I am announcing this tonight to my principal and to my team:
I am hereby resigning as the debate coach at Hen Hud. The
season this year has effectively ended, and the timing is right. I have made
this decision entirely because of new responsibilities in my regular job that
make it impossible for me to continue to devote the time and effort necessary
to run the team.
I have been the coach now for 20 years. It has been both
challenging and rewarding, and I have always appreciated the support the school
district has given to speech and debate. I trust that this support will
continue for the students in the future, continuing Hen Hud’s proud tradition
in the activity.
Good luck with the team in the future.
Despite this change of personal direction, I am far from finished
with the activity. I have made way too many friends, and enjoy the process of
working tournaments way too much, to give that up. It’s the daily grind of
coaching— monitoring students, arranging travel, the general bureaucracy of
leagues and school rules and such— plus the headache of the full responsibility
for running Bump, that I am resigning from. I do intend to continue
volunteering to work behind the scenes at tournaments, and have already made numerous
commitments for next season. My only request will be that schools that wish to
take advantage of my tabbing and advisory skills provide hotel accommodations
for me so that I don’t incur any personal expenses.
In other words, I will continue to show up at tournaments as
long as the people running them want me there. I will continue to blog and
theorize and whatnot. What I will not continue to do is coach any particular
team anymore.
I’m not quite sure what role I will play as we take on a
fairly major reorganization in the region. We have already seen a need to
reinvent the MHL/NYSDCA, for one thing. And the impact of recent events in the
Bronx are far-reaching and need attention (although I hasten to point out that
my decision to leave Hen Hud predates those events quite a bit and is in no way
related). I will do what I have to do to help out in the reorganization, but when things settle down,
it should be other folks providing the future direction and leadership.
So, I will still be around, but in a somewhat modified role.
You can’t get rid of me that easily.
2 comments:
Bravo.
Be careful not to rest on your laurels in tabroom- or you may feel the 'peas' left behind by those less knowing in tab monkey wrenching the system.
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