I haven’t seen my old friend Quitman Sullins in close to thirty years, but his name came up at a dinner party with old friends last night, and this morning I spent a lot of time thinking about him.
Quitman was the legendary high school basketball coach who led Maine South High School to an Illinois state championship in 1979, beating powerhouse schools like De La Salle with a smallish bunch of suburban boys. Team after powerful team they beat, and each team went away knowing that they were not outplayed; they were outcoached.
Soon after that, I started coaching softball and soccer at Maine South, and although both sports are different from basketball, Quitman taught me that coaching is coaching in the most important ways. I was hungry to learn whatever this legendary coach might teach me.
And the most lasting lesson I learned from Quitman was this: When dealing with a disgruntled parent over his kid’s playing time, Quitman would listen politely to the father’s full argument, and then he would say: “If I were in your shoes, I would feel the same way you do.”
He would leave it at that, and let the father fill in the unspoken words. Words like: “Unlike you, I’m the only man in the gym who doesn’t have a kid in the game, and who has no personal stake other than what’s best for the team as a whole.”
In virtually every case, the conflict was disarmed by that simple comment, once dad considered what Quitman’s shoes might feel like if he were wearing them. He didn’t always agree, but he understood.
Because — let’s face it — most of our opinions concerning right and wrong are pretty self-serving, rather than serving some greater good outside of us.
Fortunately, in more than twenty years of coaching, I had few problems with disgruntled parents, so I never got the chance to try out the response Quitman gave me. But the notion has never left me that while most arguments stall at “I’m right and you’re wrong,” many arguments can be at least partially resolved by saying “I would agree with you IF….”
But only if both parties honestly consider what path led them to be so convinced that they are right, and then to consider how they would feel if they had walked the other’s path instead. If we all did that, it might bring some insight and calm in our “right vs. wrong” world of today.
Take ultra-conservative initiatives like the “Don’t Say Gay” bills passed in Florida recently by a governor and legislature that call them “anti-grooming” laws. I would agree with people in favor of those laws IF they had seen their sons and daughters “groomed” into homosexuality by unscrupulous gay teachers.
But in 35 years of teaching high school, I never saw that happen, ever. Instead, I saw students like Cary, who committed suicide because he was secretly gay and could find no sympathetic adult to help him survive his conflicted adolescence.
To those who vote for candidates who back fearful homophobic bills, can you honestly say that you have seen grooming going on with your children? Or are you simply so terrified that it might happen that you let improbable fear drive your vote?
Or take the freedom to own semi-automatic weapons. I would agree with people wanting to enjoy the fun of owning high-capacity assault rifles and pistols IF they lived in a world where those weapons are used only for target practice and are never turned upon innocent school children and concert-goers.
But we don’t live in that world, do we? So please show me how your innocent target-shooting gun fun is worth the price of all that mayhem.
I might even agree with those gun enthusiasts IF they lived in a world where the rare bad guys with assault weapons are regularly thwarted by abundant good guys with assault weapons. But events like that are so rare as to be virtually nonexistent. So please help me agree with you by showing me how you came to your decision to vote for candidates who encourage widespread ownership of assault weapons that statistically kill vastly more innocent people than bad guys.
Or take abortion. I would agree with you that abortions should be strictly limited IF in your world it is only being used by careless people as a sort of heartless birth control. Unfortunately, that is not the world I live in, and neither do you.
Over decades of teaching, I have known teenage girls like Stacey, who was sexually assaulted for years by her father and brother. Your children and grandchildren go to school with those girls, whether you know it or not. Help me understand what you would say to them when you vote for candidates who would deny them the right to abort a baby conceived of unwanted incest or rape.
Because I am willing to change my vote, IF you can show me the wisdom of it based on real-life experience and factual data, rather than unwavering ideology or unreasoning fear.
Others have made changes like that, once they considered what it was like to wear another person’s shoes. Ronald Reagan, for example, was firmly against abortion, and hence against stem-cell research, since all stem cells are derived from aborted fetuses.
However, once he was stricken with Alzheimer’s, Nancy Reagan led the charge to fund stem-cell research as a possible weapon against the disease, urging the passage of laws like the Ronald Reagan Memorial Stem Cell Research Act and the Ronald Reagan Biomedical Research Act.
Because things look different when life forces you to lace up somebody else’s shoes on your feet.
So, yeah, I might agree with you if I were in your shoes.
But only if you wear sensible shoes.
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
