In case it escaped your notice, I’ve taught in a few different places, both elementary and secondary. During all of those varied teaching assignments, I have met a number of awesomely talented colleagues who, by the way, are also amazing human beings. Just like I can’t prioritize my favourite coaching moments in lieu of upsetting someone, I can’t prioritize the following wonderful people … So, in no particular order …
Ron Andrews was my long-time
coaching mate and a dear friend. Having said that, please believe me when I
tell you this guy is a Shrek in a little-bodied, good guy sort of way … he’s like an onion … He’s got
loads of layers. Those who know both of us already know most of the coaching stuff BUT
in case you don’t know, here’s a small snippet … He’s been the head coach for
21 OFSAA medal finishes: 9 OFSAA Gold, 5 OFSAA Silver, 5 OFSAA Bronze, 1 OFSAA
Antique Bronze and 1 OFSAA Consolation Championship. He’s coached with Rugby
Ontario and Rugby Canada since he started back in the late ‘80s. FUN FACT: Ron
is second only to fellow Canadian born, national team coach John Tait
(Canada’s Women’s Sevens) in the total number of international matches coached
… and he stopped coaching Canada in 2008! What a lot of people don’t know about
Ron is the off-field stuff like the kind of family man he is, how generous and
kind he is, how much he adores card and “Minute to Win it” games, and how loyal
he is. It would take an entire post to effectively outline all of the lessons
that I have learned through our friendship. It was a complete “No Brainer” to
me to nominate him for the Coaching Association of Ontario’s Coaching
Excellence award that he was presented with this fall. It was equally easy to
nominate him for induction into the Barrie Sports Hall of Fame as a builder, an
honour that we will celebrate together recently. I’ve said it many times
before, but like the song goes, “Thank you for being a friend.
Traveled down a road and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a
confidant. I'm not ashamed to say, I hope it always will stay this way. My hat
is off, won't you stand up and take a bow.”
In a previous post, I introduced
you to an elementary colleague named Don Montgomery that I taught with at
Portage View PS. For those that didn’t read that post, the “Reader’s Digest”
version is that Don and I taught in side-by-side “Cottages” … His term a
portable because it has a better feel … where he would gently challenge my
thoughts and ideas about a plethora of subjects as we leaned against the
railing of the little wooden porches for a few minutes after school each week.
To me, Don’s compassionate, caring way made a huge impact on my early
development as an educator, demonstrating how to capture the respect and
attention of his class with “disguised learning” … lessons that the students would
learn when they didn’t realize he was teaching. When both of my children were
born, Don gifted each with a book of children’s stories that I still cherish to
this day. I can say with complete confidence that I wouldn’t be the man or teacher I am today without his influence.
If you’re a part of the Central
family, I can say one word and it will cause you to snap your head around, look
at me and nod approvingly with a massive smile … CHESTNUT! The recently retired
phenomenon, and 2019 John Crawley Award winner, that is Brad Chestnut spent the bulk of his teaching career at
Central in both the HPE and Comm Tech departments while also shaping the
futures of 100’s of aspiring athletes while coaching wrestling and rugby. The
stories surrounding the escapades of Chestnut are stuff of urban myths,
becoming larger and more incredible with each retelling, but unlike Bigfoot
(although he exudes qualities of similarity), all of those stories have a
rock-solid foundation in the truth. It would not be professional of me to put
those stories out there in cyber-land, but trust me, they are fantastic! Truth
be told, Brad has a heart as big as a whale, generous to a fault, devoutly
loyal, and a truly wonderful friend!
Peter Kalbfleisch and I started
teaching together at Barrie Central around the same time and we quickly found
out that we shared a bunch of commonalities in both teaching and coaching. A
tireless and talented teacher, Peter is also a loyal friend who is there
whenever a helping hand is needed, but it is his quiet competency that wins you
over as it slowly dawns on you that he knows a lot about a lot. We shared a ton
of laughs together over the years, be it teaching, hanging out in r119 (the
HPE office), preparing ridiculous skits for the annual Central Teacher’s
Assembly, or sharing a "social" beside a pool or lake. I am really blessed to
have a friendship with Peter because he taught me how to take great pride in my
teaching … and he’s a great human being to boot!
If you’re paying close
attention, you’ll notice that this list of great humans includes a number of
Central colleagues … It’s not a fluke that so many of us who worked together
there have fantastic memories of the people. To soften the masculine edge of the
“Rat Pack” that was Central’s HPE department, Sue Berardi occupied the only non-HPE
desk in the office (Sue was the Art Leader) and she fit in with us goons, to
quote Forest Gump, “like peas and carrots”. Sue brought the Fine Art touch to
the shenanigans that rolled out each and every day, but TBH, it was the birthday cakes she supplied sealed the deal! I first met Sue outside of
Central since she was married to Frank Berardi, a basketball buddy from my
early days in teaching, but it was our collective scheming that really cemented
our friendship … Oh and allowing me to coach her 3 awesome kids didn’t hurt
either. She is a sweetheart and keeper!
I
have been blessed to know a wide assortment of great humans during all of these
years and it would just take too long to acknowledge them all. I’d like to say
a blanket THANKS to all of the people who gifted themselves to me by way of their
friendship but, at the risk of offending someone, I’d feel it very important to
include a small note about Craig Shaw. Craig was on the staff at Central and,
during the years that my children attended BCC, was both the Transportation
Tech and Photography guy. This meant that he had an impressionable young blond
kid in “Auto Shop” … KP. Craig is one of the most genuine, thoughtful, and intelligent
people I have interacted with and he shared those amazing qualities with KP for
3 different semesters. He is single-handedly the reason why Keaton is, and
loves being, a mechanic. We have had opportunity to sit and chat on dozens of
occasions and hash out our likes, dislikes, opinions and biases on a huge
variety of topics, something that was quite simply incredible but it is the
indelible influence he had on KP that makes him one of my favourites. He’s a “glass
is half full” type of guy and I wish him all the best as he enters his own retirement
situation.
I’ve worked with and for a
number of outstanding administrators, but the two that head that list are Russ
Atkinson (BCC 2007-2014) and Greg Brucker (BCC 2015-2016, BNC 2017-2020) for a
variety of similar reasons but with a few distinct differences.
Russ came aboard the Good Ship
Central in 2007 and immediately pressed hard to leave an indelible thumbprint
by resurrecting the then defunct football program. His leadership style really
fit with me, on a personal level, and we hit it off pretty quickly. I soon
found out Russ was a “doer” and had high expectations for his staff … It didn’t
matter what you chose to do but there was a firm expectation that you were
doing something outside of class that enriched the experience for kids. He did
two TPAs (Teacher Evaluations) with me and he was great to bounce ideas off
after some useful and honest feedback about how I was conducting business. It
was Russ who came to me asking for a favour, would I consider taking over the
school Yearbook course? I wasn’t qualified to teach Comm Tech then, but little
details like that never bothered Russ and he really thought I could do it. “There
aren’t a lot of people I can give a job they don’t wish and have faith they won’t
F&%# it up … You’re one of them.” That’s an awkward sounding compliment but
I took it that way. Russ was also the one that brought SPARK to Central after some
summer reading about research that Harvard’s Dr John Ratey was doing about the
connections between exercise and learning. He even hand-picked a few of us to
travel together to just outside of Boston for a week of intensive SPARK
training … Some of those people are listed in this post and “Birds of a feather”
as the saying goes. As the rumours of Central’s impending doom transitioned
from hearsay to reality, it was Russ who took on the Board, butting heads with Sr
admin, all in an effort to find a way to keep Central’s doors open. Not many
people know this, but he was so successful at ruffling feathers that he was
told, unequivocally, to ‘back off”! Russ had some health challenges following
his retirement in 2015 but he’s way too determined to let anything get him. We’ve
been able to stay in touch through the transition to North and I am humbled and
honoured that he chooses to be my friend!
Greg
Brucker and I first met in Elementary school since his childhood home was 4
doors up from my mine on Sunnidale Rd in Barrie. We ended up at Central
together, we shared some volleyball teams, skied together at Snow Valley and
even got hooked by the skateboard fad of the late 70’s building a driveway ramp
and frequenting Tony’s Skate Shop on TO for the latest and greatest. While I
was doing my educational thing, Greg was doing his own in the science
department at Eastview before making the jump to administration in the early
2000’s. When we were told that Russ was retiring and that Greg would be the
replacement, I thought I’d won the lottery! Seriously? Greg’s a dude’s dude,
Uber cool, one of the smartest people I know and a true buddy … And he’s a chip
off the “Ol’ Russ” after working as a VP with him at Bradford. Way cool! Greg
was the perfect person to navigate the Good Ship Central through the Maelstrom
of the closure, becoming one of the driving forces behind the 2016 spring’s reunion
(with MEGA help from Joanne McLaurin and BCC’s teachers) and the year-end carnival
for the 400 or so students who braved the closure. By now you’ve probably
figured out that I’m a two-time lottery winner because the SCDSB saw fit to
move Greg to North where we’ve continued our wonderful friendship journey for
the past 3½ years. If I ever suspected that I was completely biased (I am,
BTW) about Greg’s wonderfulness, those fears were put to rest as the North
staff have often confided in me that they are astounded by how awesome Greg is
to work for. The icing on the cake, selfishly, was when he came to me last
spring and actually inquired about which courses I would like to teach for my
final semester. “Of course, I can’t guarantee it, but I’ll do my best.” said he
with a wink and that great smile of his. I’m one lucky guy!
I
would be remiss to not mention the people who helped make the transition to
North almost seamless, although the time together was short. The North HPE
staff led by Peter Glass went out of their way to make sure that I (and Ron) felt
welcomed, appreciated and valued during the past 3½ years. Gary Hamilton,
Tammy Laurin, and Kevin Simms were the full time folk but shout out to Kelly
Maslen and Scott Blake as well. There are many others who also went out of
their way to make me feel a part of a team (I immediately think of Mike
Alcombrack and Burke Erwin) but these folks were the daily interactions as we
shared “war stories” in the HPE office. I am very confident that, were things
different and I spent more years at North, these folks would have become
the influences that my Central cronies were.
The
saying goes, “It’s not the minutes in your life but the life in your minutes
that counts.” I consider myself one very lucky guy to have shared life during
the minutes that I spent in education.
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