The follies of football and furniture - Leadership Lite

School Administrator, Nov, 2002 by Penalty Saver

Keith Spurgeon never had the pleasure of watching J.O. Baxter provide a distinctive brand of coaching varsity football during several dozen years in the Metropolitan School District of Mount Vernon, Ind., but the superintendent recently received a glimpse of what he missed.

At the funeral of the former teacher and administrator, the minister told a tale about the day Baxter so strongly disagreed with a referee's call that during a timeout he walked out onto the field to voice his displeasure. The referee ordered the coach back to the sidelines, warning that he would assess his team a five-yard penalty for every step it took Baxter to get off the field.

Without hesitating, Baxter motioned for a player to run out to him. He whispered something to the player who then ran straight back to the sidelines. In a few seconds, that player, along with a few teammates, hustled onto the field carrying a bench. When they reached the coach, he hopped aboard and the players quickly carried him off of the playing field, thus saving Mount Vernon from receiving any penalty yardage. The referee could do nothing but stare.

Tasty Contestants

When Mike Anderson worked as an assistant superintendent in Freeport, Ill., the varsity teams' nickname and mascot was The Pretzels.

So Anderson always dreamed of a classic football matchup if Freeport were allowed to play against its neighbor to the north in Monroe, Wis., whose teams were known as The Cheesemakers.

He quipped: "Every time we'd play each other it would be known as The Snack Bowl."

A Hot Commodity

Who ever thought a $60 piece of surplus furniture could put a tiny, rural school district at the center of a national brouhaha?

Certainly not Gene Gregory, superintendent of the Arkansas City School District outside Little Rock. He bought a used lectern at a government surplus shop last spring, figuring it might come in handy at board meetings and other public sessions. But about two months after his purchase, the U.S. Air Force came a-knocking to reclaim the property when it was discovered President Bush had used the lectern to address the nation at Barks-dale Air Force Base shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Gregory, reluctant to part with his prize find, begged the military to let him keep the lectern just a few more days--long enough to use it for the district's commencement ceremony. He also stamped the bottom of the oak podium with the school district's name and address before surrendering the property.

Double Trouble

Is there such a thing on the education writing beat as getting too close to one's subject?

Several years ago an education writer for the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger reported an intriguing human interest story about one elementary school whose enrollment included 28 sets of twins plus a set of triplets. Not long after the story ran, the reporter, Jeanette Rundquist, became pregnant--with twins.

Overdue Guilt

As the secretary to the superintendent in the Weatherford, Texas, Independent School District, Jeanne Arnold fields all kinds of complaints. Consequently, she assumed that a card that came in the mail affixed with two pennies was just some jokester's way of offering his two cents about how to run the schools.

The handwritten note offered a different rationale. Relates Arnold: "It was from a former student who had taken a carton of milk about 30 years ago and not paid for it who wanted a clear conscience."

Quotable Quote

A state senator in Florida, Jim Sebesta, delivering the invocation as the legislature was about to open a special session to rewrite the state's education code: "Oh, God, here we go again."

(Source: Governing magazine)

Spurs in His Blood

Overheard in the 1st-grade hallway by Angela Singletary, community relations director of the Goddard, Kan., School District:

First boy, bragging: "My mom says I'm part Indian."

Second boy, desperately seeking one-upsmanship: "Well, that's nothing. I'm part cowboy."

Short humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms for this column relating to school district administration should be addressed to: Editor, The School Administrator, 1801 N. Moore St., Arlington, VA 22209-1813. Fax: 703-5282146. E-mail: mogazine@aasa.org. Upon request, names maybe withheld in print.