The Email I Never Sent
Four years ago, I emailed my former baseball coach Mark “250” Rearick, universally known as “2-5.” I reached out to Two-Five because I wanted to know if our former head coach, Keith McBain, was still alive — which would have been extraordinary as Coach McBain was likely in his 60’s when he was my coach and 30 years had passed. Sure enough, Mark let me know that Keith McBain was alive and very healthy. So I happily wrote down Keith McBain’s email — which I have to this day. I took it down and went to bed planning to email Coach McBain the next morning. Not just planning, knowing that I would. Because I had something I wanted to say.
Coach McBain wasn’t just my baseball coach, he was also my English teacher. But, more to the point of this article, it didn’t stop there either, as he wrote my letters of recommendation for the colleges I applied to. To which I have a confession that no one whose entire career in higher education should reveal: I had no business getting into the schools I was admitted to. I was a mediocre student; my order of priorities at 18 was: doing stupid things with my friends, my girlfriend, baseball/football/track, and watching Magnum P.I. For the SAT, I hardly ever studied. Actually, I don’t even remember studying. I took it so dismissively I didn’t realize if you did not know an answer you were absolutely to leave it blank — that (at that time at least) was much less penalized than a wrong answer. So, I guessed at a number of answers, dutifully and idiotically bubbling every single circle in. Point being I had a slightly better than average GPA and a slightly better than average SAT score but I ended up getting into almost all the schools I applied to. Which incidentally was one of the pulling levers that drew me to admissions. If I could do it, I suspected there was something more to it than just numbers.
What was the “more” for me? I imagine it was not just the letter of recommendation, but I do have a vivid memory. In 1990, I was sitting in the high school cafeteria when my guidance counselor came rushing up to me. “I just read Keith McBain’s letter of recommendation for you, Mike” she said — “it is the best I have ever read.” She went on “at the end, he tells every college that you will go on to do great things — he knows this not as my coach, not as my English teacher, but because I felt like a son to him.”
When you are 18, or more aptly stated, when I was 18, I didn’t really appreciate the care that goes into those words. He didn’t have to say anything of the such. In fact, he could have just used a form letter — so many do and for understandable reasons — as I have now learned you get asked to write such letters constantly. But I wasn’t a form letter — what McBain wrote about me was a sincere, deeply felt message from the heart. Letters of recommendation are difficult to differentiate for applicants — no one asks an enemy for a LOR — but this one did. To the point where I know it had a major role in my good fortunes in the admission process.
Which brings me to my email. I never sent it. I can’t answer the why to that question, because I don’t know. Certainly it was not lethargy — if nothing else, I am a pretty driven person. I think, to the best I can discern, we all just think of people as permanent. If we hear “they are doing well” — our minds slip. I got busy and the email never went out.
On September 30th of 2020, Keith McBain passed away. It would have taken me five minutes to write an email thanking him for that letter of recommendation. And for the life lessons he taught me. It takes less than five minutes to tell people how you feel about them. Nothing is permanent, and those moments to say “thank you” or “I care” can slip away. Regrettably so. Remorse isn’t a feeling I’m overly familiar with, so I don’t think I am good at dealing with it. I feel great remorse right now as I write this blog for not taking those five minutes. I hope, in some small way, this message helps others to not have to feel the same. Send the email and say the words. There’s actually not always enough time to do so.