The Coach’s Nose

by Dean Kramer
February, 2003


Before MS and I became intimate partners I was very active socially. Though my friends and I engaged, for the most part, in athletic activities, we also spent some of our time during those activities in conversation. What a talker I was! I would offer an opinion on anything, whether I knew the subject or not. If there was no conversation going I'd begin one and then monopolize it. I listened mostly to see where my next remark ought to be placed or where the opinions of others needed the benefit of my expertise. I was a conversation-hog, when it comes down to it. Maybe I was trying to make up for my relative mediocrity as an athlete.

With the onset of more symptomatic MS my athletic abilities became limited and I found myself fairly isolated for a number of years. I came to enjoy the silence. I worked at stripping away that in myself which kept me from coming to terms with MS. As I've written before, I began learning acceptance, to wait for things to unfold rather than rush or force them into manifesting, and to let go of much that I'd once thought valuable or necessary. As this process was occurring I also made some new friends. These people were less physically inclined than much of my former circle. Conversation was now more important than it had been in my past but I had become much less eager to be the center of conversational activity.

It is a joy to sit and listen to people talking among themselves, being one among many rather than trying to control the flow of talk. Whether the conversation is serious or lighthearted, a subject that interests me or one that does not, by keeping to the periphery I learn much about the people I'm with. Tones of voice, choices of word, emotional tenor and all sorts of dynamics reveal themselves when one is listening to others rather than planning her own next speech. Sometimes, no longer greedy for the leading role in directing conversation, I find myself involved in something totally unexpected, completely enchanting. What follows is an example. The people involved are all very dear to me. They are my family and, at times, this is how families talk·

Dinner was over and Becky and her husband, Oscar, in whose home we were dining had invited Twink and I to stay for a rubber of bridge. The three of them, Twink, Becky (who is Twink's mom,) and Oscar were bustling from dining room to kitchen clearing the table, making coffee and fetching the obligatory snacks which (to me) make bridge such an enjoyable activity. I had remained seated at the table because, that particular night, I wasn't steady enough on my feet to be of much use cleaning up. I was taking this after-dinner time to be still and relax while waiting for the next event, the bridge game, to begin. I was listening to the others.

Oscar, Twink and I are college hoops fans but we root for two different teams (I'll call Oscar's team the Blues led by Coach B., and mine and Twink's the Reds led by Coach R.) There were some teasing remarks exchanged between Oscar and Twink about a game between our respective teams which our team (the Reds) had won. In a mature analysis worthy of any sportscaster, Twink made a derogatory remark about the length of the Blues' coach's nose.

"Ha-ha!" she chortled, "When the Reds beat the Blues the other night, Coach B. was so angry that his nose grew another two inches! If it gets any longer they're gonna call him for a technical foul cause his nose will be on the court when he's sitting on the bench."   At the table, I laughed appreciatively. Oscar is a man who knows when he's being ribbed. He likes to mix it up with Twink. But before he could come back with a smart remark of his own, Twink said, "Speaking of noses, I saw Coach R.'s nose the other night. The camera was on him during an after-game interview and he has a nose disease!"

"What's the matter with his nose?" asked Becky in alarm. She doesn't get too carried away about basketball but she cares about people and wants them to be okay.

"He has that nose disease." said Twink, "The one where your nose starts to grow and grow."

"He doesn't have a nose disease," Oscar began, unaware of the shift from Coach B. to the other coach. Oscar is from the south and his wonderfully deep voice has the slow cadences of the Carolinas. But that slowness means he's often cut off in mid-sentence by Becky and Twink.

"Yes he does!" Twink insisted. "I heard about it on that radio talk-show. They were talking about that disease where your nose just gets bigger and bigger. W.C. Fields had it."

"Did Cyrano de Bergerac have it?" I queried from the dining room. I may have been on the bench when it came to kitchen duties but I wanted to support my team, so-to-speak.

"Yes!" Twink responded, "they mentioned him, too."

"Coach B.'s nose has always been like that." said Oscar, "He just happens to have a long—"

"Coach B.?" Becky asked, "His nose is a little long, maybe, but I don't think—"

"They weren't actually talking about him." Twink reflected, lost in her own train of thought, "they were talking about people who have that disease."

"No, Coach B. doesn't have a nose disease." Oscar said to Becky.

"Wait a minute, which coach are we talking about?" Becky asked.

Twink's train of thought gathered momentum and headed down the track leaving its passengers stranded on the platform. She said,

"But when I heard them talking on the radio I just knew that's what's wrong with his nose, cuz I saw it the other night and the end of it was really big—too big."

"It was the camera angle, Twink." I called, helpfully.

"Are we talking about Coach B., or Coach R.?" Becky asked again before returning to the task in which she was engaged.

"Coach R." Twink clarified, "He has that nose disease."

"And you heard this on the radio?" her mom questioned.

"Coach R. is a very handsome man." Oscar stated, "Maybe I don't root for his team over my own,
but—"

"I've always thought so." Becky agreed, "but now you say he has a nose disease?"

"They weren't talking about him specifically," Twink started to explain.

"You mean they were talking about the disease, but not about Coach R.?" I asked.

"Oh, I though you said Coach R. has a nose disease." Becky was relieved to learn the coach was okay.

"I think it was just the camera angle." I offered.

"There was a radio show about this disease." Twink repeated, "And when I saw him on camera the other night—"

"He doesn't have a nose disease!" Oscar was beginning to sound a bit testy, "He just has a long nose!"

"No, not Coach B., Coach R.!" Twink said in exasperation.

"I thought you just said there was nothing wrong with his nose." came Becky's distressed response.

Maybe it was Becky who first began to chuckle. Gradually, though, each of us joined her, looking a little sheepish at the energy we'd put into dissecting the coaches' noses. We then settled down, more or less, to playing cards. MS has given me some information-organizing difficulties and in my effort to remember both that conversation and the sequence of this game which I'd only recently been taught, I lost my awareness of the talk around me. I continue to try to work with myself so as to better accept the challenges of MS. Before the disease I'd never have had the patience or the stillness required to really listen to those among whom I spoke. I can't tell you what we said to each other during the bridge game that evening but the conversation about the coach's nose is one I doubt I'll ever forget.