Back to college…
I came to Mountain Pointe based on four very compelling promises that were made to me. Keep in mind, we had put together a team at Camelback that would be one of their very best, and we had stared down the district and a corrupt principal. Not to mention, I lived literally within sight of the school, and thought, like I usually did that I would be there forever. When I looked Harold Slemmer dead in the eye and asked him if he would be there for the long haul, as naïve as it sounds, I believed him totally when he said he would. That, plus staff on campus, summer use of the gyms, and a PE class, were things that were not promised in a dark room with no witnesses. The school and district AD’s were both in the room. Those promises were huge in my decision.
The first promise to go was Harold to the AIA. He felt terrible, but he said he would do everything he could to make sure I was taken care of- meaning that the other three promises were adhered to. I’m sure he knew that wasn’t possible, but I didn’t.
Shortly after Harold left, the new principal was approached by the head of the PE department and asked to have my class for basketball players terminated. The principal, Wayne Mosher, called me in roughly a year after Harold left and said he didn’t agree philosophically with PE classes for particular sports and was going to cancel mine. Even though football players were required to take weight lifting classes together, that was secondary to the fact that the class was part of a promise given to me by Harold in order to entice me to come to MP, and witnessed by the school and district AD. He said that whatever Harold said didn’t matter to him because Harold was gone. The school AD was leaving, so he was no help, so I did appeal to the district AD and the new superintendent of the Tempe Union High School District, Steve Adolph. No help there. Remember, I told you guys that principals have tremendous autonomy within their schools- they only cite “district policy” when they want to get you off their backs. So, within three years of coming to Mountain Pointe, and with our program one of the very best in the state, half of the promises that were made to me were broken.
A year later, Rex Morrison left the school, and I was in need of a freshman coach. I went to see Wayne Mosher and, again, reminded him that one of the promises made to me was that I would have all of my staff on campus. He told me that hiring coaches to fill teaching positions was not something he did. He told me that if I had a suitable candidate for a position that fit the school’s current teaching openings, then he would consider it. My candidate taught in an area where there were no openings, so no hire was made. Promise number three- gone.
Wayne Mosher was fired after three years and replaced by Brenda Mayberry, who had been an assistant principal the whole time I was there. This would spell the end of the fourth promise- gyms in the summer. Brenda was the kind of principal who thought the best way to avoid any problems was to not put yourself in a position where they may occur. One of those ways was to completely disassociate the school with any summer activities in the gym. If we were going to have summer camps, they would have to be run as a private business. That meant providing million dollar insurance bonds and paying rent like any other outside entity. And if you know anything about renting high school gyms, they can be very pricey. Our camps were on the low end of the entertainment dollar, so basically her decision to “privatize” us ran our program right out of business. I reminded Brenda of Harold’s promise and of the fact that even Wayne Mosher had waived costs, as principal’s can do. She said she had to follow district policy- there it was, “district policy” to get me off her back. Once again I appealed to the superintendent and the district AD, both of whom told me that principals can do what they want. I’ll never forget Steve Adolph looking at me like I must be a real dummy to have not figured out that Harold’s promises didn’t mean squat to anyone.
We kept battling and continued to have the best program we could during all of these times. I think it was in the 2005-06 season, a year when we got to the semi-finals, that I was asked by Scott Clayton to do a blog on his website. I agreed to do it and was very frank- it was a weekly summary of the season, filled with other stories and comments, much like I am doing now. In that blog, I was critical of Brenda Mayberry and Mountain Pointe, so she became a faithful reader. She was the person who actually said that she hated the Mountain Pointe-Desert Vista games because they caused so many problems, and I pointed that out on the blog. My days at MP became numbered after that. Most coaches will tell you that when they get three or four principals and AD’s down the line from the ones that hired them, things can get pretty dicey. That’s one of the reasons there is so much movement in the profession. The guys who stay 20 or 30 years at one place are few and far between. In 2007, I completed by tenth year at MP, which was the longest I had been anywhere, but the situation was no longer tenable. All four of the promises that got me to move to MP had dissolved and most administrators treated me like a fool for even believing that any promises should go beyond the person who made them. I felt like that should apply to the next coach- if you don’t want to give what the last guy got, then don’t promise him anything. But as long as the person who got the promises was the coach, then, given suitable results and continued competence, the district should adhere to them. I know- that’s pretty naïve thinking.
After I resigned as the coach, I really didn’t know where I would end up, but I knew I wanted to coach. As much as I enjoyed teaching government, my calling in life was coaching basketball. If I tried to jump districts, I would take a severe pay cut- something that I knew from experience. When I came to the Tempe Union district from the Phoenix Union district, I had to take a $12,000 a year pay cut. I was not interested in any job in the Tempe Union district, because they were not people of their word. Just on a lark, I called Scott Mossman, the head coach at Grand Canyon University and asked him if he needed any help. He just so happened to have lost a volunteer assistant, so we met and talked and I decided to teach government at MP, then drive over to GCU everyday to be an assistant.
Last thought from Mountain Pointe. I taught government there for eleven years and we often discussed what the future of America would or could look like. In my opinion, which I think any teacher should be free to give, the biggest problem we would face in the future was racism. They were thinking climate issues, economic issues, health issues, or terrorism- and those will always be problems that we must face. But racism was very strong and always hiding just below the surface in a most dangerous position. I told them about the police in Texas arresting black players for “suspicion”. It is a funny story, but not really. I pray for our country today and we need to address this problem, which has exploded in our faces over the past several days.
Next…go ‘Lopes…
I came to Mountain Pointe based on four very compelling promises that were made to me. Keep in mind, we had put together a team at Camelback that would be one of their very best, and we had stared down the district and a corrupt principal. Not to mention, I lived literally within sight of the school, and thought, like I usually did that I would be there forever. When I looked Harold Slemmer dead in the eye and asked him if he would be there for the long haul, as naïve as it sounds, I believed him totally when he said he would. That, plus staff on campus, summer use of the gyms, and a PE class, were things that were not promised in a dark room with no witnesses. The school and district AD’s were both in the room. Those promises were huge in my decision.
The first promise to go was Harold to the AIA. He felt terrible, but he said he would do everything he could to make sure I was taken care of- meaning that the other three promises were adhered to. I’m sure he knew that wasn’t possible, but I didn’t.
Shortly after Harold left, the new principal was approached by the head of the PE department and asked to have my class for basketball players terminated. The principal, Wayne Mosher, called me in roughly a year after Harold left and said he didn’t agree philosophically with PE classes for particular sports and was going to cancel mine. Even though football players were required to take weight lifting classes together, that was secondary to the fact that the class was part of a promise given to me by Harold in order to entice me to come to MP, and witnessed by the school and district AD. He said that whatever Harold said didn’t matter to him because Harold was gone. The school AD was leaving, so he was no help, so I did appeal to the district AD and the new superintendent of the Tempe Union High School District, Steve Adolph. No help there. Remember, I told you guys that principals have tremendous autonomy within their schools- they only cite “district policy” when they want to get you off their backs. So, within three years of coming to Mountain Pointe, and with our program one of the very best in the state, half of the promises that were made to me were broken.
A year later, Rex Morrison left the school, and I was in need of a freshman coach. I went to see Wayne Mosher and, again, reminded him that one of the promises made to me was that I would have all of my staff on campus. He told me that hiring coaches to fill teaching positions was not something he did. He told me that if I had a suitable candidate for a position that fit the school’s current teaching openings, then he would consider it. My candidate taught in an area where there were no openings, so no hire was made. Promise number three- gone.
Wayne Mosher was fired after three years and replaced by Brenda Mayberry, who had been an assistant principal the whole time I was there. This would spell the end of the fourth promise- gyms in the summer. Brenda was the kind of principal who thought the best way to avoid any problems was to not put yourself in a position where they may occur. One of those ways was to completely disassociate the school with any summer activities in the gym. If we were going to have summer camps, they would have to be run as a private business. That meant providing million dollar insurance bonds and paying rent like any other outside entity. And if you know anything about renting high school gyms, they can be very pricey. Our camps were on the low end of the entertainment dollar, so basically her decision to “privatize” us ran our program right out of business. I reminded Brenda of Harold’s promise and of the fact that even Wayne Mosher had waived costs, as principal’s can do. She said she had to follow district policy- there it was, “district policy” to get me off her back. Once again I appealed to the superintendent and the district AD, both of whom told me that principals can do what they want. I’ll never forget Steve Adolph looking at me like I must be a real dummy to have not figured out that Harold’s promises didn’t mean squat to anyone.
We kept battling and continued to have the best program we could during all of these times. I think it was in the 2005-06 season, a year when we got to the semi-finals, that I was asked by Scott Clayton to do a blog on his website. I agreed to do it and was very frank- it was a weekly summary of the season, filled with other stories and comments, much like I am doing now. In that blog, I was critical of Brenda Mayberry and Mountain Pointe, so she became a faithful reader. She was the person who actually said that she hated the Mountain Pointe-Desert Vista games because they caused so many problems, and I pointed that out on the blog. My days at MP became numbered after that. Most coaches will tell you that when they get three or four principals and AD’s down the line from the ones that hired them, things can get pretty dicey. That’s one of the reasons there is so much movement in the profession. The guys who stay 20 or 30 years at one place are few and far between. In 2007, I completed by tenth year at MP, which was the longest I had been anywhere, but the situation was no longer tenable. All four of the promises that got me to move to MP had dissolved and most administrators treated me like a fool for even believing that any promises should go beyond the person who made them. I felt like that should apply to the next coach- if you don’t want to give what the last guy got, then don’t promise him anything. But as long as the person who got the promises was the coach, then, given suitable results and continued competence, the district should adhere to them. I know- that’s pretty naïve thinking.
After I resigned as the coach, I really didn’t know where I would end up, but I knew I wanted to coach. As much as I enjoyed teaching government, my calling in life was coaching basketball. If I tried to jump districts, I would take a severe pay cut- something that I knew from experience. When I came to the Tempe Union district from the Phoenix Union district, I had to take a $12,000 a year pay cut. I was not interested in any job in the Tempe Union district, because they were not people of their word. Just on a lark, I called Scott Mossman, the head coach at Grand Canyon University and asked him if he needed any help. He just so happened to have lost a volunteer assistant, so we met and talked and I decided to teach government at MP, then drive over to GCU everyday to be an assistant.
Last thought from Mountain Pointe. I taught government there for eleven years and we often discussed what the future of America would or could look like. In my opinion, which I think any teacher should be free to give, the biggest problem we would face in the future was racism. They were thinking climate issues, economic issues, health issues, or terrorism- and those will always be problems that we must face. But racism was very strong and always hiding just below the surface in a most dangerous position. I told them about the police in Texas arresting black players for “suspicion”. It is a funny story, but not really. I pray for our country today and we need to address this problem, which has exploded in our faces over the past several days.
Next…go ‘Lopes…
