The Periwinkle
My assistant coach’s first “courtesy car” was a four-door Chevy Malibu in a purple-ish shade of blue. In the early days of Division 1 coaching, a car loaned to the athletic department by a local dealer (aka University supporter) was part of a coach’s package. Recruiting required lots and lots of driving, so a car on loan -- periodically rotated so as not to pile up miles -- made sense. It was an added value for a coaching worker bee whose salary didn’t compute, while simultaneously being a write-off for a donor who wanted tickets to football games. Typically, these vehicles were swapped out every 4-6 months before wear and tear could accumulate— or whenever a dealer had a buyer in the market for a slightly, mostly-loved “new car.”
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“The Periwinkle,” however, came and never went. Like the mutt from a litter of many (shocker-of-shockers: a car the color of a sunset was not in high demand), the car was all but forgotten as far as the dealer was concerned. Out of sight, out of mind, it seemed. The tires grew bald, the odometer lapped, my assistant changed and changed and changed the oil.
The Periwinkle became an institution.
On those rare occasions when our staff could all run out to lunch at the same time, the Periwinkle was our vessel of choice. When we’d need to trek two miles across campus for mandatory department meetings, the Periwinkle was what we piled into. For donut runs, airport escorts, and four-hour drives to the Panhandle and back, the car that shared a name with a hard-to-kill flower carried us like queens.
Recruiting, the lifeblood of a college program, is a top-of-list assignment for an assistant coach (and her car). My crew’s peers from rival schools would roll up to watch high school players play in pearly white Cadillacs… shiny black convertibles…the latest, greatest Chevy Tahoes all decked out with rims. My number one would park the “Peri” right in between them, giggling as she did. Little was less important to her than the car she drove to work. While an eye-popping ride might turn the head of an adolescent potential star, the discrepancy between others’ wheels and ours felt more like comedic background noise than a leg-up or a strike. Maybe it played a role in some things—who went there and who came here? I could never really say for sure. But one thing I know without question is that a sunset-colored Chevy Malibu cannot keep you from getting good.
We didn’t have much to sell, so to speak, in those early nose-to-the-grindstone days. Not, that is, if what you were in the market for were bells, whistles, and other various things that can cause people to rubberneck while mouthing “wow.” What we did have to offer were quieter, not-nearly-as-sexy spoils. Things like a quality education, a quintessential college town, a chance to turn a heap of salvaged bricks into a midwestern Taj Mahal. The kinds of things a periwinkle uber was built to shuttle for.
That mini-chariot hauled in a bunch of players who were ready for the task at hand and grateful to have a ride.
We laughed a lot through the years—my assistant coach and I—about that can’t-miss-it-comin’ car. About the days before the days that the outside world recalls. Neither of us can remember exactly when the bastion of early blood and sweat finally went away, but as our teams improved, so did the make and model of our loaner cars. And the more we won, the more the door revolved. The steady stream of shiny SUVs runs together in our minds. For obvious reasons, the Periwinkle is the only vehicle that stuck.
I hardly ever think about that signature ride anymore, though sometimes when I catch an Oklahoma sunset putting on a show, one side of my mouth will curl as indigo slips to violet in the sky. The car named both for the color and a vibrant summer flower represents a time that time can’t kill. Its fragrant aroma grows more pungent with the days.
Periwinkle flowers used to be my go-to plant in the pots outside my south-facing door. They can take the heat, they bloom all summer, and all they ever really ask for is some water now and then. I only recently discovered that these reliable summer annuals are known as the friendship flower. A blossom that means “a sweet reminiscence of great memories and the strength of a bond that lasts for eternity.”
No way my assistant got that purple-ish Chevy Malibu by chance. Some things are supposed to be.