Notes from Dr. Sam

Good day,

We are quickly coming up on a meaningful anniversary for me. 

It was August of 1959 in the town of Augusta, Arkansas, and I was entering the 9th grade at Laura Conner School. It is fair to say I was an unhappy camper. 

It may be politically incorrect to say this, but I was a loudmouth sissy, and my mouth regularly got me into scrapes my fists couldn’t win. My father had always told me that if I didn’t like the way things were, I was the only one who could change it. So, I had taken the bull by the horns and signed up to play football for Coach Curtis King; my version of joining the Marines to toughen myself up. 

Coach King was a small man with a deep resounding voice who made significant demands on all the redneck kids under his command. Win or lose, he demanded our best effort. 

I was not athletic material. I was no more than five feet two inches tall and weighed in at about 125 lbs., I wasn’t fast, and I couldn’t throw the ball. At best I was a warm body to fill up a hole on the line. If I had any advantage, it was that I worked out in the heat on the farm all summer, so joining in for the two-a-day practices was not a major problem for me. 

For several of my friends this was their third season of Junior High football, and they knew what to expect. One of Coach King’s policies was that everyone who showed up and put in the effort got a chance to play in games, even if it was only one or two plays. 

Another of Coach King’s traditions was that everyone got a nickname, and a lot of those nicknames stuck. Many were funny; most were embarrassing. My friend, Robbin, who sat next to me on the end of the bench, raised his hand early on the second day of practice and said, “Coach, I have to go tinkle.” You guessed it—that stuck with him for a long time. 

You knew you had arrived when Coach gave you a nickname. My first awareness that Coach King had taken notice of me was when he called me from the end of the bench where I was sitting, and instead of calling me Sam, Sammy, or Taggart, he called me Tails. For the next four years, whether I was on the football field or in the mathematics classroom, I was Tails. I never asked him why he called me Tails, and he never offered to explain. 

We were not a good team; in fact, we lost every game. Robbin and I were destined to hold down the end of the bench for that season. True to Coach’s traditions, we each got in the game for a few plays. My first time on the field was against the Beebe Badgers, and I must say I was thrilled. 

When I ran off the field after a series of plays, he hit me on the shoulder pads and said, “Good job, Tails!” That little bit of praise hooked me on playing sports, and I enjoy that feeling to this day.

Have a good journey,

Sam

Dr. Sam Taggart is a retired doctor/writer/marathon runner who practiced in Benton for 45 years. He recently released For Every Family, A Family Doctor: a history of the modern Family Medicine Movement in Arkansas. His other books include Country Doctors of Arkansas, The Public’s Health, With a Heavy Heart and We All Hear Voices.