Reflection

By Ed Piper

With the news that Jason Carter, the La Jolla High football coach, has stepped down, I feel kind of empty. Like an orphan. Right now, there is no head coach for the Viking program.

I can only imagine what the kids feel. I'm just a grandparent, photographer, writer. But for student athletes, Carter and his assistants were their mentors, models, friends, confidantes.

I taught high school students for over 30 years. I formed attachments to students even when I was a substitute teacher, and they formed attachments to me.

During one period in Ventura County in the 90's during my substitute-teaching, I had some students at Westlake High as a sub in all six of their subjects. They knew me by name, and I knew them by name. We would say hi as we passed one another in the halls.

There was continuity to some level, but then there wasn't, because I wasn't their everyday teacher.

Fast-forwarding to my teaching independent studies in the Juvenile Court and Community Schools here in San Diego in 2011-2014, I worked with students individually. The connection we had was everything for some of those students, because they bounced from school to school, being dropped or kicked out or disappearing from one or many schools before ending up at my doorstep.

I'm happy to tell you, totally unrelated to the subject of this column, that two students, both 20 years old or more by now, recently received their high school diplomas due to a new state law that allows them to graduate despite not having being able to pass the math section of the CAHSEE state test. One had a 349, missing the passing score by one point! Mind you, these are not high-achieving students like the ones I interview at La Jolla High.

Can you see what I'm doing? I'm circling so as not to make things as direct regarding the coaching change under way as I write.

I'm thinking of Daniel McColl. He'll play hard--and both ways--for whoever is the head coach named in February. He always plays his heart out. I'm thinking of Nick Hammel, who I just interviewed for a story on the basketball team's yoga classes. He plays football, basketball, and baseball. He's a sports junkie. These guys are so positive, come with a smile on their faces, enjoy sports, are a joy to interact with. Nick, like his teammate Daniel (who also plays basketball), will land on his feet under the next head coach in football and will play his heart out. This type of guy is the Energizer Viking. They just keep going.

I feel sadness. I don't know the ins-and-outs--I don't want to know them. I say I'm for the kids, and I am. That's why I taught all those years in hard classrooms where one of my colleagues, Rick Kasper, called our students "reluctant learners".

May the La Jolla High football program find someone who loves the guys, and will stay for a long time. I'm selfish. I want them to succeed. My granddaughter went to La Jolla. That's what got me into this whole thing.

Jason Carter is a good guy. He cares for kids. He combines teaching the x's and o's with bringing up young men. His specialty is getting them fired up. He'll go on to coach somewhere else.

Sometimes I long for the "old days" when I was in high school, when most of the coaches were also classroom teachers on campus. It made life simpler. There was more continuity. Don't get me wrong, the walk-on coaches are highly-skilled and care about their athletes. It's just a different era.

If they can get it right, the Vikings will get someone who has the same dedication to kids that Darice Carnaje, the new hire in girls basketball, and Lisa Griffiths, the new hire in field hockey, seem to have.

My varsity basketball coach, John McMullen, is the coach who brought out the best in me. He could motivate. He wasn't worried about being liked or not. He figured out that he could motivate me by metaphorically kicking me in the butt. I blossomed as a 16-year-old, going from zero rebounds in the preseason intra-squad fundraiser to averaging 10 rebounds a game.

He brought out more in me than I thought I had in there. I didn't even know I had it. The good coaches, while caring for you as an individual, bring out your potential.