Fast Times at Ridgemont High - A True Story

Coach Ramirez

On a hot October afternoon twenty years earlier, the late great rock and roll star Ritchie Valens had stood at the very spot where biology lab was now and sung his two hits of the day, “La Bamba” and “Donna.”

A local disc jockey had corralled Valens into making the personal appearance. Valens showed up at high noon on the day of the inaugural Ridgemont High School homecoming game against Lincoln. He brought no guitars or amplifiers. Valens simply stood outside on the hot concrete and sang a cappella.

“That’s for the Ridgemont Raiders!” Valens shouted. “The best darn football team in the West!”

Ritchie Valens was killed four months later in the same tragic plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper.

It could be argued that in the twenty years of Ridgemont football played since that day, the Raiders had enjoyed an only slightly better fate than Ritchie Valens. Once, the football team had a season in which it won more than lost. That event’s ten-year anniversary was coming up.

In recent years other sports had taken the spotlight at Ridgemont, particularly soccer. Ridgemont’s soccer team had gone to the C.I.F. (California Interscholastic Federation) playoffs the year before, mostly owing to the spectacular efforts of junior Steve Shasta. Shasta had brought so much attention to himself, and to soccer, that Ridgemont football players went virtually ignored on campus. They thought it was a travesty! A kid grew up playing football, hoping, expecting some of that fabled high school f-ball glory. Then he got to Ridgemont and found he was lucky to be able to meet Steve Shasta.

At the helm of Ridgemont football these days were Mr. Vincent Ramirez and his assistant coach, Les Sexton. Ramirez spoke in sharp yelps. And he had a favorite phrase: “Take a lap.” Depending on the inflection, it was alternately an insulting punishment or a symbol of his respect. If you were goofing off in class, talking with some girls, he might bark, “Take a lap, Casanova.” Or if you had impressed him with a nice play on the football field, he might call for a command performance. “Take a lap, my friend.”

Coach Vincent Ramirez knew he faced an uphill battle from the moment he arrived at the first budget meeting of the year. He had been placed last on the agenda.

He sat and waited while the head of the drill team argued for and won more school-purchased uniforms.

Coach Ramirez appeared supportive while the band teacher, Mr. Fletcher, presented a $387 request for new instruments. It was seconded. Fletcher then gratefully added that, to help repay the budget, he would sell mouthpieces to students for a dime profit. “And I thank you all.”

Coach watched while Commissioner of Spirit Dina Phillips presented her report that the Sophomore Sockhop would require either a live disc jockey playing records ($125 an hour, but he supplies everything) or a band like Ridgemont’s favorite, the T-Birds ($500 for the whole night). A budget was passed allotting $750 for the entire evening, to include entertainment and security. There were a few outraged whistles.

“Come on, now,” said speech teacher Gina George. “The kids need to get out of the house.”

“I think they manage just fine without our help,” said Vice-Principal Ray Connors.

“There just isn’t enough money in the till for all the worthy causes,” said Mr. Haynes, a counselor.

“Come on, lighten up, Harold.”

“I think Hal has a point,” said Connors. “These kids already have the off-campus lunch, and they already have self-grading classes on campus, why pamper them any more?”

Through it all, watching his chances for a big killing with the board ebb, sat Head Coach Vincent “Take a Lap” Ramirez.

“You’re next, Mr. Ramirez.”

Coach stood.

Whenever he was off the field, people were always telling him to talk slower. Most of the time he did not pay attention to these people. It was enough, Ramirez thought privately, that he had learned English at all. English was a damn tough language. When Ramirez went home he still spoke rapid-fire Spanish.

“I’ll tell you why we need money for the athletic department,” Ramirez said slowly. “Because I’m out there every day watching our teams. I know the difference between the Raiders and a championship ball team.” He paused, just as he had in practicing the night before. “The difference is $1,895.”

More outraged whistles.

Ramirez whipped out a piece of paper. “We need new jerseys, nice red-and-yellow jerseys. They run $1,100 total. We also need helmets for these boys. I don’t want any brain-damaged ball players. Not when I know we can replace the cracked plastic ones we have now for $300.”

Coach Ramirez held his coat together and gestured with the other hand. “I think you all know it’s dog-eat-dog in the C.I.F. And if we want to do anything at all, we need to keep up. We need what everybody else already has.”

He looked into the eyes of the board members.

“We need movie cameras,” he said. “We need to take and review films like all the other teams in the C.I.F. Then we will be a complete winning football department. Don’t we owe these kids that much?” Ramirez let his hands drop to his sides. For a moment it appeared that he had gotten through to his audience.

“Mr. Ramirez,” said Vice-Principal Connors, “before we vote on this matter, I’d like to say something before this panel.”

Ramirez nodded.

“I don’t think I’m saying anything that isn’t already on everyone’s mind,” he said. Connors passed a hand through his buzz cut. “We’re already over our pay rate per season. Many of us are concerned about our own projects. We ask ourselves—Why more money for football? We just brought in Assistant Coach Sexton last year. Why the continued expense?”

“Mr. Connors,” said Ramirez, placing his fingertips on the table before him, “you are forgetting our special weapon.”

“And what is that, Mr. Ramirez?”

“I’ll say only two words to you.” It was a dramatic pause. “Charles Jefferson.”

Ray Connors turned to the two teachers on either side of him. “That,” he said, “I would like to see.”

Charles Jefferson was a name spoken around Ridgemont with equal parts awe and fear. Jefferson was one of the few black kids who attended Ridgemont. He was just under six feet tall, quick on his feet, and blessed with those huge NFL shoulders that tended to make opponents take one look and think, Fuck it. At right end, he was by far the best football player Ridgemont High had.

Jefferson played on the Ridgemont varsity squad in his sophomore year, two years ago. He was virtually unmatched in the California Interscholastic Federation. By his junior year, Jefferson, in spite of little support from his less-talented teammates, had attracted the attention of several colleges. There had been a sizable behind-the-scenes bidding war over the young athlete, and UCLA won out with the offer of a $40,000 scholarship. Shortly after accepting, Jefferson turned up at school with a cheery new blue Mustang. It became known among the students of Ridgemont as Jefferson’s Scholarship Mustang, but no one really knew if UCLA had given him the car or not. Charles Jefferson didn’t talk to anybody.

Charles Jefferson didn’t want to be anybody’s “black friend.” His father was an insurance representative for Farmer’s, and Jefferson always seemed more than a little on edge about the middle-class environment his family lived in. Jefferson stalked the hallways of Ridgemont High carrying his football duffle bag and wearing a wronged look on his face, and the hallways parted for him.

Toward the end of last year’s football season, Charles Jefferson graffiti started springing up around school: Bonenose Jefferson Was Here. There it was, on the side of the gym, in the dugout, on the wall of the Mechanical Arts Building. Because the Charles Jefferson graffiti never appeared on any desks, it was presumed that Lincoln High was sneaking on campus after hours with their felt-tip markers and spray-paint cans. Jefferson himself made no comment, and stayed to himself as usual.

Then one day Jefferson walked into the 200 Building bathroom and saw scrawled on the mirror: Send Kunta Kinte Jefferson Back to Africa.

Jefferson went wild. He took off his belt and used the buckle to smash the big grooming mirror. (It was not replaced.) Jefferson walked off campus and decked the hall monitor, Willy Avila, who tried to stop him. Jefferson had been unreceptive to the many white administrators who tried to soothe him. He didn’t apologize to Willy Avila, either.

Then, this year, Jefferson didn’t show for summer football practices. Reached at home, he said he didn’t feel inspired this season. He didn’t feel comfortable in the school. Conferences with Coach Ramirez and Ray Connors hadn’t much changed Jefferson’s position. He attended two practices, and missed the first game of the season entirely. Many had given up on Jefferson when Coach Ramirez brought the name up in the year’s first budget meeting.

“I want our student representatives here today to know,” said Ray Connors, “that what I’m about to say I’ve said to Charles myself. Charles is probably the best end I’ve ever seen on a Ridgemont football team. But the vultures came right in and picked the boy clean. He has absolutely no ambition left at school, or on the field . . . he admits it himself. He told me he wasn’t even sure he was going to UCLA.”

“Oh, these kids do a lot of talking, Ray,” said Mrs. George.

Connors continued. “Mr. Ramirez, members of the board, I do not question the jerseys or the helmets. What I want to know before we vote is this: How is a movie camera going to get Charles Jefferson or, for that matter, anyone to perform better on the field. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned coaching?”

“Mr. Connors,” said Ramirez, “I can answer that question. This year I will deliver a championship team—whether you give these boys their equipment or not. That is our commitment to you. Now you show us your commitment to the Ridgemont Raiders.”

The budget vote was put before the panel, and the committee slowly raised their hands of approval, one by one. It was as if no one dared diminish the institution known as high school football, not even Ray Connors. Coach Ramirez was granted the equipment, even the movie camera.