They line up each and every day by the field house and locker room.
Just like the coaches, they are there. Just like the coaches, they are prepared.
And, depending on the season, the contents of the lined-up-and-ready trucks vary.
My husband’s truck is his rolling locker and closet. Water bottles, Gatorades, and towels take up the most space. Various keys and Academy bags litter the floorboards.
And, the clothes. Yes, the shirts, the pants, the shorts, the warm-ups, the jackets, the socks, the belts, and the shoes. It is a closet.
The big, black backpack is ever-present and filled with gear that includes bandages, sunglasses, aspirin, and phone chargers. The backpack has about 14 different pockets, some closed by a zipper, others by buckles. The organization makes zero sense to me, but my husband could win a ‘find it in your bag’ race each and every time, no matter the ask.
He cleans out the truck before and after every season. It’s his version of a clean sweep. At the beginning of summer, he takes out any resemblance of school work and replaces it with at least one tackle box for those impromptu fishing trips. He always has water and snacks to sustain him for the daily strength and conditioning camp.
After summer, he swaps out the fishing gear for two-a-day needs. Sunscreen, long sleeve dri-fit shirts and wide-brimmed hats appear and are available at a hands reach.
When it is officially football season, game-day clothes and their backups find their way into the truck.
As football wraps, there is quite a cleanout. With at least 10 weeks of stuff filling the truck, there’s a lot to go through. Transitioning football game-day wear to indoor, basketball game clothing is not as easy as one would think. There’s the finding the right shoes for the pants and new season shirts. A couple of trash bags get filled with food wrappers, empty water bottles, and paper napkins. The napkins seem to blossom and grow from all cracks and crevices.
There doesn’t seem to be as much stuff needed to ready the truck for basketball season. But when that season ends in early spring, a trash bag or two is filled and clothes are found to be cleaned and put in that spot of the closet to be worn next year.
A few weeks go by and spring ball makes it’s way on to the schedule.
While the trucks belonging to coaches sit in the school parking lots, you can also look for the SUVs belonging to the wives of the coaches. You may not see them at the school or by the practice field, but they are there. Those vehicles have their own watermarks presenting in ways related to the sport at hand or the season of life at play.
My car also does its own kind of transition with each sport and life season. When my son was playing football and basketball for my husband, I kept paper towels, extra socks and snacks in the car at the ready. I also always had cash on hand, tucked away for concession stand visits or a due for something. There were decorations for the locker room and restaurant coupons for last-minute and easy to grab meals. When my twin girls were babies, we had changes of clothes, diapers, PJs, extra baby food and wipes. As the girls grew, we made sure we had coloring books, slime and other types of activities to keep them busy during games. We also had our snack and drink contraband because this mama isn’t paying $3 for a bottle of water or $1 for a ring pop.
Transitioning from season to season for my husband is a mindset and a requirement of the job. His truck shows the signs.
Our season transitions have more to do with our family stage of life and what we need to keep on hand in my car.
We have a transition rhythm in our family and yet each season it takes us a bit to get back in the flow. But we always do. Our cars get us to where we need to go and they also lead us from season to season.
And, because our vehicles are always prepared for whatever season we find ourselves in, we can always find a bottle of water if need be.