At the midpoint of Teacher Appreciation Week I thought it appropriate to write a bit about the teacher who played the biggest role in making me who I am today. On second thought, he doesn't deserve that much blame. Hmmmmm.......let's say he was the teacher who made me realize that who I could be was so much more than who I was.
The teacher I appreciate above all others is Mr. Struss, my high school social studies teacher and head basketball coach. He was a fine teacher, but there's no doubt he shaped my life more as a coach than as a teacher. He was tougher on me than anyone has ever been, and I will always be thankful to him for that. I was a skilled, but lazy basketball player. I was soft. I got pushed around. I was mentally small on the court. And I was comfortable with all of that. Mr. Struss knew how to make me uncomfortable with who I was or how I was performing, whether it was a tongue lashing, a benching, extra conditioning, or all of the above. He didn't beat around the bush if my effort was lagging or my play was less than what it should have, or could have, been - for a long time I was pretty sure my nickname on the team was "Get your @#$@% in the paint and rebound!" For the record he didn't actually say @#$@%. Usually. He verbally rode me in practices, in games, and more than once he met me at the end of the post-game handshake line so he could get a head start on his locker room tirade towards my performance. I began to hate him.
And then I began to respect him, because I began to figure out that he was right. Every time. Once I stopped hating him I also stopped hearing him and instead, I started listening to him - which was one of the first things he taught me: There's an awfully big difference between hearing and listening. As soon as I started listening I found the messages he was delivering; where I used to hear him tell me I wasn't good enough I now listened to him demand that I be better, because he knew I could be better. I figured out that the path to better was strewn with the bodies of those who were satisfied with being good, and the only way past them was with hard work....his second major lesson to me.
By the time I was a senior his demeanor towards me had changed from that of a driving force to more of a companion. We had journeyed through several lean years together with teams that weren't very good. We had learned how to understand each other, each knew what made the other tick. That final year we had a strong team, for once, and the saying "Winning cures all ills." was mostly true. I still needed occasional "encouragement" to play at my highest level, still felt his wrath when I failed to do so. When the final buzzer sounded on my final high school game, a loss in the section quarterfinals to a team we had beaten during the season, I walked across the court devastated. And then he was beside me, his hand on my shoulder as we walked together towards the exit of what turned out to be the final game I ever played and he ever coached. He spoke no words, just patted me a couple of times and gave a firm squeeze to the shoulders that he had put so much burden on for so long. That silent gesture was his strongest lesson for me: Love comes in many forms. My lazy, clouded, teenage brain hadn't ever considered the possibility that I meant something to him, or that he meant so much to me. But that hand on my shoulder couldn't have delivered the message any clearer, and as soon as I understood what our relationship really was it was over. And I spent the next hour bawling like a baby.
So yeah, Mr. Struss is the teacher who stands out among all the great ones I've learned from and taught with. Without his tough love my past would be much emptier, my present much less fulfilled. Because of him I understand the rewards of hard work. I know how to search for the message without getting lost in the words or the tone. I learned from him, the hard way, that being comfortable is the easiest way to be mediocre. And he gave me the understanding that nice doesn't always equal love, nor does love always appear to be nice.
Thank you, Mr. Struss, for helping me grow up.
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