Teaching Elementary, My Dear Watson

6 - Meetings

6

Meetings

Tuesday, September 13

Kevin gazed at the open play areas wrapped around the buildings, with grass fields and paved courts for softball, football, soccer, basketball, and a track of sorts circling much of the longest open space. He was dressed for comfort in the bright sun, with a white polo shirt, tan shorts, sneakers, and sunglasses. I'm grateful to be here rather than at some big city school with nothing but concrete playgrounds.

With home visits and teaching organized, Kevin started pondering his sports responsibilities. Flag football would be first, for both boys and girls. Of course, he wanted his teams to succeed, but Kevin knew that abilities varied widely. First, he'd assess their talent, then put together a strategy that fit their athletic skills.

Sports were always more important than academics for me, because reading and math came so easily, but athletics did not. If I'd matured physically as early as I did intellectually, I could have been a star at a young age. But it was good the way things turned out. I learned my work ethic from sports since I had to try harder to compete. That's why teaching character is so much more important than winning. Can't always have talent, speed, size, or strength, but effort and attitude are choices we control. That's how I'll help my teams.

In his experience, girls had almost no background in playing football at this age. Kevin, his friends, and the boys he grew up with tended to use their free time after school and on weekends to play whatever sport was in season. Girls did not. But now a new law had passed five years earlier, Title IX. No discrimination in sports leveled the field in terms of college athletic scholarships available to females. But girls still didn't spend as much time on sports and games as boys. Yet. Hopefully, that will change now.

During girls' tryouts, speed and raw athleticism mattered. For the boys, he'd want to know more about skills such as passing, catching, and kicking. If a girl had those abilities so much the better, but Kevin expected to teach them how to do all three. He discussed his options with Johnny Avers after school.

"Good to see ya. Glad you got the room so clean. I'm allergic to dirt, so you keep me healthy."

"You'd best behave then, 'cause if not, this room gonna look like Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl!"

Kevin laughed, then said, "Hey Johnny. I could use some intelligent advice, but you're all I have available." Avers smiled. "Run something by you regarding tryouts for flag football?"

"Sure, man. Wassup?"

"For both girls and boys, I'm thinking to clock their fifty-yard dash, as well as a separate race weaving among cones, and a third like basketball suicides, where we'd run up and back between lines for quickness. For boys, I'll let them compete for the quarterback position by evaluating their passing distance and accuracy. I'll have them try out for receivers by catching passes while running horizontal and vertical routes. For punting, I'll measure distance and accuracy. No field goals, and the extra point after touchdowns is a run or pass. But for the girls, I expect to teach skills, so I haven't planned to test them for those. Any feedback?"

"Sounds good. That's kind of what our coaches did when I played as a kid. What about a backward running test so you'll know how they'll do on defense?"

"Good idea, Johnny. Will do. Thanks."

"Most young ladies got no clue about what to do on the football field. Even with Title IX, ain't no females playing high school football yet. But you can instill teamwork."

"Agreed. As Arthur Ashe said, it's all about building character."

"Yeah. You know the stats about how few kids play in college or succeed in the pros?"