Coach,
You may never know how much you mean to me. You may never know how you changed my life for the better. If it wasn’t for you, I would never be the man I am today. You helped me grow as a man, taught me how to be a man and made me appreciate everything that as around me. Me and you go way back together. You have been a second father to me. You changed my life. You made it better.
The summer going into my freshman year I was nervous. I was real nervous. I didn’t know that to expect. The only thing I knew was one day, hopefully, I would get to play football for you. You saw how nervous I was. I didn’t want to let you down, Coach, I never wanted to let you down. That summer, my first workout, you welcomed me with open arms. You explained the setup to me, what I should except and you told me for the first few workouts to go work on the small weights, learn the sesame, buy into the system and when I was ready I would move on. I’ll be honest, Coach, that gave me all the confidence in the world. If we’re being completely honest here, I didn’t want to play football in high school. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I thought it was too demanding. I didn’t want to get hurt. But I saw your passion, I saw your love for the game, I saw the love you had for the us players and I thought to myself, “How would you not want to play for a Coach like this? For this school?” So, I showed up to every workout just like I promised to you on that first day. I never wanted to let you down.
Coach, you took a small, out of shape 9th grade kid and turned him into a football player. You turned me into every game starter his senior year. You turned me into a man. You never gave up on me. You never ever gave up on me. You have no idea how that changed me for the better. As you know, you and I have had many discussions, many personal conversations. You know all the trouble I went through with my athletic career. When I was cut my junior year of baseball from the varsity team, you were the one who told me to stick it out and keep working hard. That year you asked me after every game how I pitched. You wanted to know if I was still working hard. Also, my sophomore year on JV football, the first 3 games I wasn’t playing at all. On JV, I wasn’t playing. I spoke to you, I was so discouraged, I was so frustrated, so upset, all the hard work the two of us have been putting in was not paying off. You told me, “I could move you up to varsity for the year,” but I wouldn’t play and I would get my ass kicked every single day at practice. I know you offered it, but I’m so glad you didn’t pull me up. You knew I wasn’t ready. You told me to keep my head up and keep working hard. You believed in me. Finally, I got my chance to start the next game. I’m grateful for the JV coaches for giving me the opportunity, but I’m also very grateful for you. You knew I was going to get an opportunity soon and you made me believe in myself. You could’ve given up on me. You could’ve not cared about me. Your team was one of the best teams on Long Island that year. Why would you care about a backup lineman on JV? It just shows how great of a person and Coach you were.
When I finally got up to varsity, I wanted to do everything to make you proud. You did everything for me, and I wanted to help you. Whatever you needed or asked I wanted to be there to help. My junior year was a struggle, only because I knew I had to wait for my opportunity. I knew I was going to get it, but I had to wait and get better, and I was okay with that. You gave me some taste of the varsity action by letting me start against Westbury and playing late in games, you always told me I was doing well. We would watch film together, practice together, make me a better player. You helped me every way that year. You were helping me get better for my senior year.
My favorite memory of the two of us was when we were together at 5:45 in the morning. My dad would drop me off for workouts, you and him would talk for a couple minutes, catching up. That meant a lot to me too. The fact you would take time out and talk to my dad was awesome. And the other amazing thing was in the bitter cold at 5:45 in the morning, you would get out of your car and stand in the cold with me until the janitors let us in. You could’ve stayed in your warm car, but you knew that wasn’t fair to me. For those 20 minutes, the two of us had some amazing and personal conversations. You would ask about my family, my school work, how I’m doing, get to know me more and more and then we would talk about football for the last ten minutes. We would talk about how I can improve, how we can improve as a team, and we would just talk and talk and it was awesome. I miss that. Those conversations meant a lot to me.
My senior year, you named me a starter and let me start every game that season. In front of our fans, in front of my family, I got to play every play. Why? It’s because you never gave up on me. You were there throughout my high school experience every step of the way. It was me and you until the end. My worst memories I would have were if you got upset with my performance on the field during a game. I never wanted to disappoint you, but I know you were upset because you expected more from me. Looking back at it now and watching film, after every time you got upset with me, I would play so much better. That’s when I played my best football because, well, I wanted to prove you wrong and I wanted to make you proud but you already knew that. I know why you would get upset, you did it for my best interest. But I think I did well playing with a partially torn ACL for most of the year. Remember when I hurt my knee against at Uniondale and I said I was fine? Well it was a partially torn ACL; I just couldn’t tell you because I wanted to play!
You changed my life forever coach. You were the only person who never stopped believing in me. You believed in me from the day we met. You gave me so many opportunities and I never thanked you for that, so I figured this would be a good thank you because you gave me the most amazing gift ever. You gave opportunities like no one, and I mean, no one had ever had. You saw greatness in me and I hope I made you proud. Because you forever changed my life. I love you for that Coach. This letter doesn’t even do justice on how much you mean to me.
Coach, it's been one amazing ride you had at MacArthur. Your leadership, hard work and love for all of us, we will treasure forever. When I first started playing Macarthur football, I was nervous. I didn't know what to expect. You helped change that for me. Every morning we had workouts, at 5:45, in the cold, dark morning, you and I would have conversations, not just about football but about life. You asked how I was doing, you asked about my family, and you asked about my school work and then we talked football. You helped transform a kid who was nervous about playing into starting every game my senior year. You saw an opportunity in me, you were the one who gave me a chance. Every day you would make me not only a better player, but a better person. You became a household name in my house. You became a friend, a teacher, a coach, a mentor and a father figure to me. And for that, I'll love you forever. You changed my life Coach. Thank you for everything. I will always keep in touch, forever. Thanks for always believing in me.
Joe "Jack" Ryan
