On a Tuesday afternoon during the Fall football season in 1970, the Colby, Kansas, Freshman Eaglets took the football on their own 20 and marched 80 yards to score the first touchdown against the Oberlin Red Devils Freshman squad. For 10 straight plays Coach DeWerff called the exact same play—“Number 6 on two.” Every play quarterback Jeff Knudson said the same words to his huddled teammates: “Number 6 on two.” Number 6 was a halfback run off the right tackle. Coach DeWerff substituted the right tackle every other play. Each play the substituting tackle ran up to quarterback Knudson and said, “Number 6 on two.”
Ten times in a row the same halfback carried the ball, grinding out 3 yards, then 6 yards, then 8 yards, then 4 yards. Each time quarterback Knudson barked, “Ready, set, down—hut 1, hut 2.” That halfback, slower to get up with each ensuing play, was me. After 6 or 7 plays I turned to the bench, pointing at my lungs with both index fingers. “Hang in there, boy,” coach DeWerff shouted. “Hang in there.” A few plays later I pounded the ball across the goal line.
When I got home that evening my Dad said, “Well, you did it. Now you’ll work harder to take your pain on the front end.” I figured he meant I should have worked harder from the first day of the season to be in better shape. Just then Mom said, “Look what came in the mail?” She said handed me an envelope with my name on it. Its contents, and the conversation that followed, belied Dad’s words: “Take your pain on the front end.”
Inside the envelope was my summer paycheck for $339.16. For 9 weeks that summer I had joined the crew of a custom wheat harvester, a man from our church. The man’s 14-year-old son was my friend.
It was the summer “for you to become a man,” Dad said. Turns out, it was a miserable summer as I drove a combine through wheat fields from Oklahoma to South Dakota. The boss and I did not get along. All summer I mostly kept my mouth shut. At summer’s end when he dropped me off in front of my house, he said I had not learned much. His good-bye line was “Send me your hours so I can settle up with you.”
I had no idea what that meant. Not once had the boss ever mentioned keeping track of my hours. No one on the crew did. As soon as I greeted my parents, I asked Dad to call the boss and clarify what he meant about sending him my hours. “I’m not going to call him,” Dad said. “He was just frustrated when he said that. He’ll be fair with you.”
Holding the check I spoke directly to Mom. “This amount can’t be right.”
“How do you know that?” Dad answered for her.
Of course, I didn’t know. Dad said, “Son, that’s $339.16 more than most 14-year-old boys here in town got this summer.” That wasn’t the point, but I didn’t argue. The next day Mom took me to the bank, where I opened up a checking account and deposited the money.
I felt like this man in our church had cheated me. Maybe he didn’t. Who knows how he arrived at the amount of $339.16? He wasn’t clear when he hired me, and I was puzzled at how in the world he could ever expect me to know the number of hours I worked. Some days it rained and we just sat around. Other days we traveled. I was gone from home for 9 weeks.
Do I wish Dad had called the boss for me? Of course, or at least compassionately coached me on how to be make the call myself, asking for clarity and giving me the chance to be courageous and upfront even though I felt scared and awkward. But none of that happened. I have spent a lifetime trying to take my pain on the front end, mustering my courage and pointing out the huge elephant in the room. The times I don’t speak up when I’m befuddled or scared–bravely “speaking the truth in love,” as the Apostle Paul encouraged the first believers in the Church at Ephesus to do–when the truth finally does emerge, my pain and misery almost always is much worse.
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