Transfer Portal

     I love college football. Of course I have my favorite team, but I love watching football no matter the team. I enjoy the players, the coaches, the fans, and just the overall sport. It just makes me happy watching college football. I had a crazy busy Saturday with four different events, but my favorite of those four was picking up my boys from a four day field trip. I was so happy to have my birdies back in the nest. The car ride from their high school to our house was full of stories from the trip. Yet, when we got home, they immediately turned on the TV to watch the two college football conference games that were still being played at 9pm Saturday.

     I was tired, but wanted to watch the games, wanted to be with my boys listening to the fun things they did in Chicago, and I was interested in the games. During the end of one the games, the announcers started talking about the transfer portal.

     So if you’re unfamiliar with college football, there is this new thing called the transfer portal. It is similar to the NFL draft. Players wishing to leave their current school and attend another college to finish their football career will put their names in the transfer portal and will then start “shopping” around for other schools to pick them up and put them on scholarship. Players do it for a multitude of reasons but the main reason is playing time. One particular player left his college last year because another player had been started by the coaches over him and he wanted to be a starter. And he has. He moved to another school, has started this year, and helped his team reach a lot of success this year. The announcer went on and on about how one player can change the entire team. While I agree with him, I have a hard time believing that one player can be the reason who make it to the “big dance.”   

     I could not shake the comment- one player can change the entire team. I don’t buy it. I started thinking about school. Can one team member make a huge impact?  Absolutely-and it doesn’t have to be a positive impact. But what I think is more important than the work you do that can change the entire team is character. I believe that rather one player can change the entire team, the statement should have stated, “One athlete OF CHARACTER will improve a team.” Character matters. It matters whether you’re playing college football or whether you’re educating students. One teacher of character-a teacher who truly understands the impact of the work they do, a teacher who understands the impact of every decision, a teacher who knows that arts and crafts are for preschool and real school deserves hard work, deep thinking, and teaching all day long no matter what, a teacher of character isn’t afraid of real conversations with team members, students, or parents, a teacher of character knows the difference between feeling bad and being sick, a teacher with character has the relationships with students that surpasses anyone that child has had outside of their family, a teacher of character fights with status quo when achievement doesn’t happen at an unbelievable level, a teacher of character will do whatever it takes to change the life of a child.

Because what the announcer didn’t go on to say is that one athlete OF CHARACTER will improve a team. One team of character will improve a school. One school of character can impace an entire community.  What an amazing place it would be if we had 100% of the school full of 100% of teachers of character.