Bubba was excellent at being a good person

Last summer — about July, I’d guess — I got a phone call from Bubba Egbert. I knew Bubba by reputation, but at that point I’d had only one conversation with him when I’d gone to pick up my daughter after a day she spent hanging out with his sons.

On the phone he said, “It’s looking like I may coach the football team this year, and I need an assistant coach in the school.”

I tried to think of someone quickly — someone else, another teacher. I suggested a couple people, and Bubba hemmed and hawed a little.

If I’m honest, I felt a little like I was trading horses, and I was both the horse and the purchaser.

I responded with something like, “With Meagan at volleyball and the new baby, I don’t know if I can do it.”

Bubba explained he had to have someone to be his contact in the school, keep tabs on players, get gear when it was needed, and be in touch with other teachers: “You wouldn’t even have to come to practice,” he said.

I explained that I didn’t know much about football — about the technique of football — and he waved it off.

He told me, “I know I don’t know you real well, but I think we have close to the same values. I think that if you can swing it, I’d work with your schedule as much as you need.”

Knowing Bubba’s reputation, I was flattered he might compare me with him — and to some degree, he sold me on that. I told him if he couldn’t find anyone else, I’d do it, and I rather suspect at that point, he quit looking.

I’ve coached wrestling for a few years, and I was being honest to Bubba about not knowing much about coaching football. Yet, I understood the need and my role to be the team liaison within the school. I told myself to stay open and try to learn something new. I was anxious to get started in something I felt only partly enthused by, but at the first practice, I bought in.

I recall Bubba circled the team up and gave his coaching spiel about working hard and pushing yourself. Then he shifted gears. He paused.

If you don’t know Bubba, he was a cowboy in every sense of the word. In that moment, he was a fearless and charismatic leader, surrounded by a couple dozen 14- to 18-year-old boys and a handful of assistant coaches. He was — and I hope he knew this — a role model unafraid of saying the right thing.

He asked the team, “Who did something good for someone else today?”

I can’t remember that first day if anyone raised their hand, but I remember Bubba telling everyone that every day he was going to ask. He told them to do something good and come ready to talk about it.

“So look for something good to do every day,” he said. “Hold a door open for someone. Help someone carry their stuff. If you see someone struggling, ask how you can help. Tell those kids you know are struggling ‘good morning’ and ‘have a good day.’ Don’t be afraid to do good.”

Coaching high school sports is a humbling challenge. You work to let go of your ego and to give kids a good experience. You stay up late and wake up early thinking about the sport, areas of improvement, opportunities. You watch tape of other high school students for hours, often lying in bed until your partner tells you to quit three or four times. Your relationship suffers, and you know it. You write up practice plans to improve and change them throughout your day. To use a cliche: It consumes you, and then, after all that, sometimes you still fail. You feel lousy, like you let everyone down, and you re-examine the plans you’d made and where it may have gone wrong.

But sometimes though — just sometimes — you achieve that always-sought-after, indescribable moment that sticks with you and your athletes for another year, or another lifetime. For some, that moment is one of camaraderie, for others it’s personal achievement, and others it’s overcoming challenges.

A skeptic might think that coaches are has-beens unable to give up some childhood dream or wanting to build a silly legacy. But that cynicism is as trite as the cliches coaches are accused of using to a fault. Coaching is about giving kids a chance at that moment.

In that first conversation, Bubba explained so much: Our school had not been able to find a new coach and he just wanted to make sure the high schoolers — including his two sons — had the opportunity of a season.

When the school needed someone, he stood up, talked a few community members into helping, talked me into helping, and then donated the head coach’s modest salary to the volunteer assistants for their time. Just as he promoted with the kids on his team, he did something good.

Meagan got the call last week that Bubba had passed. It was still not confirmed, and we both sat and prayed it was just an erroneous rumor. We didn’t move from our living room. We kept the television off, waiting for another phone call, a post on social media, some sort of correction or clarification. We thought of his wife and sons. Our thoughts still go to them.

I remembered one bus ride when we were chatting about old timers — old men we admired or looked up to — and Bubba noted how one old guy he knew always seemed so talented in everything he did.

“If it was carpentry, he was great at it,” he recalled. “If it was roping, he was excellent, if it was pouring cement, he was the best. I tell my wife I just want to be good at one thing in my lifetime, and this guy was good at everything he tried,” he said — and this coming from a guy who played in a national championship football game, ran a successful cattle company, and cowboyed with the best of them.

This weekend, as I sat thinking about Bubba I thought about that conversation. I realized Bubba achieved his one good thing. In hindsight, I thought there it was: Bubba was good at being a good person. As simple and perhaps silly as that sounds, Bubba was excellent at it. He celebrated good around himself, promoted it in others, and he worked to contribute to it. I hope I can achieve so much in my own lifetime.