Yontz will be selling (for $7.95) and signing the book from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday at Buffalo Wild Wings, 1960 N. North Bechtle Ave. Those who show up will have the opportunity to rub elbows with the author at the spot where he composed much of his 86-page work.
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“I spent about 90 percent of my time writing that book at the end of the bar,” said Yontz, who retired from teaching in 2012 after teaching and coaching at Indian Valley Middle School and Greenon and Shawnee high schools.
Like the news about “all topsies,” “Tennessee” and Hitler above, the book’s title springs from a student’s unawareness that what one wears at graduation is a “cap and gown,” not “the captain’s gown.” Despite all this, Yontz’ book doesn’t laugh at students for such errors. It instead laughs with them in a way that celebrates how much he enjoyed spending time with them in the day-to-day jumble of classroom life.
“I loved it,” he said. “I love being around kids and I always wanted to coach. So, to me, that was the best thing to do.”
In 1984, Yontz started writing down some of his students’ gems on yellow Post-It notes and sticking them to the blackboard. This is how visitors to his classroom came to learn that President Richard Nixon was pardoned by Harrison Ford, that another name for Lou Gehrig’s disease is LSD, and that one of the students in the classroom was striving to express the 400 in “Roman noodles.”
As Yontz’ friend Ron Monroe says in an endorsement on the back of the book, “You can’t make this stuff up.”
But as Yontz warns readers early in the book, one of the 76 stories he tells to supplement the student quotes is a fabrication. He promises to refund the cost of the book to the first person able to separate the lie from the 75 truths and feels somewhat anxious about the whole thing because making up the story was the hardest part of writing the book.
Yontz plucks one of the stories that tells a truth about the nature of school from the final 15 years of his career, which he spent in what was called career-based education. Participants attended classes in the mornings and worked in the afternoons. As Yontz saw it, his role was not so much to transform the students into scholars as it was to pay attention to them in a way many weren’t at home.
In addition to stories about his teaching days, Yontz shares feel-good stories from other memorable aspects of his life. In the “Sports” chapter, he tells an anecdote about playing baseball with Indian River Community College during a 7 p.m. Friday game in Miami.
“It was a beautiful night, and (future National League MVP) Andre Dawson (who played at Florida A&M) hit a home run against me that is still going,” he said.
For posterity’s sake he also records the importance of the 31-by-31 foot concrete pad adjacent to his house that he calls “The Coliseum” for all the pickup basketball games played there. The account includes a complete list of all the Catholic Central boys who played into the night.
Elsewhere he lists the names and nicknames of Catholic Central classmates on his “Nuclear Health Spa” and “Vitalis All-Stars” basketball teams, then discloses which members of the Catholic Central High School Class of 1969, with whom his brother, Randy, was acquainted, were nicknamed “Fungus,” “Greasy Lou” and “Tin Cup.”
One way the book is sure to make a personal connection with regular guys — hometown boys — who grew up as Baby Boomers.
One of the ways it does so is through Yontz’ expressions of appreciation for the family and friends he has shared with just as he shared time with his students.
He dedicates the book to three of his favorite people who passed away while he was writing it: Kent Young and his Aunt Donna and Uncle Jim. Likewise, after listing the “Great Eight” players of the Big Red Machine (Pete Rose, Ken Griffey, George Foster, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion and Cesar Geronimo), he lists his father, mother, brothers and two children as members of his personal “Great Eight.”
On the front cover of “Wearing the Captain’s Gown,” Yontz’ friend Daniel Moehn quips that the book is “so good I put down my beer.”
Although the book won’t be mistaken for art or literature, the simple, direct way it recounts the life of a typical guy who grew up playing pickup basketball, has fond recollections of his family and writes about them while standing at the end of a bar will be celebrated.
Look for that to happen Wednesday at the BW3s on North Bechtle when someone picks up a beer and raises it to Geno Yontz.
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