No place like ‘Home Fields’: Former Coast Guard football coach pens touching memoir spanning generations

January 25, 2024 7:15 pm • Last Updated: January 25, 2024 7:15 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Bill George, former head football coach at the United States Coast Guard Academy and author of the new memoir “Home Fields” (submitted)

Bill George, reflecting on his just-published memoir “Home Fields,” pauses and says, “I guess I have the ability to write sad stories.”

Then he laughs.

But this emotional juxtaposition doesn’t come as odd or contradictory. George is not “by-definition” delighted at the exploration of melancholy in the book, particularly as it describes his life and those of his wife Nancy, daughter Lila and his aging and infirm father Casper. Rather, it’s a sort of rueful chuckle. George is basically expressing awe over the mysteries of the writing process and how an author’s best intentions can result in something very unlike the original concept.

“I had an idea to write about a specific and challenging football game in 2014 — one that coincided with the fact that my father was dying on our couch,” George says.

The plan was to contrast the emotional parameters of each situation — professional and familial — through the prism of one day. But “Home Fields,” which George celebrates with a book signing and discussion Saturday in Mystic’s Bank Square Books, quickly morphed into a much broader exploration. Part of the compositional shift was circumstantial.

The game in question — against Coast Guard arch-rival Merchant Marine Academy — took place as Lila was 4-1/2 years old. She’d been spending valuable time bonding with her grandfather, who was living with the family as they provided home care during his final months.

“Nancy and I became first-time parents late in life,” George says, “and to see how he and Lila reacted to each other was amazing because there was such a connection despite the age difference. Dad was really struggling but he took great strength and comfort from his granddaughter. At the same time, Lila was young enough that she didn’t recognize that there was anything unusual or different. Her grandfather was just another person she loved in her home. It was normal for her.”

As part of hospice care, the decision had been made to take Casper off many of his prescribed medications — which resulted in much improved mental acuity. Casper began sharing memories of his own youth and his tightknit group of friends — all of whom grew up to serve in World War II with poignant and tragic results.

A changing narrative

“As I began writing, I couldn’t stop thinking about my father’s stories,” George says. “A lot of them were the same ones he’d told me when I was young and, suddenly, I recalled them with in a very different emotional light.”

Casper grew up in the small Syrian immigrant village of Myers, New York. One of his pals, for example, was shy and studious; another handsome and athletic; and another’s girlfriend had leukemia, which fueled his passion to become a doctor. They were incredibly close. At first, the war was a troubling background presence as they negotiated the hilly pathways of adolescence until, suddenly, the war became a very real concern demanding their participation.

As for George’s own life, the challenges of his father’s care were physically and emotionally substantial. While there were outside professionals who came in to help out, George says most of the responsibilities were shouldered by Nancy. At times, from his guilty perspective as someone whose coaching responsibilities were very time-consuming — and the real-time preparation for and context of the Merchant Marine game are rendered in perfect harmony with the rest of the book — George wondered whether their house was the best place for Casper, and what sort of effect his declining health was having on Lila.

“My wife is a very loving person, and I was thinking about our situation the way a football coach would look at a problem,” George says. “Nancy said, ‘You can’t just move him out because he’s ill. You deal with what’s put in front of you and what’s right.’ She was right. It was a dilemma, but I learned that we can all be shocked by what we’re capable of when the situation demands it. And the connection between Lila and my dad was so natural and so strong.”

Time on his hands

Five years later, when George retired in 2016, he suddenly found himself with a lot of free time and started to write. Casper had lived with them for four years, moving in when Lila was 6 months old, and the book’s contemporary time frame reflects Lila at the age of 4-1/2. Casper died shortly after her 5th birthday.

“The story became much more about relationships with people than a football game or even World War II,” George says. “But at the same time, all those elements were part of the story I wanted to tell.”

George’s prose is simple and elegant, with a quietly empathetic and observant voice, and his ability to blend and contrast the various characters and time frames is handled with smooth authority. The reader is drawn in by both narratives, and it requires no authorial domineering to connect the timeless human qualities between generations and emotions.

“I’d always wanted to write. I enjoyed it and I love to read,” George says. “My favorite author to this day is John Steinbeck. ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ And I read the classics. As for memoirs, to me, Tara Westover’s ‘Educated’ is the best I’ve read in the last five years.”

As a freshman at Ithaca College, George says his English teacher, Mary Ann Rishell, “drew something out of me. I wrote some short stories, and she liked them — and that gave me a kind of confidence I’d never had. She encouraged me and told me to minor in creative writing. But I didn’t do it.”

George, now 65, grew up in Glen Falls, New York, graduated from Ithaca College and earned master’s degrees from Ohio State University and the State University of New York at Albany. As an athlete, he’s a member of the Ithaca College and Glen Falls High School Halls of Fame. Prior to his tenure at the Coast Guard, George coached at Ithaca, Princeton, the United States Military Academy Preparatory School and at Ohio State.

But is it any good?

When George completed the first draft, he felt a sense of accomplishment and a certain amount of satisfaction — but had no idea whether the manuscript was any good.

He reached out to Vickie Fulkerson, the recently appointed sports editor at The Day, who had gotten to know George over the years as beat reporter for the Coasty football team. George asked if she’d read the manuscript. After his retirement, they stayed in contact and became friends.

“I was touched by the story,” Fulkerson says. “Touched by how sincere it is. Touched by how lovingly he portrays his family. And the way he brings everything together from the past and back to the present is really remarkable. They’re not just characters, they’re real people and places, and I just think it’s compelling. I’ve read it about 11 times, and I probably cried the first nine — even though I knew what was going to happen.”

Despite having asked for Fulkerson’s opinion and her strong encouragement, George had a crisis of confidence and threw the manuscript in the trash, “and Vickie wouldn’t speak to me for nine months,” he laughs. Ultimately, and with the lockdown situation of COVID, he went back and did a series of rewrites. This time, he trusted Fulkerson’s continued and positive appraisal of the work and started to search for an agent.

“I queried over 100 agents and no one would read it,” George remembers. “There weren’t any rejections; they just wouldn’t read it.” Finally, one agent told George he believed there was “a kernel of a good book in here if you can pull it together,” but the agent died before George could submit further revisions.

“At that point, I pretty much believed the project was dead in the water. But I kept showing it to various friends and colleagues at the Coast Guard and they were incredibly supportive,” George says. “One was (U.S. Coast Guard Vice Admiral, retired) Sandra Stosz, who was so helpful. She had a few connections in the book world and gave me the name of a few smaller companies who might be interested.”

One was the independent house Köehlerbooks, and they agreed to publish “Home Fields.” Suddenly, the book had a home.

George says, “I think in some ways I’m lucky I didn’t write this until recently. I’m sure everyone writes differently when they’re older than during youth. I was of course a participant in this story, but I was also an observer. Throughout, I wondered if I was doing the right thing, and it drove me deeper into wondering about the meaning of life and questions of mortality. I know, it’s a cliché.

“But Lila will be 14 next month and it’s absolutely amazing how much SHE retains about her life with Casper. Hers is a different perspective, but it’s all part of a bigger situation and connection. The whole thing taught me you can write something that leaves a lump in your throat — and it still makes you smile.”