Out of My League

It starts here. I have a confession to make. Don’t hate me for it. It’s a confession about me. Something you may not have known…. I’m a coach.

 Let that soak in…

For twelve years of my life I was a coach.

More soaking…

I spent twelve of those years coaching football, eight coaching track and field, seven coaching basketball, four coaching cross country, two coaching baseball, and two coaching soccer.

Still more soaking…

I looked up the term coach on dictionary.com in search of a fitting definition…. didn’t see one. Not a definition that truly conveys what or who a coach is. To me, and let’s face it, it’s all about me, a coach is someone who builds capacity. A coach is someone who helps you focus your energies on improving your skills. A coach doesn’t point fingers at what you don’t know or what you haven’t learned. A coach assesses where you are (formative) and devises a plan for you to get better. To get you to be the best you can be. A coach does this for numerous players at any given moment.

The grade for my coaching ability came most often during public exhibitions. We call them games or contests.

In my opinion (see above about that), the best classroom teachers are coaches. I’m not saying that they stand on the sidelines and yell and scream. I’m saying that they stand in the classroom and help the kids improve. The give formative assessment all along the way. They find out what the kids know and don’t waste time teaching things they have already mastered. You don’t teach a kid how to throw a pass or catch a ball if they already know. There are no tricks involved. Teachers are truly about kids and truly about helping kids develop… to develop their full capacity.

In the coaching arena the kids go home more tired than the coaches do. The kids are the ones doing the work. The coaches design the work… the kids do the work. The kids work hard… the coaches coach.

More soaking…

I don’t want my teachers to go home more tired than the students are. I want my students to go home tired from all the work that the teachers created for them.

See the parallelism… the best teachers make the students do the work. The best teachers coach.

I’m reminded of this when I speak to one of my teachers. We went to high school together. We actually had a class together. I had the big desk she had one of the small ones. I’m reminded how important coaching is by her almost daily. When our conversation ends it usually ends with her calling me coach… and that makes me smile… because that means the right people are doing the work.

I was reading a post on Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It entitled “Teachers Have It Easy.” Before you start casting stones just read what Jenny has to say. I don’t think that teachers have it easy… and I’m not saying that because I work with teachers… I am a teacher, a teacher of teachers. Then I read an e-mail from one of my brothers about the 21 jobs he has had. He makes me laugh. He is a great writer. He needs to start a blog. I’m working on that. But those two things, Jenny’s blog and my brother’s email, got me started on this: the jobs I have had that led me to this place, so move on or read on; here we go…

#1 - I mowed the lawn of Sue Whitman… God rest her soul. Probably the hardest job I have ever had. I inherited this job from my brother Tim. Tim is the perfect one in my family. My mowing never quite came up to the standard of Tim’s. Lucky for me I had two siblings in between me and Tim in school… so they didn’t get to directly compare me with him.

#2 Mowing with J.O. Thompson. This is probably the hardest job I had up to this point. (I know. I have said my first two jobs were hard… they were… I’ve never worked before.)Okay, you got me. It is only the second job I have had. Same work. But now, I have to work with a fireman on his days off which he is not resting on. Hard work. Big lawns… the worst was raking the leaves out from about two hundred oak trees. I’m 42. This happened 30 years ago… that was hard work.

#3 Working for the Eagle Mountain Saginaw Independent School District… on… you guessed it… the mowing crew. This was my first real job because I got paid by the hour. At least I thought it was a real job because it paid by the hour. I’m now on salary… the mowing lasted about a month… very long… very hot…#4 Working for the Eagle-Mountain Saginaw I.S.D. Okay, same summer as before, but I was transferred to the roofing crew. Not shingle roofing. But hot tar roofing. I was the guy that rolled the 100# kegs of tar down into the kettle. The kettle is the thing that stinks when you drive by a place that is being roofed. I might have weighed 120 pounds. The head roofer was so worried about me splashing the hot tar on my skin that he found me an axe so I could chop the kegs of tar in half before I rolled them into the kettle. Man that was a hot nasty job. After working on this crew for several weeks I stepped on a hot tar mop and burned my shoe. Not my foot, my shoe. I took the shoe off. They made me go to the doctor. The doctor told them I was fine. Back to the mowing crew. Man that was hot. During that summer I had to work a few days with the Big Boss Clarence Jernigen. He sent me to his truck to find a guage for an air conditioner. We were on the roof when he sent me. I couldn’t find what he wanted. His truck was a mess. Stuff everywhere. When I got back on the roof I told him I couldn’t find it. He told me that when he got back to the truck and found it he was going to whip me. I told him I wasn’t scared, even though I was, because I could out run him. He went to the truck and found it… I was light on my feet for the next week just waiting.

#3b I know, I’m jumping back. The summer after the roofing incident I was back on the mowing crew. I mowed the grounds at W.E. Boswell High School with David Gibson. David and I mowed everyday for eight hours per day. I went looking for David one day because it was time for lunch. Easy to find us. Just follow the noise of the mower. I was hot on the trail. David was mowing by the fine arts building. At least his mower was. Back in the old days a lawn mower would run without you touching it. He had started it and gone into the air conditioned building to take a nap. Smart dude. I also worked for a little while on the paint crew. The head painter (read that only painter) was named Ben Aranda. Ben would paint paint paint… then take a nap. He would sleep several hours every afternoon. I think the fumes had something to do with it.

#5 The summer of 1980. I was fifteen years old and working with Tommy Guidry (God rest his soul), Phillip Bandy, and Jim Krause. Jim is the smartest person I have ever known. We were under the supervision of Coach Tim Daughtry. We paved roads in the Eagle Mountain Saginaw ISD that summer. We would go each day and pick up a dump truck full of asphalt (commonly referred to triple H from the people who sold it to us). We would get that and a drum of liquid tar. We would mop the tar in the holes and then fill the holes with asphalt. Coach Daughtry would then drive the dump truck over the patch to flatten it out. I remember this like it was yesterday. The summer of 1980 is etched in my mind because of…

The 1980 United States heat wave was among the most devastating natur
al disasters in terms of deaths and destruction in U.S. history. The heat wave claimed at least 1,700 lives[1]. Also because of the massive drought, agricultural damage estimates neared US$44 billion (1998 dollars). It is among the billion-dollar weather disasters listed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.In Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, high temperatures exceeded 100°F for 69 days between June 23 and September 6. Dallas/Fort Worth reached anall-time high on June 26 and 27, soaring to 113°F (45°C) on both days. In the northern hemisphere summer of 1980 in Dallas/Fort Worth, there were 29 days that either tied or broke records for those respective dates.

On the northern rim of the high pressure ridge, several severe long-lived windstorms c
alled derechos formed. The most notable was the “More Trees Down” Derecho that occurred on July 5. It raced from eastern Nebraska to Virginia in 15 hours, killing 6 and injuring about 70. The Western Wisconsin Derecho of July 15 caused extensive property damage.

That was a hot summer! I can still fill the heat on my neck.

#6 Back to the mowing crew. This time I was on a tractor working for the Eagle Mountain Saginaw ISD. I worked with an old man this summer who never cleaned his glasses. He drove his tractor into a swing set one day. The next week he drove it into a telephone pole. Crazy. I worked the rest of that summer for the athletic director/head coach Fred West. When I wasn’t mowing the football field with Jeff Chancellor and Mike Moody, I was typing for Fred. I had the ability, thanks to Della Cromeans, to type. Type really, really fast.#7 My first job with air conditioning began the summer of 1982. I went to work at 5308 Maple Ave., Dallas, TX,  Elliott’s True Value Hardware. The Hardware Store That Has Hardware. I worked in the Annex. I used to argue about that name. The part of the store I worked in was the oldest part of the store… yet the called it the annex. Didn’t make sense. The annex was the cut and measure department and the unloading trucks department. Wealso had the pleasure of working in the unairconditioned warehouse. That was still cooler than the summer of ‘80. I worked in the Annex until we moved the store to 4901 Maple Ave.Then my department changed names and locations. We were now building materials. Same stuff… just different name. The worst thing we had to do in this department was rip Masonite into 2×4 and 4×4 sheets. You had to wear safety goggles and a dust mask. However, we couldn’t use the good stuff because the big boss was too cheap. In essence you had to choose goggles or mask. If you wore the mask with the goggle the goggles fogged up and you could lose a finger to the blade. We opted for the goggles and no mask. Masonite in your lungs… hair… mouth… nasty.

#8 Elliott’s Hardware Paint Department. From 1985 until I started teaching I worked in the paint department. What a great place to work. We had the youngest average age of employees. Even with the 85 year old former dance instructor. That was great fun. I ruined more clothes mixing paint.

#9 & #10 Teacher / Coach. I started teaching in 1989 at WataugaMiddle School. I taught and coached there for seven years before moving to HaltomHigh School. I finished that part of my educational career in 2001 when I moved into administration. I did have asbestos in my room at Watauga Middle.

#11 I taught summer school for one week in the summer of 1995. I was about to have my first child and needed a way to pay for it. Darrell Sneed fired me and every other coach who was working summer school that year. I told him I really needed the job and had turned down they same level of pay at TCC for the summer teaching a college course. He told me he understood I needed to pay for my child’s birth but that since I was a coach I was already making extra pay and the ladies that didn’t coach needed the money more. So, my pal Joe Ward and I painted houses that summer and the next. I did have the last laugh. I will never forget that Darrell… never…

#11 General Sales at Elkins Hardware. I was bored and looking for something to do. I learned how to cut and thread pipe those two summers. I hold a master’s degree. I NEVER want to cut and thread pipe again. That has to have been the dirtiest job ever. Oil and grease on everything.

#12 Assistant Principal atNorth Richland Middle School. I moved out of the classroom and into a great job. I got to work with a great group of teachers and an excellent principal. Ray Thompson showed me much of what I know today in the two years that I worked for him. The best part… no cutting and threading pipe and no cutting masonite.

#13 Assistant Principal at SmithfieldMiddle School. I had the pleasure of working at Smithfield Middle School for four days. I actually only worked there two. The other two I was just waiting for my transfer to be approved. I like to tell Jeff Russell he was my favorite principal ever. I really spent the last two days cleaning up after Lane Ledbetter for the second time in my career. (I had also come after him at North Richland Middle.)  

#14 Assistant Principal at Birdville High School. I was in charge of the 11th grade. It was great to be back in the high school ranks. 

15 Associate Principal at Birdville High School. I spent the last two and a half years at BHS as the associate principal. I got to talk in person and on the phone with all the people who were mad. I loved every minute of it. I also worked with two principals while I was there. I also worked with an assortment of very gifted assistant principals. 

#16 Acting Principal at Birdville High School. When Susan Fisher was out for some surgery I spent six weeks as the acting principal. Didn’t quite feel the same as my current job.

#17 Principal of Smithfield Elementary School. For the past nine months I have been principal of this elementary. We achieved our goal of being a Texas Education Agency
Exemplary School for the very first time under the TAKS and NCLB system. The staff here is truly deserving of accolades because their work with the students made this happen.