Warm-ups Before the Big Game

It was championship night and our Lee General basketball team was playing Boulter Junior High.  We had a great team my 9th grade year with a record of 17 wins and 2 losses and were Tyler City Champs.   

My good friend, Dale Westmoreland, and I were waiting at the gym after school for his father to pick us up. It just happened on this afternoon that the high school B-team was practicing.  Our 9th grade was aligned with our 10th-12th grade high school, while Boulter was not connected to the other high school in Tyler, Texas.

So Dale and I sat in the gym waiting for his dad and watching the B-team practice with Coach Berry.  It was during this time that Dale and I asked Coach Berry if we could shoot on an unused goal while we waited.  He consented and continued on with his practice.

Before long our coach, Billy Hall, came through the gym and upon seeing us, he instructed the two of us to get off the basketball floor and sit down. We obeyed him--until he got out of sight and then we began to get back on the court and start shooting again.  We thought Coach Hall had left school.  But we were wrong! He returned in about ten minutes.

This time he called for us to go with him.  I said, "Coach, we don't need a ride home; Dale's father is coming to get us in a few minutes." He ignored my comment and motioned with his hand and said, "Come on with me." Dale and I did not know what he wanted but we soon found out.

He said, "What did I tell you about shooting on the goal while the B-team was practicing?" We quickly said, "Coach Berry said it was OK!" He said, "What did I tell you?"  He instructed us to come into his office and told us that we were going to get three licks each. He said, "Who wants to go first?" I said that I would. 

Dale had never been paddled before but I had. Earlier that year Coach Hall paddled me for eating popcorn before a football game. So I volunteered to go first. Boy, he warmed me up really good with three licks.  

After I got my paddling, I went outside and Dale went into the office. As I said, he had never been paddled in school, so this was quite an experience for him. He would later get school paddlings but this was his first.  It was in the dead of winter and snow was on the ground.  As I left the P.E. locker room office heading outside, I could hear Dale getting his three licks.  Then, amazingly the door flew open and Dale burst out of that office, headed to the outside door, ran and sat his butt on a big pile of snow! The look on his face was pure shock. It was not uncommon for red marks stay on your rear for three days or more. Dale's father would pick us up in a short time after the painful event but our parents were never told of the paddling. 

Well, that is not the end of the story. Our team played Boulter and we were already warmed up!  We won and I scored 18 points in the win. The final score in that John Tyler High School sponsored tournament was us (Lee) 43, and Boulter, 40. That was when a happy Coach Hall said, "Maybe we need to give you three licks before every game if it causes you to score that many points." I don't remember if Dale scored that night or even played. But, he was definitely warmed-up and ready if called upon.

Dale and I still talk about that event in our lives.  We have really had some good laughs.  But we were taught a valuable lesson on the importance of obedience and to do what we were told to do the first time. The experience would stay with us for a life time.