One of my favorite parts of the Fall semester is helping seniors write college essays. If I could make a career of it, I would do it in a heartbeat. A few days ago I sat down with one of our seniors and shot out a bunch of potential ideas for his essay. They ranged from funny to serious, cheesy to intellectual and everything else in-between. When we had finished with the first working draft and I proclaimed my essay writing omniscience, he turned to me and asked me a question: “why do you work at Ghost?” I gave him the standard, “I love my job” answer, the bell rang and we both rushed off to the next thing.
The answer to the question is not as profound as maybe I would like it to be. At the end of the day, when all the bells and whistles are silent and the effusive big words turn simple, I work at Holy Ghost Prep because I am happy when I am here and I hope that my joy translates itself into a positive impact on the students who come to school here.
To balance this philosophy within the hockey community has proven to be the greatest challenge I have faced as a school professional. Attending a hockey meeting of any kind is like the funeral of a person no one liked. People sit tired and burned out; clubs nervously teeter on the edge of folding; endless politicking results in good kids tossed aside for parents with the time or treasure to unfairly advance their son; relentless claims of impossible guarantees trump the reality of no actual success; once friendly faces are now embittered by the drive to win at all costs and innumerable relationships sit destroyed by much of the above. As the private school guy, I am accused of cheating, stealing players and breaking the rules – incessantly grilled on everything from an unintentional smudge on a score sheet to the number of players we roster. Any suggestion I make is taken as a means to be treated differently or to challenge the status quo and leaders that are often beholden to numerous masters with opposing agendas resist change at all costs. More and more, parents are willing to accept any demand, no matter how insane or expensive, for their son to wear the right jersey. Foolish rumors, lofty false promises and the uneducated advice dribbled out by erroneously extolled coaches amazes anyone who regularly works with students. Challenging the norm is impossible as millions upon millions of pages of proven facts and studies about how children learn and grow are tossed aside or ridiculed for the empty substantiation of “in my experience.” It boggles my mind the incredible depth of fear to say, “no, this is wrong.” After all, I am reminded, tryouts come again next year, and maybe then I’ll make the right team.
Some people probably think that this is some poorly veiled attempt to trash one club team or another – that would be false. The truth is that Comcast, the Junior Flyers, the Minutemen (and every other program) have a legitimate purpose to help kids play and compete at the highest level in their league – to move on and to improve. There are some profoundly gifted coaches out there that have my respect and admiration. They would likely agree that the joy is found after you survive all the madness. This is a commendable mission and one I whole heartedly support if for no other reason than sports help kids to stay off the path of trouble. My point is that as a community, the standards of right and wrong are often clouded by things that have nothing to do with doing what is right for kids. One need go no further than read the USA Hockey ADM model. Not a single mention of school or homework. Nowhere is there value placed on building community, helping others or sharing success. Instead, the model exclaims the best way to build great American hockey players. Noble, but incomplete, selfish and valuable to only the tiniest number of players and, in my view, unacceptable.
There is no doubt that my dark and gloomy view is based on my own feigning ability to withstand the culture. I have always been willing to take the high road and sacrifice almost everything if I believed we were doing the right thing for a player. The politics and the rumors don’t get to me. I am battered mostly by the fact that doing the right thing has lost credibility in ice hockey. Instead, winning, making big bucks and lying to kids has slowly earned the winning hand.
You know, there is a person out there that trashes me to this day about not really understanding the best way to make an excellent hockey player. The other day someone asked me, “doesn’t that make you mad?” I responded, “I think it’s a compliment actually. You see, in his limited sight, he sees a rink, a scoreboard and a score sheet. From where I sit, I happy to only see his son.”
