My
Dad not only ran a farm but he also coached football. As his only “son”
for 8 years, I was his water boy, team manager, and biggest cheerleader, until
my Mom felt that I was becoming a little too tomboy when they allowed me to
play pee wee football one season. She made me be a cheerleader the next
year. Back then, cheerleading wasn’t a sport. It was far from the
athleticism, skill and competition of cheering today. While I enjoyed it,
I really wanted to watch the game. I really wanted to play the
game. I love football. Not just a little but in a “not leave
the couch all day Saturday and watch every single game” kind of way.
Friday night, with Rosebro1 still “couchlined” from his recent knee
surgery, we watched the SHS game on TV. Not a great game, but what I
loved more than anything was watching Rosebro2 on TV doing his thing as team
manager. It isn’t a secret, but Rosebro2 has my love of football gene. He
loves every down, can recite the entire game afterwards, and knows each players’
abilities and lots of their stats. He jumps to his feet when our team
scores, he yells at the refs, he blames the coaches for bad play calling and he
gets concerned when a player goes down (the trainer’s kids have a heart for
that kind of thing). He wants to be a sports announcer or a sports
statistician when he grows up. Secretly I have doubted this career.
Why? Rosebro2 has some speech issues, the field is packed with
candidates, and I’m not a risk taker-it’s not a safe secure job. But he
lives for this kind of thing. He doesn’t watch DisneyHD, Cartoon Network,
he watches ESPN. He reads the sports section of the
newspaper.
Unlike some kids who have waited for the release of some animated movie,
Saturday he had us watching When the Game Stands Tall this
weekend followed by The Blindside. We’ve watched it 100
times. As we watched and I drifted into the mindless quiet of that first
week of school tired, I watched my boy’s face light up with every play and
every scene as if he had never watched the movie before. And then a
scene with Kathy Bates came on when she is tutoring Michael. I
realized that I was selling Rosebro2 short. This is his dream and
who am I to doubt it? Should I not be his encouragement when he has
the courage to want something? I should be his blindside. I
should protect him from those obstacles he doesn’t see coming so that he can do
great and wonderful things. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t stumble or
fall and make mistakes, but that he’s protected enough to go into battle and
accomplish his dream. First and foremost, I have to know him in
order to know how to be that blindside. As I thought about that I,
of course, thought about school. I thought about our students and
the notion that unless we have true relationships with our kids, we can’t help
them accomplish the goals we have for them this year. The
relationship you have with your students has to be the most important goal you
have these first few weeks. Without that you’ll not notice when they
are having trouble, when something has changed in behavior, nor will you have
true vested interest in making sure you are protecting their blindside so they
don’t end up like tackled so hard they end up on the injured reserved. What are
you doing to ensure you are creating relationships with your kids?
