Coach Pine
The story then:
Six years after his 15-year-old daughter killed herself in the basement, Dale Pine, head cross-country coach and computer teacher at Pine Ridge High, was dealing with it his way — going to the family plot on a hill north of town and planting flowers on her grave, pulling weeds, praying, taking his other kids to counseling.
His wife, Lyn, also a cross-country coach and teacher at the school, was dealing with it another way — drinking.
Lyn Pine had just moved out of the family’s house by the school and was living in Rapid City when we met the family. James, their youngest, 12, was so upset he didn’t want to speak to her anymore. Lyn couldn’t explain why she left. She used to think the people who drank in Whiteclay were weak, she said, but then she understood.
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The story now:
Lyn is still living in Rapid City. She has stopped drinking, because she got pregnant by another man, Dale says.
Photos of her still hang on the living room wall. He still loves her, he says, but she has another family now, another baby.
Dale has another baby, too. He and Lyn’s 20-year-old daughter, Melissa, dropped her baby girl, Denaeja, off with him months ago. Now, he says, she doesn’t want to take care of her. She’s living at another house on the reservation.
The baby just turned 1. A silver “Happy Birthday” banner still hangs over the dining-room table.
The morning of the powwow parade the house smells of the breakfast feast Dale Pine made for the kids — over-easy eggs, pancakes, bacon, grapefruit halves, orange juice. He puts the baby in the Graco high chair and gives her a bacon strip to chew on while he cooks her some oatmeal.
He pats her head.
“I’ll get you some juice.”
He cracks more eggs and they sizzle.
“Alex! Guys! Come eat!” he yells. The Pines have six kids: Dale Jr., Cassandra, Melissa, Alex, CaSarah and James.
Alex will be a senior. The Pines adopted him and Melissa when they were little. They are Lyn’s brother’s kids. Their mom drank when she was pregnant.
Alex won the South Dakota state cross-country title in the fall for Pine Ridge High. He won every race during the season except his first.
Letters of interest have been arriving from colleges. But it doesn’t matter, his dad says. Alex reads at a third-grade level. Just getting his driver’s license took three attempts.
Sometimes the sadness seems too much up here, the coach says. All the drinking and dying.
Apollo White Calf was the latest. Apollo, 15, was a runner on his cross-country team. A nice kid. Right before Christmas, Apollo was at a party at a trailer house. A gun went off and killed him.
Nothing changes up here, the coach says. But he won’t give up. He can’t. He’s got all these kids to raise. And, he likes to say: If the world knocks you down seven times, you get up eight.
Coach Pine pulls a fatty piece of bacon from the baby’s mouth so she doesn’t choke, then he goes back to the stove.