Skip

Sometimes in life,one comes across a person whose impact on ones life isn't fully realized till long after they've gone from it.


Stanley "Skip" Jarocki was one of those people. I knew him from my four years at Watkinson School.
"Skip" was my high school basketball coach. He had been a star athlete at Haverford College in Pennsylvania where as the story goes,until he coached the Varsity Basketball Team at Watkinson,had never been associated with a losing team in his life.

Let me emphasize:UNTIL he coached the Varsity Basketball Team at Watkinson. Watkinson's Basketball team was a collection of wannabe and never-will-be players,and that's being generous. If not for the fact that Watkinson was a small school of 120 students,there were some on the team that would be hard pressed to make a third grade roster at other schools. My stint on the Varsity team was the result of a failed lesson in teaching a predominantly white student body that all blacks cannot play basketball.
Our team never won more than 4 games in a 15-20 game schedule during my entire 4 years on the Varsity team.
Coaching a losing team was not  an easy task for Skip. His coaching style was hard nosed. I would compare him to noted Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight. He'd harass the refs and was prone to receiving technical fouls. He'd slam his clipboard onto the court. On one memorable occasion,after a 40 point loss,he smashed a can of soda pop against a locker,causing the can to puncture,the end result being soda sprayed all over his suit. Just like Bobby Knight,he did things that in today's world would be unacceptable such as clutching my throat following a series of errors by the team.
One would think given Jarocki's temperament and history that his memory at best would be a negative one. Truth is,the voice of Skip Jarocki sometimes still coaches me today. In playing for Watkinson,there was rarely a game where we didn't face adversity from the moment of the tip off. In many cases,for all practical purposes,the game was over within minutes of the first quarter. At that point,there would be players ready to quit and quitting was precisely what Skip Jarocki would not permit you to do unless you wanted a seat on the bench. It didn't matter if we were losing by 10,20 or 50 points..Lost a game by 73 points once..players played,quitters sat.

Sometimes life has been like the equivalent of losing by large margin with a hostile audience on one's case. Sometimes one "loses" but quitting is not an option and once we beat a previously undefeated team that had never faced adversity.

Skip Jarocki was also my English Teacher at Watkinson School and playing a game in the evening was no excuse for not finishing an assignment the next day in his classroom. He was known to pick on members of the team for answers,figuring that if we cant play basketball we were going to know our assignments. I once thought a snowstorm was going to cancel class and there was no need for me to study for an English exam. The snowstorm never materialized and Skip never hesitated in giving me a 0 for my efforts.
Given the description of Skip Jarocki on the basketball court and in the classroom,one might get the impression of a teacher,especially one teaching in a Connecticut prep school such as Watkinson as one leading a rather traditional and morbitly dull English class. Let me give you a partial list of required reading in Mr.Jarocki's classroom:
                                                       In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
                                                       Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
                                                        Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
                                                        Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
                                                        The Greening of America by Charles Reich

Sometimes subversives come in the form of a Bobby Knight impersonator..



Watkinson School

 
                                                       

Lessons from the Court

My High School basketball team from Watkinson School in Hartford Connecticut was terrible..and that's being nice about it. When I first entered Watkinson,I never imagined myself playing basketball on the Varsity level. Initially,my primary reason going out for basketball was to utterly destroy at this predominantly white prep school  the stereotype of all black guys being good at basketball.
But that's another story for another time.

We were short. I was the second tallest on my team one year. We were slow. In Basketball,being short and slow is a fatal condition and with the Watkinson Varsity Basketball team of the early '70's it proved itself with 20,30,and 50 point losses not being uncommon.

The coach of this hapless team was Stanley "Skip" Jarocki. He doubled up as an English teacher at the school. How that worked out as a student also is another story for another time. Skip was part of the Haverford College championship soccer team,and never had been associated with a losing team..till he met us.

Skip was a Bobby Knight type coach. Tough on the refs. Would get called for several technical fouls. Tough on his players too. In a game against Milford Academy we had 5 consecutive backcourt violations. On the sixth try,we got the ball past halfcourt. I then traveled. On the ensuing time out,I thought he was going to strangle the entire team. The image on his face is burned in my memory forever.
 "DANIELS!!"
There's something else from Coach Jarocki that has burned in the heart ever since. When one is getting beatdown time after time,it would be easy to call it quits,and given certain situations,it would have made sense. With this team,the outcome of the game was often decided within the first few minutes of the first quarter. By the fourth quarter,even the opposing team would be laughing at us. Nevertheless,the thing that got you benched in a hurry was NOT the mistakes,but rather giving up no matter how out of reach the game was.

There have been those moments in life when it would seem like I'd be down 10 points within the first few minutes of a game. Life can throw one for a loop at times. I'd hate it when Skip would bench me,and generally would not permit it from happening.
When times have been tough,I still see Skip's image and hear the voice..and I keep playing. Hard.

By the way,we did beat a previously undefeated team once..
 

The Nor'easter that Never Happened

Chances are that if you lived in the Greater Hartford Area in the '60s or '70s,you began your morning listening to Bob Steele on radio station WTIC. Bob Steele played Big Band and Easy Listening music,told corny jokes,made poor baseball predictions,and made note of your birthday if you were 80 years old or older.

If you were a kid growing up in Hartford,you kinda hated him based on the music he'd play,plus the mere fact that your parents loved him,but on the other hand,you kinda liked him too. Chances are when one was younger,you listened to his Children's Story segment..something like Peter and the Wolf which he'd break up in segments throughout the week... "Part 3 Tomorrow" in his distinctive voice.
Later when you went to school,there was another reason worth listening to Bob Steele. During the winter,when there was a severe blizzard or Nor'easter,when school was cancelled,you'd hear it first from Bob Steele. If I knew snow was in the forecast,soon as I heard the radio going off in my mom's room,I'd peak out the window,and if it was snowing,I would strain to listen..waiting to hear the words "No School for..."

Stanley "Skip"Jarocki was my English teacher in both my sophomore and senior years of High School,and for me,one of the more memorable teachers I had during that time. Thanks to Mr.Jarocki,I was introduced to the writer who became my all time favorite-Richard Brautigan. Trout Fishing in America and In Watermelon Sugar were both required reading! So was the Hermann Hesse classic Siddartha. Based on that,one might get the impression that Skip Jarocki was some non-conformist teacher,constantly in trouble with the Administration. Nothing could be further from the truth. Skip Jarocki was a hard nosed,highly driven man who also doubled up as the Varsity Basketball Coach. On the court,Skip was the second coming of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight..not afraid to send a player on his ear for a mistake made on the court,and not above yelling at the refs and incurring numerous technical fouls. Problem was,unlike Indiana and Knight,Skip Jarocki's basketball teams didn't win. In fact,losing by 20 and 30 points wasn't uncommon. In fact,there were games where his teams lost by 50 or more points.Before this experience,Skip had never been associated with losing teams..even won a soccer championship at Haverford College. It drove him crazy at times and while most of the time,Skip's basketball persona never entered the classroom,it was never a good idea for a member of the Varsity Basketball team to enter his classroom on a day after a loss unless one was absolutely on top of all the assignments.

After a 30 point loss on the road,I returned home to do my homework. Had a few assignments to complete but weighing most heavily was an English test in Mr.Jarocki's class. It was a test on a book I just could not get into and had continually put off completing till the night before the exam. The week before, during a discussion of the book,Mr Jarocki continually called upon members of the team in the classroom. When none of us gave the answers he was looking for,those in our classroom who never attended a Varsity game hear in true Bobby Knight fashion that we were not going to perform in the classroom like we did on the basketball court!
I knew there was going to be hell to pay by not reading the book,but I also knew there was something going in my favor...Weather forecasters were predicting a monster Nor'easter to be coming up the coast with enough snow predicted that would surely mean the cancellation of school.
I started to read the book,realized I wasn't retaining anything,put the book down and then began to devise a plan to spend my snow day absorbing this book.
When my mom's radio alarm went off at 6 am with Bob Steele on the radio,I didn't bother to look out the window.Instead I kept my eyes shut. I wanted to enjoy the fact that I would be able to stay in bed longer. I also wanted to lay and think as to how soon in the day I wanted to start reading this book again.I knew I would have to shovel some snow first.

Now when Bob Steele would announce snow days,he would often start with the cancellations of schools farther out of the Greater Hartford area.Many of those kids had longer distances to travel,and there weren't many roads for those kids to travel on,so I'd wait to hear about those schools first. Bob Steele would start with the school cancellations shortly after the hour and again shortly after the half hour. I thought it was strange that no school was mentioned after the hour.
My mom would start to get on my case about getting ready for school around 7. 6:30 comes and goes and there is the bad music,Bob Steele's "Word of the Day"..and no school cancellations anywhere. There's a little concern,but in my mind,I cant hear everything coming from the radio in my mom's room,and maybe I missed it.

7 am. My mom begins getting on my case. I want to resist and stay in bed,but unless Bob Steele gives the word,I WILL have to prepare for school or at least respond to my mom's pleadings. 7:05 and there's more music and no announcement. I look out the window,and instead of white,I see the ground.
The best Skip got out of me in that exam was my signature,signifying that I indeed was responsible for this 0 grade exam.
I think there was a lesson in there somewhere..