Rites of Passage 11.18.25

When I was in Peru earlier in October, I tried some foods for the first time, including Guinee Pig, Alpacca, and Beef Heart.  Of the three, Beef Heart was my favorite.  It is usually served as small pieces as part of a stir fry or on sticks – very often as “street food.”  I had beef heart again this past Saturday when my son Davis, who is the head basketball coach at Monticello High School, had his varsity basketball team with coaches and managers out at our farm for a team building get-together.

This is Davis’s second year at Monticello.  He secured the head coaching job when he and his wife Bridget and their two young children, James and Elzabeth, moved down from Boston in August of 2024.  Davis had served as a teacher, Dean of Students and head basketball coach at a private school in Boston.  Davis has always been a terrific leader, educator and mentor of young people. And as he took the reins of the basketball program at Monticello High School, he was determined to not just teach these high schoolers about basketball, but much more.

As you can guess, you do not become a high school coach for the money.  I will not attempt to figure out how much he gets paid by the hour.  It is safe to say is it well below minimum wage. So, why does he do this?  I believe it is his passion project.  And he can do this because his wife realizes that this project feeds Davis’s soul and he is fortunate to have his mom and Bridget’s aunt Patti available to watch the children five days a week and sometimes on weekends during basketball season.  

During Davis’s first year as head coach, the program had one of its most successful seasons.  However, as much as our son would like to go to Regional and State playoffs every year, the program will embody so much more than wins and losses. And I saw some of this on Saturday at our farm. It had been a difficult week for Davis.  It was the week of tryouts.  It is hard enough to tell a young man that he did not make the team.  And he had to do this for 9^th grade, Junior Varsity, as well as Varsity. In addition, he had to navigate parental involvement, including employees of the High School.  I am proud of the way he handled every situation.  To justify the cost of his college education, he quipped to his mom, “This is where my Washington & Lee education served me well.”

I have talked much about the importance of being a part of a community and part of a tribe. And church can be a significant community or tribe for each of us. To me, a church is not about the denomination, it is about the congregation. It is about the type of fellowship that a particular church can provide.  And the act of communion with each of us coming to the same table to eat the same bread and drink the same wine is a very powerful reminder of the covenant we have formed among ourselves.

So, on Saturday, I witnessed something similar at our farm.  I had agreed to show up at the farm and help Davis in any way I could.  In the process, I was able to meet many of the other coaches in the program and to meet some of his varsity players.  And I was able to observe how Davis continued a “rite of passage” he had begun his first year as head coach of the program.

Davis loves to cook meat over an open fire. So, before he served the boys the typical hamburger and hotdog meal, he cooked some unique meats over an open fire.  This included lamb, pork ribs, skirt steak, chicken hearts and a huge beef heart.  The first “appetizer “were skewers of chicken hearts.  When Davis announced that the chicken hearts were ready, the boys interrupted their yard games including wiffle ball and descended on the fire pit like young wolves about to devour whatever meat was put in front of them.  The dozens of chicken livers were gone so fast that I never had a chance to try one. I am sure some of these boys had never had chicken hearts. However, you would never have guessed that if you had seen them scarfing down the hearts like chicken nuggets.

Next, came the beef heart. And it was a huge heart!  And unlike the way my beef heart was served in Peru, Davis cooked the entire heart intact and served it intact. When he announced that this unique piece of meat was ready, he had the team stand in line like they were about to receive communion. And in a way they were.

He placed the cooked heart on a cutting board and proceeded to cut a strip off for each person standing in line.  Unless a player had made the varsity team last year, I am sure this is the first time any of them had ever had beef heart.  And so, each of his players and managers participated in a “rite of passage” that I am sure they will never forget.  My first beef heart was in Peru – and I will never forget it. 

So, during a mild November evening in central Virginia, with a slight breeze and magnificent sunset, each player stood around an open fire and ate a slice of meat from the same heart – a heart that once provided the life-giving force and energy to keep a large animal alive. There is something very different in seeing an actual heart cooked, sliced and shared. It is almost sacred. And what made it even more sacred, if that is the appropriate word, was the sound of cows mooing in the background.  This was the group’s first act together as a team.   And to me, watching each of them wait patiently in line for their slice of the heart reminded me of communion at church.  One heart, and one team.

No matter what type of season this team has, to me it is already special.