The First Transition

The school board voted, then I was officially a teacher at North Side.  It was so anti-climatic when you put it next to the roller coaster that led me to that point.  But I came to the realization that I wasn't going back to Whitney Young.  It was the end of summer, and most of the staff wouldn't be there when I take back my keys.  The excitement I felt was replaced with a sadness that to this day lingers when I think back to those children that I had grown to love.

When I entered Young that summer for what I thought would be the last time, I was able to walk around without running into anyone.  In the gym I took it all in.  No one else had taught in that gym, just me.  That was where I became a teacher.  Now someone else would take over.  The kids would come to someone else to learn how to do a cartwheel.  Someone else would show kindergartners how to get into squads.  That same person will be mopping the floor after lunch.  Even that gave me remorse.

The hardest part was saying goodbye to Verna Adams.  She was the only principal whom I had known.  She didn't choose me; but she always made me feel like she did..  When I left that day I was aware that she knew that this what I wanted to do, but for me it was like letting her down.  There was no chance to say goodbye to anyone else.  They weren't there.  The very people whom I had shared the last three years of my life weren't around.  Some I saw in later years, others I never saw again.

Not only was I closing the book on the first chapter of my career, but on the same day I drove across town to meet with the new North Side football staff.  I had made the drive down Lafayette to Spy Run before, and I had turned on State with a quick left onto North Side Drive two times before.  Both times I stopped at the front door.  This time I was driving past the stately building to the stadium.  I had no idea where the locker room was let alone where to park.

I knew no one.  What I knew was that the head coach was hired about the same time that I was.  He was taking the place of Duane Brown, the athletic director who was my connection to get the job.  I also knew that another coach was hired by the new head coach, so he was new to North as well.  The only hold over from the previous staff had been at North for a while.  When I walked into the coaches office that day, I met Verbie Walder, Timon Kendall, and Don Hunter.  One of them was a brief footnote in the rest of my life, the other two were lifelong players in what I became as a teacher.  And so, the first 28 years of my time at North began.