A poignant 9th grade lesson — 1966
I attended 9th grade at American Fork High School. This was a challenging year, as the seniors loved to torment the freshmen. I distinctly remember being surrounded by a gang of seniors, having one of them put his thumb on one of the buttons of my shirt, and having him grind that button into my chest wall. The pain was excruciating, and few of the freshmen escaped this treatment.
Despite the challenges of being a 9th-grader in a high school, there were also some advantages and opportunities. I tried out for and made the freshmen basketball team, and was issued a beautiful uniform with A.F.H.S. emblazoned in white letters against a deep red background. I was proud of the uniform and loved wearing it. At the end of the basketball season, when it was time to check in our equipment, some of the players decided to tell the coach that their uniforms had been stolen, and then to keep the jerseys for themselves. I thought this sounded like a good idea, and I adopted this plan as well. For the next two weeks, I suffered incredible pangs of guilt and disgust every time I opened my dresser drawer and saw that jersey lying there. What had been a source of pride two weeks earlier was now a source of anguish, a constant reminder of my dishonesty. To add to the ridiculousness of the situation, I was too ashamed to wear the jersey in public or to let my parents see it, so the stolen property remained concealed in my dresser, unused and now unwanted. After 3 weeks of mental torment, I placed the uniform in a box, along with an anonymous letter expressing remorse and explaining what I had done, and placed the box on my coach’s doorstep late one night. It didn’t occur to me until years later that the number on the jersey would tell the coach exactly who the transgressor was. Nevertheless, a wrong was corrected, a burden was lifted, and a poignant lesson was learned. The coach, even though he was in my ward and saw me on a weekly basis, never said a word to me about the incident. I can only assume that he realized the lesson I had learned needed no reinforcement or embellishment. He was right.
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