Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Zarank The Tank
A LTTLE TOO FAT NOW! COME BACK NEXT YEAR!
Zarank the Russian Tank was the most ruthless scholastic coach ever to be given the go ahead to coach high school sports. During the Baby Boomer years of the 1960’s, there were two classes of high school coaches; those that were dedicated and motivated and knew exactly what they were doing and the traditional classroom teachers, who either wanted the extra money or were threatened with losing their jobs if they didn’t coach some secondary offbeat sport. Football and basketball were the only sports considered big time at Bishop Egan Catholic High outside of Philadelphia. There were no sports for girls beyond looking sexy in a canvas jumper.
Marion Zarankewitz was a big strange Russian lay teacher who taught science at Bishop Egan. Most non-Clerical teacher types at Catholic high schools were constantly abused by the middle of the road and low-level classes of boys. And class size numbered close to 50 students per section. Marion Zarankewitz could hold his own against the “lower classes” while the more sophisticated comedians like me instinctively knew to lay off “Zarank The Tank” or risk disappearing in the middle of the night. Marion was too big and strange and was himself a master of psychological persecution and cutting the weak ones loose from the herd.
The first day of baseball tryouts in the spring of my freshman year I decided to sit up on the hill behind to backstop and just watch Zarank cull the herd of wannabe major leaguers. Coach Zarank had recruited me hard because I was his outstanding player on his freshman basketball team and he heard that I was a good pitcher back in eighth grade. But I was afraid of “hard balls” ever since some 17 year old “big kid” with a left hand delivery had thrown a step off the rubber pick-off rocket to my first base glove that I cleverly caught with my face. I stayed home from school for two weeks because I looked like Lizzie the Borden Cow and I was embarrassed.
Ninety kids showed up for baseball tryouts that first day and Zarank The Tank was the only coach. And he knew absolutely nothing about baseball but he understood the science of selectivity and survival of the fittest and that natural selection and genetic inheritance made some people athletic while most were not. Zarankewitz understood all that stuff and absolutely never contemplated an individual’s burning desire to excel or the resiliency of the human spirit.
Zarank began most sentences the same way, ”O.K. Now.” “O.K. now, I want all the ninth and tenth graders to line up along the left field foul line with their gloves and all eleventh and twelfth graders along the right field line with their gloves.”
Zarank walked down the underclassmen chalk line first, asking kids what position they wanted to play. He then asked some kids to step backwards and others forward. A few were told to remain standing on the line.
“O.K .now, those of you that stepped backwards try again next year. The rest of you stay where you are.”
One freshman boy who was a star pitcher in the Levittown Little League started crying. “O.K. now, don’t act like little girls now,” Zarank said. “Just take off! ”
Zarank not only judged kids on their size and stature but if he noticed that you were carrying a flat glove with no pocket or a brand new not yet broken in or a Pep Boys model then you were way gone. That was Zarank’s scientific side kicking into gear. He knew those kids couldn’t play and in almost all cases he was right on the money.
The absolute highlight of cut down day occurred when Zarank came face to face with big Mike Gettis, a decent football player who had started at first base the year before. “O.K. now, way too fat now, career over, please step back!”
Gettis tried to argue but Zarank cut him off, ”O.K. now, don’t be a little girl now, ”Zarankewitz said. “Nice first baseman’s glove though, you might try selling it!” I noticed a sickness to this science but I didn’t mind watching it.
During freshman basketball season Zarank became quite impressed with the accuracy of my jump shot which he always referred to as a “one hander.” We had a loaded team of Grammar school all-star white boys, all well schooled and drilled on the fundamentals of basketball. And with two minutes remaining in a small dank gym in inner city Trenton, New Jersey, we were leading the Trenton Catholic freshmen, who hadn’t lost a game in six years.
Zarank called time out. “O.K. now, we’re gonna win this game now. Kerr you take the ball and dribble around until you trick at least two people to come after you. Then give the ball to Fredericks for his one hander. You other three guys just stay out of the way and don’t shoot unless you get a lay-up.”
The strategy worked as the savvy Kerr was chased for a full 90 seconds before he found me alone in the corner with an over the shoulder no look pass. I buried the jumper hitting nothing but net and Kerr and I celebrated an improbable victory while the three lay-up brothers all sulked. “O.K. now, don’t act like little girls, ”Zarank told them. “When we get a big lead in a game you can shoot all you want.”
Zarankewitz was the science teacher for the freshman class of section D 1 which was the Nineteen Sixties version of “behavior management for the emotionally disturbed.” Zarank the Tank was absolutely cutting and insulting in the classroom and he left me alone because of my one-hander. But he loved mentally beating upon Italian Stallion Rick Chevett whom Zarank sarcastically referred to as “Shovit” every time he called his name.
The day before report cards were issued Zarank played a game where he went around the room asking students what grade they think they deserved then he’d tell them the grade the got. No one argued during this session because they didn’t want to be called “Little Girls” by Zarankewitz.
“O.K.now, Fredericks?” “I don’t know, seventy-five, I guess. “O.K. now, a little modest, Eighty! “ He would say the real number loud and drawn out like ,”Ayyyyyyty!”
Zarank burned poor Rick Chevett and several others. “O.K. now, Shovit? “ “I really don’t care, ”Chevett said. “O.K. now, don’t be a little girl, Shovit. Play the game or I’ll lower your grade”!
“I really don’t know, ”Chevett said. “I’d say Seventy Five, like Fredericks should have gotten.”
“O.K.now, very generous and inflated now! Fluuunky!” There were about 10 “Flunkies” in the room and each one was funnier and the word flunky more exaggerated than the one before. The routine remains one of my more cherished high school memories.
Back on the baseball diamond Coach Zarankewitz had put together a very respectable team. I loved watching him coach third base where all coaches seem to get carried away with flashing signs to batters and runners covering a variety of scenarios.
Zarank The Tank had only one sign from his third base box,”O.K. now! My back to you—Steal!” And when Leo Rossi was thrown out at third base for the final out of an important game he unraveled on Zarackewitz. “Everybody at the ballpark knew I was stealing as soon as you turned around,” Leo said. “It’s an inside joke. It’s the only reason some people come to the games.”
The “only shoot if you got a lay-up” Rossi was having a bad Zarank year in the sports arena. “O.K. now, don’t act like a little girl,” Zarankewitz yelled at Leo.
“I ain’t no little girl, ”Rossi screamed throwing down his first baseman’s mitt he purchased from Gettis.
Coach Zarank turned his back and leveled Leo to the ground, ”Fluuuuuuunky!”
Zarank the Russian Tank was the most ruthless scholastic coach ever to be given the go ahead to coach high school sports. During the Baby Boomer years of the 1960’s, there were two classes of high school coaches; those that were dedicated and motivated and knew exactly what they were doing and the traditional classroom teachers, who either wanted the extra money or were threatened with losing their jobs if they didn’t coach some secondary offbeat sport. Football and basketball were the only sports considered big time at Bishop Egan Catholic High outside of Philadelphia. There were no sports for girls beyond looking sexy in a canvas jumper.
Marion Zarankewitz was a big strange Russian lay teacher who taught science at Bishop Egan. Most non-Clerical teacher types at Catholic high schools were constantly abused by the middle of the road and low-level classes of boys. And class size numbered close to 50 students per section. Marion Zarankewitz could hold his own against the “lower classes” while the more sophisticated comedians like me instinctively knew to lay off “Zarank The Tank” or risk disappearing in the middle of the night. Marion was too big and strange and was himself a master of psychological persecution and cutting the weak ones loose from the herd.
The first day of baseball tryouts in the spring of my freshman year I decided to sit up on the hill behind to backstop and just watch Zarank cull the herd of wannabe major leaguers. Coach Zarank had recruited me hard because I was his outstanding player on his freshman basketball team and he heard that I was a good pitcher back in eighth grade. But I was afraid of “hard balls” ever since some 17 year old “big kid” with a left hand delivery had thrown a step off the rubber pick-off rocket to my first base glove that I cleverly caught with my face. I stayed home from school for two weeks because I looked like Lizzie the Borden Cow and I was embarrassed.
Ninety kids showed up for baseball tryouts that first day and Zarank The Tank was the only coach. And he knew absolutely nothing about baseball but he understood the science of selectivity and survival of the fittest and that natural selection and genetic inheritance made some people athletic while most were not. Zarankewitz understood all that stuff and absolutely never contemplated an individual’s burning desire to excel or the resiliency of the human spirit.
Zarank began most sentences the same way, ”O.K. Now.” “O.K. now, I want all the ninth and tenth graders to line up along the left field foul line with their gloves and all eleventh and twelfth graders along the right field line with their gloves.”
Zarank walked down the underclassmen chalk line first, asking kids what position they wanted to play. He then asked some kids to step backwards and others forward. A few were told to remain standing on the line.
“O.K .now, those of you that stepped backwards try again next year. The rest of you stay where you are.”
One freshman boy who was a star pitcher in the Levittown Little League started crying. “O.K. now, don’t act like little girls now,” Zarank said. “Just take off! ”
Zarank not only judged kids on their size and stature but if he noticed that you were carrying a flat glove with no pocket or a brand new not yet broken in or a Pep Boys model then you were way gone. That was Zarank’s scientific side kicking into gear. He knew those kids couldn’t play and in almost all cases he was right on the money.
The absolute highlight of cut down day occurred when Zarank came face to face with big Mike Gettis, a decent football player who had started at first base the year before. “O.K. now, way too fat now, career over, please step back!”
Gettis tried to argue but Zarank cut him off, ”O.K. now, don’t be a little girl now, ”Zarankewitz said. “Nice first baseman’s glove though, you might try selling it!” I noticed a sickness to this science but I didn’t mind watching it.
During freshman basketball season Zarank became quite impressed with the accuracy of my jump shot which he always referred to as a “one hander.” We had a loaded team of Grammar school all-star white boys, all well schooled and drilled on the fundamentals of basketball. And with two minutes remaining in a small dank gym in inner city Trenton, New Jersey, we were leading the Trenton Catholic freshmen, who hadn’t lost a game in six years.
Zarank called time out. “O.K. now, we’re gonna win this game now. Kerr you take the ball and dribble around until you trick at least two people to come after you. Then give the ball to Fredericks for his one hander. You other three guys just stay out of the way and don’t shoot unless you get a lay-up.”
The strategy worked as the savvy Kerr was chased for a full 90 seconds before he found me alone in the corner with an over the shoulder no look pass. I buried the jumper hitting nothing but net and Kerr and I celebrated an improbable victory while the three lay-up brothers all sulked. “O.K. now, don’t act like little girls, ”Zarank told them. “When we get a big lead in a game you can shoot all you want.”
Zarankewitz was the science teacher for the freshman class of section D 1 which was the Nineteen Sixties version of “behavior management for the emotionally disturbed.” Zarank the Tank was absolutely cutting and insulting in the classroom and he left me alone because of my one-hander. But he loved mentally beating upon Italian Stallion Rick Chevett whom Zarank sarcastically referred to as “Shovit” every time he called his name.
The day before report cards were issued Zarank played a game where he went around the room asking students what grade they think they deserved then he’d tell them the grade the got. No one argued during this session because they didn’t want to be called “Little Girls” by Zarankewitz.
“O.K.now, Fredericks?” “I don’t know, seventy-five, I guess. “O.K. now, a little modest, Eighty! “ He would say the real number loud and drawn out like ,”Ayyyyyyty!”
Zarank burned poor Rick Chevett and several others. “O.K. now, Shovit? “ “I really don’t care, ”Chevett said. “O.K. now, don’t be a little girl, Shovit. Play the game or I’ll lower your grade”!
“I really don’t know, ”Chevett said. “I’d say Seventy Five, like Fredericks should have gotten.”
“O.K.now, very generous and inflated now! Fluuunky!” There were about 10 “Flunkies” in the room and each one was funnier and the word flunky more exaggerated than the one before. The routine remains one of my more cherished high school memories.
Back on the baseball diamond Coach Zarankewitz had put together a very respectable team. I loved watching him coach third base where all coaches seem to get carried away with flashing signs to batters and runners covering a variety of scenarios.
Zarank The Tank had only one sign from his third base box,”O.K. now! My back to you—Steal!” And when Leo Rossi was thrown out at third base for the final out of an important game he unraveled on Zarackewitz. “Everybody at the ballpark knew I was stealing as soon as you turned around,” Leo said. “It’s an inside joke. It’s the only reason some people come to the games.”
The “only shoot if you got a lay-up” Rossi was having a bad Zarank year in the sports arena. “O.K. now, don’t act like a little girl,” Zarankewitz yelled at Leo.
“I ain’t no little girl, ”Rossi screamed throwing down his first baseman’s mitt he purchased from Gettis.
Coach Zarank turned his back and leveled Leo to the ground, ”Fluuuuuuunky!”
