Read A Captain's Duty for Free Online
Authors: Richard Phillips
loved me or that he was proud of me (though I knew he did and that he was). I tell my kids I love them all the time. You learn what to inherit and what to leave behind.
I was a wise-guy kid. I’d meet teachers who on the first day would shake my hand and say, “Oh you have so much potential!” You don’t even know me, I thought. And even though everyone knew my parents as teachers, I didn’t go in for education very much. My dad taught business and math and served as the assistant football coach and the head basketball coach at the high school near our house and my mom taught fourth and sixth grade in Massachusetts and New Hampshire schools, but I was lurking near the bottom of every class, just doing enough to get by. For me, school was a place to ogle girls, play sports, and see my friends. Sort of like church, with sports.
Rebellion came naturally to me. I couldn’t fake an interest in things that didn’t interest me. Plus I knew I had other abilities: I was tough, I was a hard worker, and I knew how to learn.
But I always felt like I was a very lucky guy and life was going to take me to some interesting places. Even my teachers sensed that. One day, my French teacher, Doc Copeland, went around the room and said, “Joey, you’re going to make an excellent bricklayer. Mary, you’re going to be a housewife. Joanie, maybe an architect.” When he came to me, he stopped and said, “You’re going to do a lot of traveling.” I was happy with that.
Sports was the biggest thing in my life, growing up. I had three brothers, and I wanted to beat them at games just as much as they wanted to beat me. You competed against your friends at Bogues Court, the local basketball pit. Your street competed against the next street in games where the only fouls were the ones that drew blood. And your school lived or died by who won the big football game against your rival.
It was an atmosphere that bred a certain mental toughness. I learned about life, about leaders and followers, by playing sports. Hell, I learned everything by playing sports. One of my favorite athletes was Larry Bird, who was born average and made himself into a superstar athlete by sheer mental toughness. That’s something I respected.
I played football, basketball, and lacrosse in high school and I was just average in all of them. Sophomore year, I caught the football coach’s eye and he took an interest in me. Coach Manny Marshall would see me in the school hallways and he’d come up to me like I was on the verge of taking the team to the state championship. “Oh, how’re you feeling today?Drink plenty of milkshakes, you’ve got to put on more weight. Oh, you don’t have to go to gym, don’t worry about gym, I can take care of that. How you feeling? Feeling strong?” Junior year, I was out with mono and after years of being obsessed with sports, I realized there were other ways of having fun—namely, partying. But Coach Marshall still zeroed in on me every time he spotted me. “Don’t tell anyone else,” he’d say. “But you could be captain next year.”
I wasn’t good enough to be the captain. I hadn’t played all year. I didn’t deserve the title.
Coach Marshall expected me to fit his system, which required players to live and die by the score. He couldn’t understand the fact that I enjoyed myself whether we were winning or losing. “Why are you grinning?” he’d yell at me. “Because I’m having fun?” I’d answer. For him, football was a religion and if I was laughing with my friends when the team was losing, then I must be the Antichrist. I went from being his star prospect to riding the bench. I even quit the team before the final game of the season, against our archrival Woburn, just because the sport had stopped being fun. I watched the game as part of the band, where I played saxophone. I’d made the band leader deliriously happy: “It’s the first time someone’s told the football coach, ‘Sorry, I can’t
I was a wise-guy kid. I’d meet teachers who on the first day would shake my hand and say, “Oh you have so much potential!” You don’t even know me, I thought. And even though everyone knew my parents as teachers, I didn’t go in for education very much. My dad taught business and math and served as the assistant football coach and the head basketball coach at the high school near our house and my mom taught fourth and sixth grade in Massachusetts and New Hampshire schools, but I was lurking near the bottom of every class, just doing enough to get by. For me, school was a place to ogle girls, play sports, and see my friends. Sort of like church, with sports.
Rebellion came naturally to me. I couldn’t fake an interest in things that didn’t interest me. Plus I knew I had other abilities: I was tough, I was a hard worker, and I knew how to learn.
But I always felt like I was a very lucky guy and life was going to take me to some interesting places. Even my teachers sensed that. One day, my French teacher, Doc Copeland, went around the room and said, “Joey, you’re going to make an excellent bricklayer. Mary, you’re going to be a housewife. Joanie, maybe an architect.” When he came to me, he stopped and said, “You’re going to do a lot of traveling.” I was happy with that.
Sports was the biggest thing in my life, growing up. I had three brothers, and I wanted to beat them at games just as much as they wanted to beat me. You competed against your friends at Bogues Court, the local basketball pit. Your street competed against the next street in games where the only fouls were the ones that drew blood. And your school lived or died by who won the big football game against your rival.
It was an atmosphere that bred a certain mental toughness. I learned about life, about leaders and followers, by playing sports. Hell, I learned everything by playing sports. One of my favorite athletes was Larry Bird, who was born average and made himself into a superstar athlete by sheer mental toughness. That’s something I respected.
I played football, basketball, and lacrosse in high school and I was just average in all of them. Sophomore year, I caught the football coach’s eye and he took an interest in me. Coach Manny Marshall would see me in the school hallways and he’d come up to me like I was on the verge of taking the team to the state championship. “Oh, how’re you feeling today?Drink plenty of milkshakes, you’ve got to put on more weight. Oh, you don’t have to go to gym, don’t worry about gym, I can take care of that. How you feeling? Feeling strong?” Junior year, I was out with mono and after years of being obsessed with sports, I realized there were other ways of having fun—namely, partying. But Coach Marshall still zeroed in on me every time he spotted me. “Don’t tell anyone else,” he’d say. “But you could be captain next year.”
I wasn’t good enough to be the captain. I hadn’t played all year. I didn’t deserve the title.
Coach Marshall expected me to fit his system, which required players to live and die by the score. He couldn’t understand the fact that I enjoyed myself whether we were winning or losing. “Why are you grinning?” he’d yell at me. “Because I’m having fun?” I’d answer. For him, football was a religion and if I was laughing with my friends when the team was losing, then I must be the Antichrist. I went from being his star prospect to riding the bench. I even quit the team before the final game of the season, against our archrival Woburn, just because the sport had stopped being fun. I watched the game as part of the band, where I played saxophone. I’d made the band leader deliriously happy: “It’s the first time someone’s told the football coach, ‘Sorry, I can’t