Practical Theory - Sports / Coaching

Football, Concussions and High Schools

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:10:04 -0700

So SLA has never had a football team, not because we were morally opposed to it when we started, but rather because it is such an expensive sport and it requires so many players. So on some level, we had this decision made for us for reasons, but I've been giving the issue of high school football a lot of thought lately.

I'm starting to wonder how long high schools can support having football teams.

Right now, there is a growing sense that football is causing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in professional football players, and there are questions as to how the hard hitting of football may be having an effect on high school players as well. For me, it is enough that school administrators and coaches should be asking themselves some very hard questions about the sport that has been a mainstay in American high schools all over this country.

I understand that there are many sports that can result in concussions - I've gotten a few playing Ultimate (no comments on how that explains a lot, please.) But football is about hitting the opposing team hard. And we may be on the verge of learning that that is causing serious neurological damage to the kids who entrusted to our care. How conclusive does the evidence have to be before we decide this isn't something schools should be doing? What parameters should we be putting in place to be sure we aren't doing damage to our kids?

I don't know that I have answers here. I know that Kat and I are not ok with Jakob or Theo ever playing organized football. And I know that, as the administrator of one small school in Philadelphia, I wouldn't be comfortable having a team at SLA. What that means beyond our walls, I don't know. But I think the time has come for high school administrators, athletic directors and football coaches to start asking some very hard questions.

Coaching, Care and Kids

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 21:34:31 -0700

So I've come out of retirement.

I'm coaching again.

Roz Echols and I are coaching SLA Ultimate - we've got 30 kids coming to practice at 6:30 am every morning to work together build two amazing teams and one incredible community. And I've been reminded of how much I really, really love coaching. There is something incredible about working with kids first thing in the morning, all of whom have chosen to be there, working toward a common goal that is bigger than ourselves as individuals that has always just been incredible to me.

I love it. And I missed it even more than I realized.

And it got me thinking about the way we progress in the education realm, where with every move "up" away from the classroom, there is less and less direct contact with kids. I'm a really hands-on and involved principal, but, with the exception of my advisees, I have never been able to be as close to a specific group of kids as I was to the kids I coached. (Individual kids, sure but not a group)

And that seems wrong.

Having that incredible relationship where we, as educators, really have the opportunity to care for kids and have that transactional relationship where both teacher / coach / mentor and student make a difference in each other's lives, is a big part of what makes teaching such a profound profession.

Why is it that, in most districts, we discourage our administrators from working directly with kids?

What would happen if curriculum directors were still basketball coaches? If special education case managers ran the drama production at a school? If assistant superintendents ran after-school math help a few days a week? What if a district prioritized that and created the time and space for it?

How about this what if corporations that had products in the "education sphere" actually had their employees and executives volunteer in school several days a week - not just as a one-off, but actually establishing the kind of caring relationships that we desperately need?

What if we worked to ensure that everyone who works with schools or works in education didn't merely talk about how important it is to make a difference in the lives of kids, but rather actually did. Not indirectly, not through a policy or a product, but by working directly with and caring directly for kids.

Wouldn't that move us just a little closer to building the kind of educational community -- in and out of schools -- that we so very much need?

(Oh... and Go SLA Ultimate!!!)

Let's Make It Better

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Tue, 10 May 2011 22:13:22 -0700

Sean Avery is a hockey bruiser who plays for the New York Rangers. In the very macho world of professional ice hockey, Avery has made a career out of using whatever tactics he needs, physical and mental, to give his team the edge. He's the kind of player you love if he is on your team, and you hate if he's not.

Against that back-drop, Sean Avery joined the Campaign for Marriage Equality in New York.

A month after Kobe Bryant used a homophobic slur to insult a ref in a basketball game, Sean Avery publicly stated his support for gay marriage.

He even made a video about it.

In the still homophobic, overly macho world of professional male sports, Sean Avery spoke out for marriage equality.

And hockey agent Todd Reynolds, of the Uptown Sports Management agency, said he was sad to see Avery do that when he tweeted out:

Very sad to read Sean Avery's misguided support of same-gender "marriage". Legal or not, it will always be wrong.

And when he got called out for doing so, he answered by saying:

To clarify. This is not hatred or bigotry towards gays. It is not intolerance in any way shape or form. I believe we are all equal... But I believe in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. This is my personal viewpoint. I Do not hate anyone.

Now, see... this isn't about whether or not Todd Reynolds hates someone. It is about how he would use his position as a sports agent to try to silence those who would speak out for equality, understanding and love.

I care that he, as an agent, would publicly express his viewpoint that Sean Avery's support is "misguided." If I am a player represented by Reynolds, do I feel comfortable supporting gay marriage or Avery's stance? Do I wonder how that will affect the way Reynolds will promote my career?

I care that one of the first professional male athletes to make a public stance supporting gay marriage got immediately called out for it by part of the "business" of sport. And I care that will make the second athlete who might publicly support gay marriage think twice.

And most importantly, I worry that there are thousands of young, gay athletes who stay in the closet because of the homophobia of too much of the sports world.

And I worry that Todd Reynolds either doesn't know or doesn't care about any of that.

So let's make it better.

According to both his agency page and the NHLPA.com agent page, Mr. Reynolds' email is todd@uptownsports.ca. Let's help him see how important it is that he understands why Sean Avery wasn't misguided, he was right. He was brave. He was strong.

And he was needed.

Let's all send Mr. Reynolds our favorite It Gets Better videos. Let's tell him the stories we know of kids who need to see gay as normal, as o.k., as accepted.

I'm going to send him one of my favorites. This one:

Let's make it better.

An Important Win

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 21:24:55 -0700

I've been thinking a lot about Wes Leonard the past few days. I've been wondering about how his teammates are holding up. I've been awed by the footage of his coach talk about what happened... somewhat stunned by how he had to answer questions that there was no way he could answer.... thinking that if it was me who had lost a player, I would have been more of a wreck than he.

The team, after asking Wes' parents for permission, decided to play their state playoff game tonight. I thought about them several times today... how could they prepare for emotion of this game? How do you, as the coach, honor the fact that they were clearly playing this game to honor their fallen teammate while also trying to temper the emotion of that. I kept thinking about how I would try tell them that, win or lose, the decision to play at all was to honor Wes.... to try to let them know that they didn't have to win the game... that playing at all was the point.

I thought about how much those boys mean to each other. The bonds that are created on a high school sports team are incredible. So many coaches - myself included - have preached the "twelve players, one goal" mantra at practices and games... and while it may sound cliched or trite, it isn't. The love you feel on a team is hard to explain. I still remember a time-out late in a playoff game where I just looked at my girls and said, "There is nowhere in the world I'd rather be than right here, right now, with you all. Let's win this game." Even seeing the words on the screen make them seem silly now, but they weren't. I just loved coaching those girls more than I could ever express. It was clear from the interviews that the Fennville coach felt the same way about his boys.

The boys won tonight, 65-54, after announcing only four players in the starting line-up to honor Wes. The photo that goes with the article shows the emotion that they felt after the game. I want them to win States. Odds are against them, but I want them to. But even if they do, at some point in time, the season will end and all the adrenaline that is sustaining them through their loss will end, and Wes' loss will be final. The hope is that the grief counselors will know to come back then to help those boys and their coach.

But for now, the boys won their game. They have another one. They will take the court to honor their teammate and try to achieve that common goal.

They have more fans than they could possibly know.

We Interrupt this Education Blog...

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:41:00 -0700

... with the following important message:

GOOOOOOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!

Game One was a thing of beauty. How about that Cliff Lee? How about that Chase Utley?

(And how about that Ruben Amaro? He took the World Champions and made them better without giving away the farm system.)

GOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!

We Win!!!!

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:39:14 -0700

The Phillies did it!

I remember 1980... I can't believe we waited 28 years for the next one!

School is going to be a blast tomorrow... everyone is going to be wearing Phillies gear!

Small World or... Why Jane Krauss is Pure Evil.

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:32:06 -0700

O.k. -- Jane Krauss... brilliant technology-infused, project-based author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning... smart, kid-centered, kind... what could anyone have against Jane Krauss, right?

It's all a facade. Don't believe any of it.

Behind that "caring progressive educator" mask is nothing but stone cold.

Turns out that Jane's son is John Bloch of South Eugene HS. South Eugene HS is the team that beat Beacon HS in the 2004 HS National Championships 11-9 in a game that, four years later, still causes me to wake up screaming.

So, yes, perhaps I may have yelled at Jane in my office today when she came to visit SLA. Perhaps I suggested that she should leave my office... but don't let her blog post fool you.... she took a great deal of glee in twittering me the text of the article that ran about the game against her son's team. Evil, pure evil, I tell you.

[For the sarcasm-impared, Jane is not evil, but she is the brilliant author of Reinventing Project-Based Learning, and we both were laughing as I was yelling at her... yes, I really yelled. Hey, I'm a passionate coach. Would Duke let a UNC parent hang out in the Provost's office? I think not... And yes, I was grumpy for the rest of the day because I couldn't stop thinking about that game. *auuuugh*]

But what I was thinking when she left (I walked her out... she signed the copy of the book... it was very friendly, really!) was how we have so many networks, and they do overlap. I think we have to remember that our networks can be informed in so many ways. We can meet on-line or we can reinforce off-line networks on-line. Because either through Facebook or iChat or cell-phone, I talked to just about every senior from that Beacon team tonight to tell them that story. (And for the record, they all agreed that throwing her out of the office would have been completely justified.)

If it wasn't for the social networking tools, it would be so much harder to keep in touch with all of them, and instead, I'm in a Facebook group with just about every kid who ever played Ultimate or basketball on my teams, many of us exchange quick IMs or emails, and I still feel connected to the kids who I spent four years working with at 6:30 am every morning. And since most of the best memories I have of my years at Beacon were on the court and on the field with those kids, that's just an unqualified good in my life.

[Hmmm... if I keep linking to her book, do you think Jane will forgive me for yelling? Come back to SLA soon, Jane!]

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: ultimate, beacon, coaching, networks, jane_krauss

Some Possible Supplimentary Texts

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:11:47 -0700

Some possible readings for SLA in the coming days (and hopefully weeks...)

Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof
For Love of the Game by Michael Shaara
Bang the Drum Slowly by Michael Harris
The Natural by Bernard Malamud
Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The Great American Novel by Philip Roth (perhaps a bit too risque)
Wait 'Til Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Physics of Baseball by Robert Adair

In other words... GOOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!!

Coaching

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 23:24:50 -0700

As much as I love what I do as principal of SLA, there are big huge parts of my life as a classroom teacher that I miss every day. The biggest thing I miss is coaching. I love sports, and I love them for a lot of reasons. I love strategy, I love stats, I love the Xs and Os, but most importantly, I love sports as a metaphor for life. Show me a sports movie where the underdog comes back to win, I'm a mess. For example, if I find Rudy or Rocky on TV, I'm in.

I've been lucky enough to stay in touch with a lot of the basketball players and Ultimate players who played on the teams I coached over the years. You have to understand the atmosphere we played in... Beacon didn't have a gym or field space. My girls basketball team practiced in another school's gym at 6:30 am every morning. The Ultimate team used to climb a fence (with scary spikes, I kid you not) to get onto the dirt-encrusted outfield of a baseball field on 55th and 12th Ave. at 6:30 in the morning. (Finally, after many years of that, the caretaker of the park gave us the key to the gate.) You had to want it. You had to want to play. You had to want to work. You had to want to push yourself. There was no space for withholding a piece of yourself from your teammates, because why would you get up that god-awful early in the morning if you weren't prepared to care?

Many people used to ask us, "How could you get up that early for practice?" For us, the answer was easy, "How could you not?" In all those years, for all of us, 6:30 am - 8:00 am was our sacred time. It was when we came together to work to become so much more than together than we were apart. We drilled and drilled and ran and almost never just scrimmaged, because, well, it's not the point. You have to work on something to get better.

I loved the classroom, but I think I did my best teaching on the court and the field. When we do it right, we teach sacrifice, we teach community, we teach honesty, we teach patience, we teach listening, we teach learning by doing, we teach humility, we teach passion, we teach love, we teach so many of the personal skills we hope our kids will embody when we coach.

And coaching made me a better teacher and person. In the end, it wasn't about winning and losing -- although I hated to lose -- it was about playing as well as we could. And for me, it was always about honoring the effort those kids put forth on the practice fields and courts. If we lost because the shots didn't fall or the team was better than we were or it was just "one of those games," I could live with it. But if we lost because I wasn't good enough, if I got out-coached, or my practices didn't prepare the kids well enough, that kept me up for weeks. (And yes, there are a few games that -- years later -- I still question what more I could have done.

There are so many stories from my coaching days that illustrate how much those times meant to me. One of my favorites was when we were on a bus back from a boys' basketball playoff game. We had lost the day before, and we were there to support the team. They lost a heartbreaker, and as their coach got on the bus, he kiddingly said, "O.k. -- practice tomorrow after school!" And three of my girls said at once, "How come THEY get to keep practicing!?" The boys' coach looked at me and said, "I know why you love your team."

6:30 am was our badge of honor. It meant we wanted it more than anyone else. It meant we cared. I miss that time every day.

For the record...

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 21:52:15 -0700

... the season finale of Friday Night Lights left me in tears.

I love what I am doing at SLA. It is exactly what I am supposed to be doing with my life right now, but I admit...

I miss coaching.

I loved every moment with my players. I loved 6:30 am. I loved the time-outs with 1:00 to go, down by two. I loved screaming as the kids ran the halls of the school at 7:00 am, yelling "Scarsdale doesn't run this early! Columbia doesn't run this early!" I loved driving to tournaments with kids, talking about Ultimate and school and life for hours. I loved lay-up lines and go-to drills and breaking down game film. I loved the anticipation of game-day, seeing the kids in the halls or in class and just smiling, knowing it was game day.

I loved the singularity of purpose. I loved everyone working toward one goal.

I would have loved a National championship, a city championship, but in the end, I just miss coaching.

Fire Don Imus

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 18:12:27 -0700

Long time "shock jock" Don Imus went too far this time when he was talking about the women's college basketball final between Tennessee and Rutgers. From ESPN.com:

Imus was speaking with producer Bernard McGurk when the NCAA title game between Rutgers and Tennessee came up.

"That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ... "

"Some hardcore hos," said McGurk.

"That's some nappy headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.

Imus has long made a career off of pushing the envelope, but this crosses a line into such vile racist, sexist language against a group of young women who's only "crime" was being athletes at the top of their game. This hateful language should not be allowed to be explained away with "Whoops, just a joke folks..." There are some things that are just hateful and wrong, no matter how many hastily written PR apologies are made.

This is offensive on so many levels. One, the obvious racism is horrific. But even beyond the racism, there's a sexism that, after ten years of coaching high school girls basketball, that pains me. I am sick of seeing this. It's vile, it's hateful, it's disgusting, and it really has no place on our airwaves.

So Monday morning, at the opening of business hours, I'm calling WFAN and registering my displeasure that Imus is allowed to say such things on the air, and I will be adding my voice to the chorus of those calling for Imus to be taken off the air.

Should you be so inclined:

WFAN-AM
34-12 36th Street
Astoria, NY 11106
718 706 7690

The Joys of the Teaching Life

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 21:39:56 -0700

As we think about School 2.0, NCLB and everything else facing education today, sometimes it's important to remember the joy that comes with this job too.

I flew out to Ohio last night to go to Oberlin College to see the Senior Day game, the last home game of Jessie Oram's college career. Jessie played for me at Beacon for four years, and we spent four years catching a cab to practice every morning at 6:15. She made sure I was met at the airport by two other former students of mine who are also at Oberlin, so I got to catch up with their lives as well.

The game was amazing, and I just had an incredible time watching Jessie play. (And hey, getting to go out on the court with her at the beginning was pretty damned cool.) But it was just amazing to get to interact with her out on her turf and really see the way everyone around her just clearly loves being with her.

All of which is to speak to one of the wonderful benefits of the teaching life. After a while, the kids we teach become adults, and a few of them stay in your life. It can be a little tough sometimes to make that transition from teacher-student to former-teacher/friend-former-student/friend. But there's something amazing about being in someone's life for four years as a teacher and then to get to take joy in the adult they become.

I've said this before, and it's really the secret that makes teaching such an incredible life. There is so much written about how great schools are supposed to be transformative for the students, but there's little written about how having these kids in our lives can and should transform us as well. And the wonderful thing is that it's not just when they are our students. After eleven years of teaching, my first kids are approaching 30 years old, they are parents and teachers and businesspeople -- adults. I've swapped parenting ideas with my former students, taught with them, and learned from them.

Congratulations, Jessie, on four years of college basketball, and congratulations to you for all that you are and all you will become. Thank you for always allowing me to come along for the ride.

Alumni Pride: Jessie Oram Scores 1,000th Point

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 20:12:38 -0700

Just a moment to brag here...

Jessie Oram, former Beacon co-captain, became the 5th player in Oberlin College Women's Basketball history to score 1,000 points in her college career.

She's also one of the smartest, coolest, kindness folks you could ever hope to meet. She should be immensely proud of all of her accomplishments on the basketball court, but I have a feeling that those will be the least of her accomplishments when it's all said and done.

Congrats, Jessie!

Bob Knight is Not O.k.

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 21:26:02 -0700

So last night, Bob Knight slapped a player. He said it was just to get his attention. The student-athlete said it wasn't a big deal. His parents said it wasn't a big deal. The athletic director said it wasn't a big deal. ESPN said that if it was any other coach, we wouldn't make a big deal out of it.

I'm sorry. I don't buy it. It's a big deal. I watched the video. The kid's head snaps back. Whomever the adult (assistant coach?) was behind Knight has a look of disgust as he realizes what was going on.

When was slapping a kid in the face considered motivation? When was that a way to show a kid how much they were needed? How was that, as Knight claims, "helping a kid?"

I coached two sports for nine years, I yelled when I had to... I had kids run laps from time to time... and I never, ever struck a kid.

Why are we still making excuses for Bob Knight? Why does anyone think it's o.k. for him to do this? Why are we sending a message to young coaches that this is acceptable behavior?

Will his past successes guarantee that he will always find a job somewhere?

Goooooooo Eaaaaaaaaaaaagles!

chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 19:30:48 -0700

O.k. -- my apologies to any Dallas-area readers out there, but...

GOOOOOOOOOOO EAAAAAAAAAAAAAGLES!!!!

Beating Dallas is always fun, but beating T.O. is even sweeter.

And in a truly fun note, Jakob is a football and Eagles fan. He didn't want to take his nap this afternoon until I said, "Jakob, when you wake up, we can watch football!" He ran into his room and dove under the covers.

Got to love it.