The Best Coach I Ever Had

Greg Tinker came into my life at just the right moment.In 1986, he arrived at Maddox Middle School with a bulging satchel as the eighth grade history teacher and boys’ basketball coach. A recent graduate of Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tinker had a baronial presence at only twenty-two years old.Needless to say, I was enamored with him from the very start.I tried out for the seventh grade boys’ team and somehow survived the two days of hell that Tinker unleashed on queasy pubescent youngsters. Tinkers practices were crisply detailed and I knew that to get through them, I had to give more than just marginal effort. He assiduously pored over the fundamentals of basketball with terms that were easily understandable, stressing to us the little gradations of the game that floated through our minds and that in the end would make all the difference.He understood the importance of life fundamentals as well, and was happy to teach them to us.  “Everything has to have a foundation,” he once said. “There is a right way to do things, and if you do them from the outset, that builds a good foundation for any group, organization, or nation. There is no substitute for doing the little things well. The fundamental of life is truth. The further we move away from the truth, the more lost we are. Truth has to guide our lives.”Tinker was a true glimpse into the kind of man that I one day wanted to become. My Grandaddy Blanton was too old for me to relate naturally to him; he was otherworldly in a sense, and my dad was…well my dad. So Tinker’s life hit the bull’s-eye.Tinker was tough, but not harsh.  He knew how to get his point across without making people feel stupid or inadequate.  He addressed performance, not the person. Instead of saying, “you’re lazy,” he would implore “I need you to work harder.”Our little coven practiced in Maddox gymnasium, a lemony, cracker-box structure that was old and dust-ridden and just a notch above the gymnasium in the movie Hoosiers. The walls were built with cinder blocks and steel beams and a dilapidated set of wooden bleachers were housed on either side of a hardwood court. The wood on the court was slippery, falling victim to thousands of tapping feet and years of wear and tear. Practices often resembled ice-skating vignettes more than traction-induced rehearsals. This venue further enhanced our austere Tinkerian regimen.Practice was extremely hard; Tinker fed us a steady diet of wind sprints, conditioning, and drills. He instructed us on the proper rotations of zone defense, the fundamental techniques of shooting, passing, and ballhandling, and the subtleties of efficient offensive strategy.  He coined phrases that still reverberate in my mind. I can still hear him echoing the proprieties of a well-executed chest pass—“Arms extended, thumbs down, arms extended, thumbs down.”My two years under Greg Tinker as a basketball player laid the foundation for future success in athletics. But it is his friendship that has made the greatest impact on my life. Let me tell you about him.Greg Tinker takes the Gospel seriously. Several years ago, my father and I were having a very difficult time. We went for two months without speaking to one another. Since Tinker had been my dad’s best friend all those years, he found himself caught in the middle of the Blanton Web of Confusion. He became the de facto mediator between father and son. Tinker and I would often meet at Waffle House to discuss the nuances of a defective father-son relationship, and then, often in the same night, he would get a phone call from my dad (often two hours long) regarding the same broken liaison. I remember how he would quote Bible verses to bolster his points, using the Gospel to support his point of view. I was impressed by how much he knew the Word. Chapter and verse. It seemed like every point he made, he backed it up with an appropriate verse. And I could tell that his Bible study was more than just glossing over or token consolation.He has been this kind of mentor to me since he entered the halls of Maddox Middle School in 1986.The fact of the matter is that Greg Tinker is talented enough to have done almost anything he wanted to in this life. Highly intelligent, he could have chosen a more lucrative profession. A profession of greater esteem. But he chose to be a teacher and a coach. A middle school teacher and a coach. There’s not much glory and prestige in that type of position. But Tinker understands the kind of impact he can have on thousands of youngsters that run through his check-out line. He understands that he can armor those same young boys and girls for battle when they step out into the real world.As a teacher, he works hard at what he does. It matters to him. He is a history teacher, and he takes that responsibility very seriously. Not only does he impart the history of the United States to his fold, but he also teaches them how to think. I can imagine that I would enjoy very much sitting in on his class, and it’s a shame that I didn’t get to have him as my teacher. But I guess I have been sitting in that class for over twenty years now. And I learn every time I listen to him.Tinker has taught me a lot about integrity. He shuns fame and fortune. He lives modestly, dresses modestly, spends modestly. There’s honor in that. He lives in a small house on a little knoll, just walking distance away from his workplace. It’s not much in terms of square feet, but this domicile is all that he needs or wants. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he teaches me.I will always remember my ninth grade baseball tryout. In addition to coaching middle school basketball, Tinker also coached the high school baseball team. That year, I didn’t have a particularly good try-out. I was nervous, and I didn’t perform as well as I would have liked. Tinker subsequently cut me from the team. I can imagine that he wrestled with this decision greatly, given the potential for serious commentary from my father. Many of you who knew my father can imagine how stewed he was about Tinker’s “misjudgment.” But Tinker held his ground, and today I respect him for it. He showed us that he was committed to fairness despite the fact that he was best friends with my father. That, my friends, is called integrity.Tinker has been such a blessing in my life. Where I would be without Greg Tinker, God only knows. Prison. Jail. Nuthouse. Not really sure. But I do know that his life has shown me the proper way to live. I know that there are times when the only thing I knew to do was to try to place my feet in the footprints that he had already left for me. When I got off track, he showed me the right path.I do think it’s ironic that his last name is Tinker. In the olden times, a tinker was a nomadic fixer of household utensils. A gypsy. A person that lives on the margins of life. I cannot think of someone that is more grounded into his community than Greg Tinker. Tinker doesn’t tinker with life. He meticulously maintains a well-oiled machine that runs on truth. Kindness. Self-control. His fuel is the fruit of the spirit. God’s word.While he could have lived anywhere, Tinker has chosen to remain in Jasper and impact the people around him. There is no measure of the kind of influence he has made on the Jasper community. He has been able to do this because he understands his purpose in life: to serve God in this little town in the northwestern corner of Alabama. That’s where God has needed him, and that’s where God has him. Nestled.One day when I grow up, I hope to be just like Greg Tinker. He clarifies the term “gentleman.” Embodies the term “class.” And elucidates the word “disciple.”He’s the closest thing to Jesus I have ever known. But to me, he will always be called Coach.Thank you Coach for showing me The Way. Thank you for teaching me the fundamentals of life. Thank you for teaching me about Truth. Thank you for loving my dad in a way that was never easy.The Blantons are eternally grateful.