Meyer was the coach when the girls program came into existence. Yes, there was a time when the sport was boys only, hard as it seems to believe. I remember seeing the boys-only team under coach Jerry Miller run out toward the golf course, giving me the impression that this was quite the herculean endeavor.
Sometimes sports was spoken of in terms of promoting "manliness." Tee hee, how quaint. It isn't even necessary to say that girls have achieved as much as legitimacy as boys. Back in the 1980s, this might seem to be a condescending statement. It is a given today. All the progress began with the kind of legislation that we can only count on Democrats to pass. Republicans would bristle at that statement but it's true. Eventually Republicans go long with this sort of thing, just as they eventually went along with Medicare. Don't be fooled. We depend on Democrats for progressive legislation, and the Republicans' own daughters benefit from it now.
Meyer was a capable coach but I have never felt it was necessary to lionize him. He has two annual events named for him in Morris. That's excessive, I feel. We have other retired coaches like Jerry Witt and Lyle Rambow who have contributed much.
The coach names I'm dropping in this post were once aligned with a certain clique in this town. The clique had both friends and skeptics. While the skeptics felt no animosity, I think they viewed this group as an impediment to some remedial actions that needed to be taken. I never felt it was necessary to let the clique guide us in decision-making. If they had kept their relationships fully social, that's fine. But they took on a political tinge. It was really more than a tinge - rather it was, when coupled with their friends, a divisive force in the community.
There are many people who'd read this and know that what I am writing is completely true. But they'd be aghast to see it in print, or to hear the truth articulated at all. My whole journalistic life has been devoted to trying to acknowledge the truth. It cost me dearly at one time. I never really shook the effects of that, and that was sad, not only for me but really for the whole community. In spite of how stupid some of you think I am, I always had a lot to offer.
We had a lightning rod individual in the school system who became disruptive in a way that I would categorize as bureaucratic stubbornness. There was much more of that in our public schools in the 1980s, whereas I think there is a much more positive environment today.
I had associations with clique members even though I ended up with a basic aversion to them. I would like to argue that they were not always the kind of saints as they are painted today. I rode in a car with some of these people to a football game in Montevideo. The discussion turned to the Hancock girls basketball program which at that time was starting to generate success under volatile coach Dennis Courneya, success that started to grate at some Morris-oriented people (jealousy). One of the iconic Morris coaches of that era, whose name I was going to type here but I won't after all, seemed to be bristling at mention of the Owls' success, and he said of those girls that they were "ugly." In the front seat, I turned to stare or glare for a moment. He had a smart-aleck grin on his face, and I could not have humbled him with any sort of rejoinder. I felt those people could be arrogant.
Merlin Beyer knew what made those people tick. Merlin was a salt of the earth person who would hold his ground even when the political winds didn't seem to be blowing favorably for him. He helped lead a faction of insurgents in this community back around 1988. He saw through the facade of self-protection that was evident for the Tiger sports clique and their social friends who passionately went to bat for them.
Merlin and his cohorts held meetings at the old Holiday Cafe, where McDonald's is now. Heck, I remember that location from when the Trailways Cafe was there. Trailways started out very classy but later deteriorated.
The whole teaching staff of the school acted like they were under attack. The sheer extent of the conflict was ridiculous, as we should have instead nurtured a productive discussion. Oh but no, it was just the opposite. The insurgents were not bad people. Many upstanding people from dignified professions put their names on a document that was presented to the school board, I believe by a fellow named Larry Best.
The whole thing was unnecessary. A productive discussion should have evolved wherein maybe some philosophical issues could be addressed, and yes maybe one or two coaching appointments could be changed. But so what? It's just coaching appointments, mere frosting on the cake for the school system.
Don Fellows eventually tried to persuade me that the so-called clique did not really reflect the whole school staff, and that most teachers did not care so much about sports that they would be willing to go to war on such matters. It was not war except that several coaches were eager to try to portray it that way. It's like the reaction from Donald Trump these days if someone criticizes him. Such incredulousness.
It got to the point where the name of the Dairy Queen was cited at the winter sports banquet.
Anyway, good luck to our four cross country runners in the state meet at Northfield. "Turn on the jets" Maddie, Meredith, Solomon and Noah. Let me add that while I consider Henrich to be a member of the clique, I had higher regard for him in terms of his basic personable nature. Let's get something named for him someday. Witt and Rambow too?
Let's not forget that Merlin Beyer won a write-in campaign for Morris mayor even after the mess of the late 1980s.
Addendum: Beyer told me at one point, as the stress wore, that he could not trust Mike Martin anymore. Martin has ended up lionized more than anyone else who has ever worked in the Morris school system. But Beyer was upset after he had what he thought was a confidential conversation with Martin. Beyer felt it was just understood that a conversation like that would be private. But no, because Beyer was painted as one of the outliers or rebels, worthy of scorn in certain powerful quarters as it were, he was not accorded this courtesy by Martin. "I'm not going to say anything to him again," the Morris civic leader said. Beyer once cut my hair at his little shop which was part of the old Merchants Hotel.
Click on the link below to read about the MACA volleyball team's 3-0 win over Eden Valley-Watkins, here on Tuesday. This post also summarizes the Tiger football team's defeat at Pillager. These reviews are on my companion website, "Morris of Course." It is a pleasure for me to still be following Tiger sports. - B.W.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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