Student teachers

Things just weren’t the same today.

Oh sure, it was the first day of the spring semester, and the true beginning of our new daily practice protocol: Men’s distance team practice at 11 a.m., followed by men’s sprinters and women’s entire team practice at 2 p.m. This signaled the start of a different routine, but we had begun that procedure during the intersession a few weeks ago.

No. What was different today had to do with who was missing. There are always athletes missing from practice on any given day, due to class conflicts, internships and the like. But today, a good portion of our senior class was absent – and will be absent – as they embark on their student-teaching semester. Today was the first day for student-teachers.

It has happened before, and it is always jarring. Generally, these men and women are heart-and-soul members of our team, athletes that have been regulars at practice for more than 3 years. Several of them are team captains. The absence leaves an unmistakable void.

Again, extended absences like this – when athletes go abroad, especially – take some adjusting to get used to. It’s one thing when someone misses a Tuesday for a bio lab; it’s another entirely when they are off in London or Barcelona or Florence or wherever for months at a time.

But these newbie student-teachers’ absence also signals the reality that their days as student-athletes in our program are numbered, as they slowly transition into the real-world portion of their lives. I am proud of their future entrance into the noble profession of teachers. So many of our former athletes are now teachers and coaches, and it is always so gratifying to see this.

In so many of the personal recommendation letters I have written through the years, the highest compliment I pay to my student-athletes is that I would entrust the care of my own children to them. I feel the same way about all of our new crop of student-teachers. If my children had Ms. ---- or Mr.---- as a teacher – now or in the future – I would be confident they would be blessed with good people in the front of their class.

A long time ago, someone told me that when you have children, their lives amount to a series of goodbyes from the day they are born moving forward: Goodbye to the diaper phase; goodbye at the first day of preschool; goodbye on the first day on the bus; goodbye to the innocence of the holidays; goodbye to being able to pick them up; goodbye to the booster seats; on and on and on and on.

As coaches whose athletes become an extension of our family, the same thing happens from the moment our men and women enter campus as nervous young freshmen. Now that they are confident and successful student-teachers and adults ready to enter the adult world, we are heading into the final phases of goodbyes.

So as our student-teachers get adjusted to student-teaching, and our other seniors get invaluable experience at internships near and far, it brings us a mix of sadness and pride, and also that unsettling perplexity of where everybody went at practice time.