By Jake Vest

A big SAT testing date was a few weeks ago, which, oddly enough, reminds me of a football game played 54 years ago almost 8,000 miles from here.  

I can vividly recall the first time Sgt. Yoon Kim ever saw a pointy ball bounce. He got a very good opportunity to study the phenomenon up close when it skipped to the left a yard  in front of him, hopped right, and then smacked him in the forehead.  

The fumbled kickoff resulted in a scoop-and-score touchdown, one of about 600 we scored that day. Kim was a Korean Marine from the other side of the base, over behind the helicopter people. His guys and the Army guys from my end shared the same fence and took turns walking alongside it to keep it safe from Communism.  

From this fence, the Koreans could see us playing football, busting heads, colliding violently, cussing and rolling in mud. What sort of Marine wouldn’t want to get in on that? Sergeants contacted sergeants and a game was set up. 

All I can say is that they should have watched a little more closely for a lot longer. 

It was laughable to see how befuddled they were by a fake handoff. A double reverse was one reverse more than necessary to fool everybody. We averaged having seven wide open receivers on every pass play, and the lateral was simply beyond comprehension. 

It was a massacre.  

These were not wimpy guys, either. They were young, well-fed, capable of walking or running tens of miles carrying heavy loads and most of them had jumped out of airplanes. Nothing was wrong with them. They were just confused.  

So, why did the SAT testing remind me of this game? Some of the kids I have coached for this test have the same issues with language arts that those Korean Marines had with football. And it is mostly for the same reason.  

It’s not coaching. Most of the Americans in that game had never been officially coached either. They had been given footballs when they were 6, had played catch in the back yard with dad, had games at recess, watched favorite teams with family, strutted through wins, and suffered through losses. The game mattered to the people who mattered to them.  

When these same kids encounter the SAT, they’re running into something that is not part of the world they live in, or anything that much matters. They do just as much as they have to in school, but that’s not much. It’s like they’ve been watching from over by the fence, not really getting into the game and not getting their uniforms dirty. 

Did you follow those metaphors? Do you even know what a metaphor is? If so, have you ever tossed one around in the back yard with your kid? Has your kid ever seen you write anything beyond LOL or an excuse note for an absence? Do words such as “ubiquitous” and “harbinger” come up at the dinner table? Have you ever tried to figure out together what the heck Virginia Woolf meant by anything she wrote, maybe on “family reading night”? 

If all that sounds foreign, you may be part of the problem. That’s okay because you can still be the solution. Get in the game yourself. SAT tests are downloadable and at least as much fun as Candy Crush. Libraries still have books, there’s not much on TV, and it’s never too late to learn. 

Never too early, either.  

Here’s a tip from a retired teacher and an old “head” coach: If you want to get your child ready for tomorrow, start yesterday.