By accident, or fate, three consecutive days last week brought my past into the present with a personal “Roots”.
On Saturday, I attended my old high school’s first Hall of Fame dinner to honor the first inductee into the Archbishop Carroll Hall of Fame, Barry Kirsch. It is not an exaggeration to say that my life would have been completely different if we had not crossed paths. He was one of three men who planted the seeds and nurtured the seedling and staked me to stability. The other two men were my father, who taught me many things, among them humility and empathy. He was also my first baseball coach, fulfilling a genetic disposition that I hope made him proud. A neighbor and a coach, Bill Zwaan, took me under his wing and found time for me despite raising ten of his own kids; he was one of my biggest advocates.
I played baseball for Mr. Kirsch, assisted coach Kirsch, and remained lifelong friends with Barry. He taught me how to play high school baseball, gave me my first coaching job, and brought me into a college coaching position at age twenty-one at St. Joe’s. Through coaching, I discovered a love for teaching, took post-bac coursework to get my teaching degree through St. Joe, met my future wife, Terry, on Hawk Hill. Shortly thereafter, I began a thirty-nine-year career as a high school English teacher and thirty-two-year tenure as the high school baseball coach, branching toward the sky with the help of the strong root system Dad, Bill Zwaan and Barry Kirsch had strengthed.
Two days prior to the Hall of Fame ceremony, I had attended my first Retired Teachers Luncheon. Over forty of us were there, including people I started my career with forty years ago, and some of whom I had not seen in fifteen-twenty years. And not only teachers! Administrators and counselors and secretaries and cafeteria workers and maintenance people also. The co-mingling of so many “job descriptions” spoke volumes about the camaraderie that used to be the hallmark of the school district.
There is a school of thought that trees and plants communicate (BBC story) and share nutrients and information. That was soooo much the case as I grew into my career. I never met a colleague who would not share, who wouldn’t go to bat for a fellow teacher, who did not have the best interest of those students who explored the green branches of our knowledge and experience.
And on Friday I returned to the high school for the Teachers Tailgate before the Homecoming Game. We also officially had our own trees dedicated to us. The trees were planted in a magnanimous and thoughtful remembrance by the generation of teachers succeeding us. I cannot think of a more symbolic and meaningful gesture. I am confident that I was part of the growth of many former students, including the dozens who branched out into teaching. I am humbled that I continue to be part of the educational ecosystem through the younger teachers I had the honor to work with.
As my tree morphs through its visible yearly stages, I hope the branches remind my fellow teachers that whatever changes occur, our roots will sustain us. We will survive all of life’s cycles to nurture those who rely on our strength, as we reach for the sky.
As my teachers did for me.
The Q-View 