Mr. Bray
“Quit feeling sorry for yourself!”
-Mr. Bray
This is what Mr. Bray used to scream at us during a tough practice or game when guys were hanging their heads, showing fatigue, or, well, feeling sorry for themselves. It’s a statement that I say to myself regularly whenever I’m not being grateful for all that I have or when I need to change my perspective and start looking at something as a blessing instead of a burden.
I have wanted to write this blog for a while, but I kept putting it off out of fear of missing something, of not doing justice to a man who had an enormous impact on my life. Sports played a huge role in my life from a very early age, and the influence that my coaches and teammates had on shaping the man I am today cannot be overstated. Mr. Bray was pivotal in my development as an athlete and a human being, and I am forever grateful that I got to spend so much time with him in life.
As I mentioned in previous posts, I grew up in a very small town in Michigan’s beautiful (and cold) Upper Peninsula (UP). People are crazy about high school athletics, and kids end up playing multiple sports throughout the year because there simply aren’t enough players or opportunities for someone to specialize in only one sport. These logistics, combined with a small school and limited faculty, mean that an athlete’s playing career intertwines with teachers and coaches over the years in sometimes unpredictable ways. My relationship with Mr. Bray started out as a student-teacher pairing in his middle school gym class, but Mr. Bray was also the high school lunch room monitor, one of two eighth grade basketball coaches, my high school gym teacher, junior varsity (JV/sophomore year/1999-2000) football and basketball coach, and assistant varsity football coach. Oh yeah, and he taught hunter’s safety and driver’s education. Yes, where I grew up, kids get educated on how to safely handle and respect firearms. Everyone owns guns yet there is zero crime and zero mass shootings. Weird. Anyway, if you add up all of these activities, it comes out to countless hours spent with Mr. Bray on the field, court, weight room, bus, classroom, lunch room, and driver’s ed car. This post is my attempt to capture some of my memories of Mr. Bray and describe the effect he had on my friends and me over the years. I will never get to share this with Mr. Bray because he passed away last year, but perhaps others who were lucky enough to call him, “Coach,” will get a chance to read, reflect, and share some of their own thoughts on a guy who meant so much to all of us. There are many things Mr. Bray did for the community that won’t be expanded upon here, such as his involvement with the Norway Speedway, Gold Medal basketball tournament, hunting and fishing endeavors, and I’m sure a whole bunch of other stuff I know nothing about. I’ll primarily be sticking to how I knew Mr. Bray and the venues that allowed me to spend a lot of time with him over my middle and high school years.
Right up front, I should mention that Mr. Bray scared the living crap out of me. The guy looked like he could suit up and go play linebacker for a college football team like he did back in the early 1970s. If you watched one of our JV football practices with Mr. Bray, it was not uncommon to see him get pissed at what he deemed a lack of intensity and jump right into a full contact hitting drill against a kid in full helmet and pads.
From my 2000 high school yearbook.
Mr. Bray’s intimidating build and physique were accompanied by one of the loudest and most booming voices you could ever imagine. He did not hesitate to get right in your face and give you an earful when you needed it. Now, I’ve been screamed at by a lot of people over the years, including siblings, parents, teachers, coaches, and drill instructors. Some yell just to yell. Some yell because they suck at communicating. Some yell because of their own insecurities. Some yell because they’re assholes and mad at the world. Some yell to try to motivate. Mr. Bray didn’t yell for any of these reasons, although getting yelled at by Mr. Bray did tend to motivate the hell out of a person. Mr. Bray yelled to make you better. He yelled because he cared, and I don’t ever remember getting yelled at by Mr. Bray and thinking to myself that it was unnecessary, unfair, or silly for him to be yelling at me. When Mr. Bray yelled, it just made me want to put my head down and run through a wall for the guy if that’s what it was going to take to not let him down, and I know my teammates felt the same way. None of us wanted to let our teammates or Mr. Bray down. That was the worst thing our adolescent minds could imagine, something that would stick with a person for a long time after the fact.
When I was in eighth grade, my school had around twenty kids go out for the basketball team. Instead of cutting players to whittle the numbers down, the school decided to make two teams, White and Blue, so nobody had to get cut and more athletes got exposure and practice with the game. A few other schools in the area were doing the same thing, so it was no big deal. Mr. Bray was the coach of the White team, but I ended up on the Blue team coached by Mike Maule and Dante Mendina, two guys I absolutely loved and who obviously cared deeply about the development of my friends and me. One day, Mike and Dante were unavailable for practice, so both the White and Blue teams were going to practice together under Mr. Bray’s guidance. The intensity of practice was cranked up because it was a Mr. Bray practice and there was a lot of competitiveness between players from the two teams. Everyone was going all out and hustling through each drill. I distinctly remember running a three-man weave, a classic full-court basketball drill, when Mr. Bray said, “Henrion might be able to play for me someday.” Mr. Bray didn’t know it, but that statement meant the world to me. It was obvious to us all that compliments from Mr. Bray were not handed out casually. Mr. Bray didn’t “blow smoke up your ass,” to use one of his common expressions. Up to that point, that was the closest thing I had ever gotten to a compliment from Mr. Bray. Ten years later, Mr. Bray had a health issue, and I sent him a card. In the card, I let him know that when he told a player, “Good game,” in the locker room after a game, it meant more than when someone else said it because you knew it must be true. Praise from Mr. Bray was not free. Much like any good thing in life, you really had to earn it.
At times, Mr. Bray was completely nuts, but there was always a method to his madness. It’s probably a lot different now, but back in the late ‘90s in the UP, football coaches could still make their players do old school drills like the nutcracker, Oklahoma, and shed drills. Mr. Bray would often stand right next to the action of two players going at it yelling, “It’s gotta be violent!” and waving his arms around. Just typing that sentence still gives me goosebumps and makes my hair stand on end. Practices with Mr. Bray were intense. There was no letting up and there were no easy days. In Michigan, August two-a-days began with a mandatory three days of conditioning where players wore only helmets rather than full pads. After that last conditioning practice on Wednesday evening, with everyone nervously anticipating the transition to full pads for the first practice Thursday morning, Mr. Bray told us, “Tomorrow, we separate the girls from the sissies.” That line still makes me laugh, even though you’d probably get fired for saying such a thing in today’s politically correct environment. The message, however, was clear. The rest of the season was going to be a gut check, so you better bring your balls to practice every single day.
For the entire first week of JV football two-a-days, Mr. Bray saddled me with the nickname, “Big and Dumb.” On Monday morning of the second week, I came sauntering into the locker room knowing it was going to be a tough, physical week. Mr. Bray was sitting in a chair just outside the coaching staff office. He kind of looked me up and down, and I offered a meek good morning greeting. Mr. Bray glared at me and said, “You know, Henrion, I need to give you a new nickname.” “Really?!” I responded, probably a bit too excitedly. “Yeah. You’re not all that big,” Mr. Bray said casually, and rolled his chair back into the office. I absolutely lived for this kind of locker room ball-busting among players and coaches, and I knew Mr. Bray had just given me a story, and perhaps unfortunately a nickname, for the rest of my life.
Mr. Bray flanked by his assistant JV coaches, his brother Andy (left) and Mr. Zygiel (right).
There are many moments that stand out from our JV football season, but one in particular will stay with me the rest of my life. We had a pretty competitive group of athletes in our class, and we went on a tear during our JV year. The last week of the season, we always played our rival, the Iron Mountain Mountaineers, and this particular season, we were both undefeated going into the final game. Both teams played hard, but Iron Mountain was damn good and we got down to the end of the fourth quarter and it was obvious we were going to lose. Iron Mountain had the lead and the ball down inside our five yard line with under two minutes left. Our last timeout was called and my teammates and I slowly trudged over to our sideline, knowing that it was pretty much over. Mr. Bray exploded, but it had nothing to do with the fact that we were going to lose. “Don’t you dare quit on me! And don’t you ever quit in life!” Here we were at the culmination of a memorable season about to lose a game that meant the world to my teammates and me at the time, and Mr. Bray was screaming at us about not quitting in life. That statement hit me harder than anything else that entire season. Mr. Bray was well aware of the much bigger picture, even though the 15 year-old players standing on the sideline were not. That was such an emotional moment for me that reminiscing about it always chokes me up a bit. It just showed how much Mr. Bray cared about us and how there is often a bigger message in the challenges we undertake.
JV football team from the 1999 season.
Football season wrapped up in somewhat disappointing fashion, and we only had about a week before basketball practice started. The funny thing is, when football season ended, we actually still didn’t know who was slated to be our basketball coach. There was a brand new varsity basketball coach at the school, so some other coaches had been shuffled around and the decision to name a JV coach was delayed. I still remember walking into Mr. Bray’s fifth period weight lifting class, right after lunch, and Mr. Bray telling me, “I got you guys for basketball.” Even though I loved Mr. Bray, my stomach dropped upon hearing this news. If I haven’t mentioned it enough already, playing for Mr. Bray was intense. There were no easy days and you had to go all out for every single moment of every single practice and game. Mr. Bray made sure that my teammates and I were held to a higher standard in every aspect of the game, and it was exhausting. At the time, I just wasn’t sure if I could stay disciplined and continue to meet those expectations for a four-month basketball season. Of course now, looking back twenty years later, discipline and high standards were exactly what all of my friends and I needed. Basketball season went well and we ended with some good victories and a decent record. There was, of course, more screaming and running and the whole team getting kicked out of practice at least once, but it all just made us love Mr. Bray even more. Looking at the stat sheet after a game, Mr. Bray noticed that I had an abysmal shooting performance. I made something like two out of fifteen shots from the field. “Henrion, two for fifteen? I could kick it in at that rate. You couldn’t throw it in the ocean if you were standing on the shore.” Mr. Bray stated. How could you not laugh?
JV basketball team from the 1999-2000 season. Two guys weren’t in the picture and two of our classmates were moved up to play varsity that season.
With my sixteenth birthday coming later that spring, I was anxiously anticipating getting my driver’s license and a little bit of freedom. My dad had already spent hours teaching me how to drive a car, but I also had to complete a number of official hours in the car with Mr. Bray, the school’s driver education teacher. Mr. Bray would put out a schedule, and a few students would meet up after school. One kid would drive with Mr. Bray in the front seat with two other kids in the back observing. After about an hour, the driver would rotate out and a new driver would take control of the car. The school driver’s ed car had a brake on the passenger side so Mr. Bray could mash it if one of the student drivers was about to do something reckless. I ended up doing most of my driving hours with this girl Shelley, who I secretly had a crush on from when we sat next to each other in freshmen biology the previous school year. Shelley loved giving Mr. Bray a hard time about anything and everything. She just had to poke the bear and keep the conversation going as we drove around town. On one particular day, I was driving and Shelley was in the back seat running her mouth and badgering Mr. Bray, obviously approaching his last nerve. When I had started driving, Mr. Bray had taken a few tubes of lip balm and jammed them into a few of the passenger side air vents. I guess he had chapped lips and wanted to keep them handy. I made a turn and the lip balm dislodged from the air vents and fell on the floor. At that point, Mr. Bray offered an analysis of my driving. “You fail,” he said without taking his eyes off the road. Even though Mr. Bray was clearly joking, Shelley couldn’t let the statement pass. “You can’t fail someone because your stupid Carmex fell!” Shelley shrieked from the back seat. Mr. Bray, who had been married and divorced a few times over the years, half turned his head and dryly asked, “Was I married to you once?” I immediately burst into laughter at this exchange. Hell, I don’t know. Maybe you had to be there, but it was great.
Mr. Bray served as the high school lunch monitor, and since my friends and I ate the standard school hot lunch just about every day, we got to dine with Mr. Bray on a regular basis. I have so many fond memories of us all sitting together eating hot dogs, chicken sandwiches, or mashed potatoes with mystery meat gravy and talking and laughing about things that were going on in the school at the time. During these conversations, we all got Mr. Bray’s perspective on things and really felt like we got to know him as a man a little bit better.
I want to take a moment and just riff on a few of my favorite Mr. Bray expressions from over the years. I know that many of these will lack context and not hearing just how loudly some of these words were yelled doesn’t give the reader even close to the full experience, but I can’t write about Mr. Bray without sharing some of these.
On players looking lackadaisical at practice:
“It’s eighth speed!”
“It’s because you’re lazy!”
“You have zero discipline!”
“You’re milling! You’re milling!”
“Dio! Dio! Dio!”
“What’re you, posing for holy pictures?! I’ll get you a staff and some sheep!”
On warning others not to mess with him:
“My left fist is six months in the hospital. The right one I’m scared of myself.”
“You’re going to think you’re chicken little and the sky is falling.”
“You think I can’t swat you [insert player’s name here]?!”
On being a detective when one player stole another player’s shoulder pads:
Mr. Bray: Craig, take off those pads.
Craig: Why?
Mr. Bray: Because they’re not yours.
Craig: Yes they are.
Mr. Bray: No they’re not! They look like a peanut on an elephant’s back!
On evaluating a player’s toughness:
“He’s not the bravest guy I’ve ever seen.”
On evaluating a player’s ability to catch passes:
“Paddle hands. He couldn’t catch a cold.”
On believing in us:
“I WILL NOT LET YOU LOSE! I WILL NOT LET YOU LOSE! I WILL NOT LET YOU LOSE!”
That last quote came from my buddy Hammer. Try to not be confident going into a game with a very imposing individual screaming that in your face. Mr. Bray helped prepare my teammates and me for games, but he also helped prepare us for life. I will forever miss Mr. Bray and the feeling of walking onto a field or court with my friends, knowing Mr. Bray is on the sideline watching us and that, no matter what, he had your back and you did not dare even entertain the thought of letting that man down. That was all you had to worry about in life at that particular moment, and you knew everything was going to turn out okay.