Message to All Coaches

 

A few years ago a local high school football coach gave his wife some impromptu rhinoplasty and wound up in jail. Our blog on the attack brought in many comments from his students - almost all supporting the coach. Our favorite was "Dat b***h deserved it."

Over the intervening years, two or three other coaches have received similar support. Most recently, a young man wrote to us that a new local coach had no influence on violence one way or the other. Yet this young man liked a coach he had known only two months well enough to write us when he thought the man had been wronged by our words. That's some influence.

If you're a coach, you should know you have influence over those you teach. If they see you kill an animal because you're mad over one of life's hardly unique disappointments, why don't you think they will do it also? How far removed is stepping up a notch to a human animal? 

Think about what your students learn from you. You won't live forever, but someday your students may be telling their great-grandchildren what they learned from you. Make your legacy a good one.