Back over in 1998, I had graduated from college and working. Even though I had graduated, my primary email address was the one I still had from college since 1995. However, in time, the school informed me that my email address was going to be terminated. I had to find an alternative email account / address.
Fortunately, with the rise of the Internet around that time, there were plenty of providers of free email so I went to sign up for an account. The problem was to decided on an appropriate username. I'm not sure why I didn't select the username I had from school (maybe it wasn't available).
After thinking about things, I finally settled on "coach41". Why coach41? Two reasons:
1.
Around 1998-1999, I was still coaching basketball at my old grammar school. I felt the "coach" moniker still fit me well.
2.
Around 1998-1999, cell phones and instant messaging weren't used as much as they are today. The biggest technology in use this time were pagers. My friends and I had pagers. For people who don't know about pagers, people would call the pager and send a number to the pager for people to call them (i.e., 415-210-2121) . However, someone came up with the idea to use numbers as letters and thus was born the first version of texting. Some of the more popular messages are below:
43110 = HELLO
837 = THINKING OF YOU
143 = I LOVE YOU
6000 171647 = GOOD NIGHT
Unlike today, where your phone number is attached to your text messages, there was no easy way to identify you if you texted the random numbers above. So, to identify yourself, you would put your BIRTHDAY at the end of the message. As my birthday was April 1st, I could go with 401 or 41. I decided to go with 41.
Combine #1 and #2 and that's how coach41 was born.
Even though I haven't officially coached a team in about 6 years, I have retained the "coach41" identity It doesn't seem to be frequently used on the Internet and uniquely mine. I'm fortunate to be able to register the domain name as well.
Hope you enjoyed the history lesson!
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