Texas high school football as seen through the eyes of a disabled junior high coach with a warped sense of humor.
A sample from the book:
The Squirrel Story
My hearing problems really started around my first semester at ASU
(Angelo State University- not the more famous ASU in Arizona).
Everyone, myself included, assumed it was all those years of 'that
loud heavy metal.' The thing is, the problem wasn't just volume, but
distortion. There was basically a pair of cauliflowers I didn't know
about camping out in my auditory canals that sound had to travel
through and around before getting to the brain. I started to be unable
to recognize songs, and speech sounded muffled to me.
I tried to fake my way through college. NO ONE knew how bad it was. In
four semesters, I had a schizophrenic GPA rollercoaster, with two
Dean's Lists and two Animal House finishes: 3.6, 0.6, 1.2, and 3.2.
That 3.2 semester might be my greatest accomplishment ever. I couldn't
understand my professors, and I had a Spanish class WITH ORAL EXAMS!
YOU try that sometime.
One of the earliest signs I was in trouble was my first semester. I
had an Interpersonal Communications Class, and one day very early in
the semester we did an exercise where we paired up and had to sit
back-to-back, and one person would describe a picture while the other
drew the picture using only verbal directions. I have ZERO artistic
skills, but paired up with a cute girl who asked me to draw. "OK!"
She starts describing a picture she is looking at, which I am supposed to draw:
"There are five squirrels lying on top of each other."
What??
"The first is lying flat; the second is at a forty-five degree angle
rising up to the right; the third is parallel to the first..."
WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, SLOW DOWN. I'm dealing with what, a squirrel
DOG-PILE? I'm still on Squirrel Number One, I have his eyes all bugged
out, tongue sticking out...
Meanwhile the professor has stopped walking around and is standing
right there watching me, smiling and waiting with the rest of the
class, all of whom had LONG since finished.
She directed us to show our partners the results.
"What is THAT??"
"Five squirrels on top of each other!"
"SQUIRRELS?? I said SQUARES!!!!"