Bryan Buffkin
Bio
Bryan Buffkin is a high school English teacher, a football and wrestling coach, and an aspiring author from the beautiful state of South Carolina. His writing focuses on humorous observational musings and inspirational fiction.
Stories (52)
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Coach in the Stands
One of the benefits of coaching at a larger school is stadium size. Not just for how many fans you can fit in the stands, though that can always be advantageous. No: I’m talking about size, the distance from the field to the sideline, from the sideline to the track, from the track to the fence, and from the fence to the stands. The greater that size, that distance, the more secure coaches feel about being able to do their jobs. See, everyone has an opinion. Your average dad in the stands played 3-4 years of Varsity Football back in the good ole’ days. They’ve been fans of football their whole lives. They’ve had a son, or sons, that they’ve been grooming for this moment since they left the game a decade or more ago.
By Bryan Buffkin3 years ago in Families
Roleplayers
For some reason, in sporting circles, the term “role players” has some mixed connotations. For coaches, we love it; we preach that everyone has a role to play, and for us to be successful, everybody has to play their role to perfection. For players, it is a different story. Everybody wants to be Michael, LeBron, Kobe. Nobody aims to be a facilitator. Why be the guy who performs effortless chest passes to the star in the lane, when you could be the stud windmill-dunking it and lighting up the highlight reel? Nobody wants to be the guy who passes; they want to be the star that dominates.
By Bryan Buffkin3 years ago in Cleats
No More Thanksgivings
It was 2012 in a tiny, rural county on the western border of South Carolina called McCormick. I was brought in that year for a multitude of reasons, but for the sake of this story, I was there because McCormick’s high school football team needed an offensive playcaller, and I was looking to enhance my resume with some coordinating experience, so it was a nice, symbiotic pairing that year. And while I would like to think that it was singularly me who came in and changed the program around, the truth is that I found myself in a wonderfully fortuitous situation. The head coach was in his second year, a defensive guy who needed someone to take the weight of offense off of him. Despite winning only three games the year before, he had laid a pretty solid foundation that year for what was to be a huge step forward in the program in the future. And, most importantly, we had the horses.
By Bryan Buffkin3 years ago in Families
