Sunday, August 13, 2000
It's hard to be saint in the city
The clock in Charles Anderson's office at Taft High is stuck on 11:10. The walls are blistered from age, the window air conditioner isn't working. The room is still with lost hope. The other week, Anderson submitted Taft's football roster to the Enquirer. It didn't take long. He only had six players.
That was up to 12 Friday. “(Thursday) we had 11,” Anderson said. “I guess you could say we're improving.”
Anderson is the head football coach at Taft. You could say he's a hero. Or a fool. Maybe he's both.
“Anybody say you're crazy to do this job?” I wondered.
“Everybody I know,” said Anderson, who is 41 years old.
Anderson has two assistant coaches. Some days, that allows him a one-to-one ratio of coaches to players. An assistant ends each practice asking, “Who's going to be here tomorrow?” The coaches know to take the number of raised hands and cut it by half. “Kids take turns” coming to practice, Anderson explained.
Calls for naught
This weekend, he made another round of calls, to parents of potential players. He does this a lot, recruiting by phone. He told them when practice was, when the season started and how much sports can mean to their children's development. He said it was important for kids to think long term. Sacrificing now would help them in the long run.
“What kind of response have you gotten?” I asked.
“None,” he said.
It's hard to be a saint in the city. Sometimes, it seems like the rest of the world doesn't give a damn.
The kids want money to buy clothes and shoes and jewelry, so they work instead of play. The parents have no problem with that, usually: If the kids can supply themselves with what they want then maybe, just maybe, the parents can give them what they need.
Being kids, they can't think past their next pair of $150 sneakers. They think $9 an hour is good money. Anderson tells them it's only good now. What you need when you are 18 is so much less than what you need when you are 28. It's a speech he has given hundreds of times in the 18 years he has coached high school football in the area.
Frustrating work
At Taft, lots don't listen, or aren't motivated enough to spend five hours practicing football.
At 6:30 a.m., when Anderson is filling coolers with ice and water and hauling out equipment to Taft's practice field several blocks away, he fights a frustration deep enough to stop him in his tracks. “All this,” he said, “and two or three kids show up.”
He coached the offensive line at Turpin for 10 years, until taking the Taft job last season. Turpin seems 1,000 years ago: Booster clubs, fundraisers, pep rallies. “At Turpin, I had 23 offensive linemen. Here, I don't have 23 kids,” Anderson said.
Anderson keeps on, because this is what saints do. If you're looking for heroes, don't bother staring 10 blocks south, at the new Paul Brown Stadium where the Bengals play. Stay on Ezzard Charles and talk to Charles Anderson.
“It would be a shame if no one was here to help these kids just because they live down here,” he said.
The clock on the wall read 11:10. “I'm hoping we get 10 to 20 more kids once school starts,” Anderson said. He has hope. It beats the alternative.
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at (513) 768-8454.
