for loss. I want to choose good, not evil. I want to choose whatever is going to help me succeed and be a better person and make a positive impact on the lives of others, rather than choose things that lead to failure.
“The future is just a long string of right nows.
“I’ve found that football and life really aren’t that complicated. You always get out of it what you put into it. When you make good decisions on and off the field and choose to work hard and do your very best, no matter what you are doing, good things happen. And when you make a mistake and blow it, and goodness knows I’ve made a lot of mistakes through the years, you get back up off the ground and learn from it.
“All right, fellas, thanks for coming out today. Heit, you got anything you want to add?”
“No, Coach. I think you said it all,” Scott said.
CHAPTER 16
THE UNTHINKABLE, JUNE 24,2009
I want to finish the race with God working through me.
ED THOMAS
“BUTLER COUNTY 911.”
“We, uh, had, a, I think, a shooting right now in the bus barn down at the high school.” Daryl Myers struggled to keep his composure as he spoke into his cell phone. To the dispatcher he sounded very calm, very much in control, but he was anything but. Daryl could not believe the words coming out of his mouth. He felt like he was about to throw up. This cannot be happening, he thought.
“Yeah, at the high school where?” the dispatcher asked.
“Uh, in the bus barn.”
“In the bus barn?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Daryl said as high school students raced past him, running for cover. He noticed one adult running toward the bus barn. Daryl recognized him as one of the parents who had dropped off their kids earlier. A few minutes earlier, the man had been sitting in his car, reading the paper, waiting for his daughter to finish lifting weights in the bus barn that was serving as the weight room. Now he ran toward the bus barn while everyone else was running away from it.
“Do you know who it was?”
“No I don’t, uh,” Daryl said, “kids just came running out and said somebody shot Ed Thomas.”
“Ed Tho …” The dispatcher gasped and tried to catch her breath. Finally she managed to spit out, “OK.”
Daryl had been in the bus barn himself maybe ten minutes earlier. He had gone in with vital news to share with Ed. “Your sod is in,” Daryl told him.
“Great,” Ed replied. “That spot over by the visitors’ stands still looks pretty bad.
“We can get on it right after you’re finished here, if you want.”
“I should be through in about an hour.”
“All right. I’ll have everything ready to go when you are.” Daryl turned to walk out. Off to one side sat the orange lawn mower Ed used to mow the field. The sight of him on that mower was one of the staples of life in Parkersburg. As he walked out of the weight room, Daryl overheard Ed talking with one of his football players: “Way to go! Good job. That’s a new personal record for you, isn’t it?”
Standing outside the bus barn a few minutes before 8:00 a.m., surrounded by panicked students, waiting for the police to arrive, Daryl could not believe what was happening. He dropped his cell phone into his pocket and raced toward the bus barn. “Go, go, go,” he called to students running past him. “Get down there,” he said, pointing to the elementary school across the street from the bus barn.
At 7:53 a.m., Chris Luhring’s pager came to life. “Shots fired at the high school.” Like every town in America, Parkersburg had its share of crime, mainly drugs, but the town hadn’t seen a murder since sometime in the 1920s. As police chief, Chris did his best to keep it that way. Even though this was his day off, the moment he read the words “shots fired,” he ran to his bedroom, changed out of his pajama shorts, threw on a shirt, and headed toward the door.
“Chris, wait! You don’t have your vest,” his wife yelled, referring to his bulletproof vest. She had taken it apart to wash it earlier that morning.
He scooped up his weapon, handcuffs, and radio and shouted back, “I don’t have time to put it back together. I have to go NOW!”
“But, Chris,” she said as he dashed out the front door and into the white Ford Explorer that served as his squad car.
He shot out of his driveway and headed toward the school, lights flashing, siren blaring. “1223 Butler County,” he said into his radio, “1223 Butler County.” No one responded. The emergency radio system went down right after the call went out about the shooting at the high school. Chris pressed down harder on the gas pedal, his speedometer climbing to sixty as he flew through the neighborhood near the school. “1223 Butler County!” he shouted into the radio, but still no response. “Crap!” he yelled and threw the microphone aside.
The moment he turned the corner onto Johnson Street, he saw kids running. He pulled into the school parking lot. The lot was always busy with construction traffic. The school was scheduled to reopen in less than two months.
Before Chris could get out of his car, kids ran over to him, hysterical. Two screaming voices overpowered all the rest. “Coach has been shot! Someone shot Coach Thomas!”
Chris shook his head, trying to make sense of what he had just heard. “WHAT!?”
“He shot Coach in the head!”
“Who shot him?”
“Some guy. You’ve got to help Coach!” “Does anyone know the shooter’s name?” “NO!” multiple voices scream.
“Did he leave the school? Did anyone see what he was driving?” “He ran out the back of the building,” one voice shouted. “He left in a blue car,” yelled another. “He drove off going north.” Chris jumped out of his squad car and pulled out his gun. The pounding of his heart echoed in his ears. He didn’t know what to do first. He had to get these kids to a safe place, but he also needed to find the shooter. Get to Coach! Get to Coach! he screamed in his head. A trained EMT, he knew he had to get to Ed as quickly as possible to try to help him.
“Did he drive away or did he run out the back of the building?” Chris tried to put all the pieces together, while more information flew at him. Kids collapsed, weeping and wailing. Some kids screamed. Finally Chris grabbed one boy who seemed to know the most. “Here, take this paper and pen and write down everything you’re trying to tell me. Go to that bus over there, and write it all down for me. I’m going to go check on Coach.”
“I’m not gonna get in that bus!” the kid panicked. “No, it’s not safe.”
“Calm down, son,” Chris said. “I’m here. I’ll protect you.” “No. If I get in the bus, I’ll be trapped.”
“Fine,” Chris said. “Go over on the far side of the bus, outside the bus, and write everything down for me. I’ll be right back.”
The throng of kids moved over toward the bus. Chris herded them along to a spot where he thought they would be safe. Only then did he race to the bus barn.
Jan was just about to walk out the door to go to work when her EMT pager went off. “Parkersburg ambulance,” the dispatcher said, “we have a gunshot/stab wound at the high school weight room.” Jan looked at the clock on the wall. Ed normally called her every day around 8:00 after he finished in the weight room. She thought, I should call him and ask what’s going on. Instead, she grabbed her purse and darted out the door.
“Sounds like one of the construction workers had a nail gun accident,” Jan said. Climbing in her car, she pulled out her cell phone and called her boss. “Hi, Gary, I wanted to make sure you knew I’ve been called out with the ambulance, and I’ll be a little late for work.”
Jan drove the few blocks to the station, climbed into the ambulance, and waited for another EMT to respond to the page. Since most of their volunteers work outside of town, putting a crew together during the day can sometimes be a problem. The dispatcher set the tones off again, only this time adding the code 1033, which means EMERGENCY!
“Dispatch, this is Parkersburg ambulance.” Jan wanted to tell the dispatcher to set off the tones again because she didn’t have a crew. Dispatch never answered. For some reason the radios were down. Jan used her cell phone to call and told the dispatcher to start an ambulance crew from Aplington. If this truly were a 1033, they needed to get a crew there as soon as possible. Jan was about to give up on any other help arriving when two other crew members pulled into the fire station parking lot.