Short Story / Coach Steve
Coach Steve is a very angry man. He hates the state that he chose to live in of his own free will. The people here are too macho for his delicate Minnesotan personality, and yet he tries to maintain an aura of oppressed-white man toughness. It’s his shtick.
I first encountered Coach Steve quite by surprise. I wrote what I thought was an innocuous op/ed piece for the city newspaper about a long-shot political candidate, and by Sunday afternoon he’d looked me up in the phonebook and left me three messages. He told me he hated Texas and was planning on picketing in front of the Alamo a few weeks hence. He said that the candidate I wrote the article on would ruin Texas like Jesse Ventura ruined his home state. He said that Texans were hypocritical and overly sensitive (while at the same time being too macho somehow), and that the candidate took advantage of a double standard in terms of political correctness because he was Jewish. And he said it all very vehemently with a great deal of relish and animation in his squared-off Nordic-Midwestern accent over the course of three two-minute messages on my machine. He left me his website address, which enabled folks to download free copies of his book on how to be successful in life and how to be a good single parent. There were details on how to sign up for his seminars on “life coaching”. The biography section also spoke bitterly of his divorce and sang his praises for single-handedly raising two boys in those hellish years of relative economic normalcy known as the 1990s. Needless to say I never called him back.
About ten months later, the same candidate I’d written of was organizing a petition drive to get on the ballot for statewide office. There was some criticism of him by some of the newspaper columnists, so as a representative of the campaign (being the petition organizer for the city) I wrote a letter to the editor encouraging people to give him a chance. Well, Coach Steve had been waiting for that, I can assure you. I had two very vehement messages waiting for me when I got home and I decided that as an official representative this time with my name and number listed on the campaign website I should probably call him back.
He was affable enough at first. I may have mentioned in passing my lament at missing his Alamo picket line. Eventually he got down to the crux of the biscuit: he was angry with me for believing in something different that what he believed in, even though he didn’t even know me. My enthusiasm and active role in the whole movement for change really irked Coach Steve. The discussion grew more and more heated as he grilled me on policy issues and my personal beliefs, and I was as calm and placating as possible. I believe the conversation ended with him asking me if the candidate was pro-abortion.
“Well, he believes in a woman’s right to choose,” I said as coolly as possible.
“Just what I thought,” he gloated. “Another baby-killing Marxist.” This about man who’d won the Male Chauvinist of the Year Award from NOW in the 80s and who was later endorsed by the most prominent conservative blog in Texas, which is saying a lot.
“Well, you’re entitled to your opinion,” I said. “If it bothers you so much, there’s always Minnesota.” I think he hung up.
I don’t know if Coach Steve ever left the state that he seemed so detest so fiercely. His website has remained virtually the same since the first time he so humbly directed me to it nearly two years ago. Perhaps he has another book out now on dating, or gardening, or even flying kites. The only thing we can be certain of is that there are two really fucked-up young men somewhere in Minnesota who are frantically searching for their mommy.
And Coach Steve isn’t really a coach at all.
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Hi, when you title an essay Coach Steve, the readers expect something about the person, his accomplishment etc. There is not much about it here, except that he wrote some book and has a website, a passing mention. We even don’t know who is he is, except for a few hints. You should rather title it “My interaction with Coach Steve.” And you begin with this haughty tone, passing judgments on Coach Steve. By the “state” – in a general context people don’t think about geographical states, I was much confused naturally thinking it refers to some existential condition, as in the ‘state of affairs’. “here’ means what? How on earth is the reader supposed to know that you are talking about Texas? Do you have any consideration at all for the reader, or just want throw whatever is in your out in so many words? You can’t write so condescendingly about some person saying, he is too delicate, wimpy or whatever, in fact you are criticizing all Minnesotans, people could put a case of slander on you, and you could lose lot of money unnecessarily. Think before you talk okay? You have only right to praise someone in a biographical piece titled under the person’s name, otherwise don’t bother unless you want to mire yourself by attempting malicious slander. And at the end you suddenly say “And coach steve isn’t a coach at all” with a triumphant flourish, as if this brilliant thought suddenly occurred to you, but who is he in the first place?
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I love coach steve! I liked it overall, I liked the detail in some parts but in others like the end it just seemed like there wasn’t enough detail, like it was maybe being rushed a little bit. If it was left to sit and worked through carefully I think its effect would be more lasting. But I enjoyed the writing and it was definitely gripping in a sense.
Ahh. Coach Steve sounds like a great subject for humorous prose. The fucked-up life coach. The north/south thing is good too.
That said, you are walking a fine line here between fact and fiction. Short stories are by nature fiction. Anecdote, memoir, etc. is more what this is. Have you read David Sedaris? I could see Coach Steve portrayed in a David-Sedaris style.
There are numerous proofreading slips in the piece, but I’m sure other people have pointed them out.
Probably too in your face and badass to be something so short. It needs more perspective and more length, more anecdotes and more flesh to fill them out. I feel nothing for Coach Steve.
I stink at grammar and avoid comment. I tend to fall for a story if there is a frame, theme, and detail. Your story read well. I liked that your voice seemed secondary to the story. You read like a narrator and it flowed well for me. It also gives Steve the pulpit and a “fair” shot to argue his opinions, which he failed to do without your interference, nice job.
I see this as a short story and I think there are several directions you could take it…for example, “that Texans were hypocritical and overly sensitive (while at the same time being too macho somehow),”
The paradox of what defines a ‘Texan” is good for a couple paragraphs that could add more color and opinion to the story. The explanations you give will sculpt your theme. You have several opportunities…Coach Steve is symbolic of everyone who persecutes others without educating his arguments. I think more details about Steve…his attitude, his history, his ideology that explains the ignorance. Honestly, I don’t like the last line that begins. “The only thing we can be certain of…”
I don’t like it because the children are innocent and should not be associated with the behavior of a man they were not able to choose for themselves. They are victims. Your writing and this story are above that in my opinion.
I definately think you should stay with this story. I was interested from start to finish. Good luck.
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