Long before I ever played on one of Garvey's teams, I knew who he was. At St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic grade school which I attended, he was revered as the coach of the varsity basketball team and a respected member of the parish community. Ditto at Cathedral Preparatory High School for boys where Garvey coached freshman basketball. And also at Mercyhurst College where he taught History and eventually became the college's president. He devised election strategies and advised local Erie politicians such as mayor Lou Tullio and county executive Robbie Robison, and later, mayor Joyce Savacchio and county councilman Gary Bukowski. All of them benefited from Garvey's expertise. (I apologize for any misspellings.) His power and influence were well known. As was his success. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" and I believe it led Garvey to think he could abuse us with impunity.
When things went well and we played well, Garvey roared his approval and beamed as he looked over his creation. But I also saw Garvey prod, name-call, scream, smack, and otherwise humiliate his players to improve their performance. My performance. His players, me included, quietly accepted this treatment. It was an honor to play for St. John's. An honor to play for Garvey. He was a winner. His methods went unquestioned. But I also watched some of those older players walk slowly, reluctantly, with heads down and shoulders slumped, as they headed off to the music room. They went off to what I initially considered a harsh motivational technique and later, when it happened to me, recognized as the beginnings of abuse and acquiescence, dominance and submission. They were going to the music room to be paddled, "rapped".
As has already been reported by others in The Erie Daily Times-News, the paddling could be for any number of reasons. One way to earn "raps" was to receive a less than acceptable assessment of your classroom behavior. In those days "conduct" was rated on a scale Of "1" to "4", with "4" being the worst possible grade. A mark of "3" or "4" on your report card earned you a like number of raps. Poor grades in academic studies could also earn you raps. And not surprisingly, poor performance on the court could earn you raps that were intended to spur you on to better play. Garvey recognized the motivational power of a very basic human instinct: fear. When he sensed that we, whether singularly or collectively, were afraid of the older high school or college-aged alumni that he encouraged to come scrimmage against us, or even at halftime of a game against another team he thought intimidated us, he told us that if we thought they were something to be scared of, he'd give us something to truly fear: him. At times that meant running laps around the gym for seemingly endless periods. Other times that meant banging your head off of a locker or a smack to the head. Often it meant a trip to the music room and raps. "Raps or laps" was a common refrain. At some point I was paddled for all of the above reasons.
Once in a while one of us would do something, in or out of school, that required Garvey's attention and, as he perceived it, discipline. In one instance, a then eighth grade player, thinking he was unobserved, pinched and twisted the nipple of the breast of one of his female classmates while pleading with her to "gimme some" (if lockerroom scuttlebutt is to be believed re: the quote). His punishment when this was brought to Garvey's attention: raps. In my case I had stupidly penned something silly, perhaps distasteful but by no means profane, that was deemed inappropriate for junior high consumption. One of my teachers had confiscated the material and punished me by keeping me after school. As I had feared, when I failed to show up for practice, my teammates had told Garvey of my predicament and he appeared at the door to my classroom. After a brief discussion in the hallway, the teacher and Garvey reappeared together and I was released into Garvey's custody. I wonder what my teacher would have done had she known what my punishment would be.
Practice was going to start late. And although that was often the case because Garvey was notorious for making us wait outside the school for him to arrive, this time it was my fault. When there were no other teachers or students within sight, he cuffed me open-handed upside the back of my head. "Aw, for Christ's sake. This is dumb, Jack. Really stupid." He led me down the hall to the music room. When we arrived he was further angered by the fact that the door was locked and he hadn't brought his keys. I followed behind him as he led me to the huge custodian storage room at the elbow of the basement. The room was dusty and smelled of the cleaning supplies and floor buffers that were kept there. The air was close and I found it hard to breathe. "Take your pants down, Jack, and bend over."
Next: "Rap" sessions
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