The Rash and the Pinkie

June 17, 2014

I’ve been coaching high school debate for 18 years. With around 15 tournaments each year and countless hours after school, I did the math and realized that—if those days were stacked one onto the next-- I have spent around 3-and-a-half solid years with my debaters.  Don’t get me wrong:  I’ve loved nearly every moment.  But one cannot take an average of 80+ teenagers each weekend to 270 tournaments without something happening sometime that is less than ideal.

One such instance was at the state debate tournament a few years ago.  My top debate team was comprised of two charming and brilliant young men—one a junior, one a senior. The night before competition began, the senior knocked at my door around 11:30pm.  I opened the door to find this fair-haired, fair-skinned, eloquent and usually calm scholar scratching his chest maniacally and twitching in pain.  I ushered him in, alongside my male assistant coach.

“What is it, Matt?” I asked.

“I just…I can’t, I can’t, I can’t stand it anymore,” he managed, unable to stand still.

“What?” I implored.

He struggled to put a sentence together. “Well, see, I’m going to California next week and I’ve been going to a tanning bed to get some color before I hit the beach.  I think I’m having a reaction to the tanning lotion.”  The twitching and scratching persisted.  The poor boy was clearly in agony, but I was still a tad amused at his predicament.  “I know, I know,” he said, seeing my slight smirk.  “It’s ridiculous.”

“Okay,“ I said.  I took a breath. “Show me.”

With that, he lifted his shirt to reveal one of the most heinous displays of irritated, rash-laden, completely disgusting skin I’ve ever seen.  And it was all over his ample torso.  I’m certain I gasped.  The look of horror on my face was not lost on him.

“I’ll meet you at the car,” I said, grabbing my keys.

We ventured to the nearest emergency room where Matt sat writhing in his seat while he waited for relief.  When finally he was whisked away to be examined, I took a moment to take in the sights and sounds of the middle-of-the-night ER waiting room.  Faith in humanity can be vigorously compromised by such surroundings.  This ER did not disappoint.  As I waited for news of treatment for the big rash, for example, an elderly lady was wheeled in.  She sat about 10 feet from me and was twitching much like Mike, but without clawing at her abdomen.  Every so often she would scream, “I’s gonna kill myself!” And some other weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth would accompany her proclamations.  Don’t get me wrong: threats of suicide and obvious distress are not at all funny.  But at 2am with a debater being treated for a tanning lotion rash, I was searching for a bit of levity.  I found it.

Finally Matt got a prescription which we filled en route to the hotel.  

What makes this story even more memorable is the fact that Matt (debating with little sleep and even less comfort) and his partner proceeded to win the state championship that weekend.  All that suffering for a good cause.

But the story persists.

The following year, Matt's partner Ben had joined forces with an impressive redheaded senior named Thomas.  Again, at the state tournament, all had gone well for the boys in the first day of competition, and they were set to debate in the championship round the following afternoon for the state title.  They remained at the hotel that morning while I took the other students to competition. Around 11am I got the phone call.  It was Thomas.

“Um, I don’t know how to tell you this…” he began.

“What is it?” I felt a bit of panic surge up to my throat.  This was never a good way to begin a conversation.

“Well, Ben slipped in the shower and he thinks he broke his pinkie.  He apparently tried to grab the shower curtain but it was no use.” Ben was not a small fellow.

“I’ll be right there,” I responded.  

Indeed, I arrived to find said pinkie no longer straight, but rather the top half was nearly perpendicular to the bottom.  I assuaged the feeling of nausea that hit at the sight of the misshapen fingerby turning my attention instead to the task at hand.  No pun intended. Back to the ER we trekked.  

I stood next to Ben as the doctor popped his pinkie back into place.  He was a trooper.  I had to avert my eyes.  With meds and a bandaged hand, we had just a couple hours before the debate was slated to begin. Unfortunately, the pinkie was on Ben’s dominant hand.  Any good debater will tell you that the ability to write and take notes rapidly is a key to success.  While the pinkie is hardly pivotal in the writing process, a splint and a sore finger can prove a hindrance.  Such was the case for the two.  While they both believed they had won, the decision was 2-1 against them.  But 2nd place at the state tournament , we all agreed, was nothing at which to sneeze.

Ben and Matt, just after learning they had won the State Championship. Matt was able to stop itching...for awhile.