Padecky: Coaches don’t like surprises, but COVID-19 forced them to adjust

Maybe it was time, Rick Krist thought to himself. Krist was fatigued. He had been coaching football for 31 years at Petaluma High School. He was a lifer all right. One doesn’t do anything for 31 years without it feeling like a second skin. Being around mercurial teenagers for 31 years, maybe it was time to peel it off.

“Maybe it was time to pass the torch,” Krist said. “I was thinking of giving up coaching.”

Then COVID-19 hit in March 2020. The first resident was diagnosed on March 2, 2020, and by mid-March, schools switched to distance learning. America collapsed in on itself. The moment was perfect for Krist to exit. Protocols were changing almost by the second. Emotions raged. Words flew like daggers. No one would have been surprised if Krist slipped out the back.

But the most remarkable thing happened. His players rescued him.

“They rejuvenated my love of coaching,” Krist, 55, said.

In their enthusiasm Krist saw why he was at the job for 31 years. Teenagers have rubber bones, electric energy and bulletproof confidence. Even if his players had to separate by six feet, they moved like they were wearing shock collars, sprinting, diving and standing still only long enough to change direction.

“They made me a better coach,” he said. “I became more focused, efficient, extremely organized.”

The Press Democrat interviewed five Sonoma County high school coaches. How did they deal with COVID-19? What lessons did they learn? What did they find out about themselves? Their answers were as varied as their responses to the virus.

Finding some kind of balance during downtime

Windsor High School football coach Paul Cronin ran three times a day, taking advantage of Zoom breaks.

“I’m a type A personality,” he said.

That would explain the calluses and the 38,000 steps he averaged daily. Cronin, who is No. 2 in all-time wins in Sonoma County history, has accepted a head coaching job at Newark Catholic in Newark, Ohio.

Montgomery High School baseball coach Zac Ward went fishing every day. Frustrated at not being able to gather his team, Ward took a 12-foot aluminum boat and went to Lake Ilsanjo, among other places.

“It helped me stay in the present,” he said.

Ward would put on his ear buds and listen to Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard. Ward said he was thankful he was speaking to someone old enough he didn’t have to spell their names.

Santa Rosa High School football coach Roy Keegan initially said, “honestly, I don’t remember.” A minute or two later, Keegan honestly remembered and it became obvious why he tried to forget: “I had back surgery in September 2020. I had been delaying it.”

St. Vincent de Paul High School basketball coach Tom Bonfigli sat in front of his flatscreen and became a die-hard fan of the Netflix crime drama “Money Heist”. It is not true Bonfigli got to know the characters on the show better than his players.

Krist began playing more golf. In fact, Krist played more golf during COVID than he had done in his entire life. Krist went from a 20-handicap to — as only a golfer can describe it — “somewhere in the teens.”

As engaging and satisfying as it may have been for a coach to hit a golf ball and not hit a tree, run 10 miles without needing oxygen or catch a trout big enough to feed a family of four, all these actions were distractions.

Coaches are captains of the ship

They were merely moments of pause, nothing more, when the conversation wasn’t overlaid with confusion, frustration and, especially, vulnerability. Coaches, at least the good ones, are organized to the very last detail. Coaches don’t like surprises. That’s why there’s game plans.

The following image was presented to Bonfigli.

A coach is the captain of his ship. His destination is charted, mapped out. Suddenly, his electronics go out. A dense fog envelops the ship. The coach doesn’t know east from west, north from south. He moves without direction or certainty.

“That’s a really good analogy,” Bonfigli said. “Preparation, matchups, who’s going to be on the floor? In one varsity game, I had four junior varsity starters. In one stretch we had four starters out for four straight days.”

Some had COVID-19. Some had the flu. Some just had a really bad cold. To the kids who weren’t sick, they looked to the adults for guidance, for answers. Only problem was the adults were paddling as fast as they could to stay above water.

“My kids were like zombies,” Cronin said.

The kids, like Cronin, pushed for a better day. But, when was that better day going to come? Coaches and kids were staring into that train tunnel, looking for a light that wasn’t there.

“I was so burnt out and exhausted by the end of it,” said Cronin, who does not surrender easily, if at all. “Rules didn’t make sense. I didn’t know what to do. It was killing me. I wanted to go crawl into a hole.”

Feeling stir crazy, filled with worry

By their job description, coaches aren’t allowed the same emotional flexibility as their players. They need to be the settling influence. It might surprise the teenagers that adults are as human as they are.

“I always thought I was a patient person,” Keegan said, “but I realized I was not.”

Keegan began coaching the Panthers just before the virus emerged. He spent 29 years with the Santa Rosa Fire Department, retiring as a captain. Working as, and then, supervising firefighters, one might think such a job would prepare anyone for anything. It did not.

“I always had my days mapped out,” Keegan said. “But sitting around and not having to be anywhere because we were in quarantine and not practicing, I went stir crazy. I had not the patience to wait. I was worrying about my family, about the kids in the program, knowing a lot of them were struggling. I sit here today still struggling with being patient. But I know I have to let things play out and just relax.”

Keegan’s remarkable honesty is shared by others.

Krist said he would have restless nights, anxious about what surprises the next day could bring. If the next day didn’t contain a surprise Krist would ready himself for the day after that, as so many of us did.

Ward said the lesson he learned was direct, clear and uncompromising.

“To be present and slow down,” said Ward, 51. “That’s become really important to me. All of this is a humble reminder nothing is guaranteed.”

Kids kept them in the game

When the coaches spoke of life under COVID-19, none of them volunteered their team’s record over the last two years. The stories they told, the experiences they shared, it was clear these last two years will not be remembered for team records. What the virus taught is not defined by numbers.

“How quickly things can change,” said Bonfigli who at 68 one would think he has seen plenty of change. “Things can literally change overnight.”

It is his next sentence some coaches will find frustrating, others will find all too true and genuine, while still others impossible to accept.

“There’s just a lot of things I can’t control,” Bonfigli said.

One thing, however, is under a coach’s control. Krist will tell you that it’s to keep an eye open to see, an ear open to hear and a heart open to feel.

Youth, Krist will tell you, is not wasted on the young. It certainly wasn’t wasted on him. It keep him in the game. It made him understand what all coaches know. Kids want them as much as they want the kids. Not even a deadly virus can prevent that.