Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to the many letters to the editor regarding the teachers' strike.
I started coaching football in 1998 as a community coach with Coquitlam. I moved to Burnaby Central as a teacher in 2000 and became head coach there in 2002. As a teacher, I am not a proponent of the B.C. Teachers' Federation, but, as a teacher, I must adhere to the union's goals and directions whether or not they are my own.
As a special education teacher of 33 years, I fully understand what they are attempting to achieve. As a coach, I am torn and thoroughly upset that my team is not practising while others are. I have no choice. Burnaby School District has informed me that we are not allowed to practise on the field behind our school. The fact that our helmets are locked up in the school is secondary.
My worry is that certain schools will continue to practise and play games while many of us will be forced to stand on the sidelines. This in itself causes issues with our players who are questioning our integrity because we will not or can not practise. How am I to convince those players that although this is not fair, we are in the right. If/when the strike is over, how can I take my team against another team that may have practised and played for weeks and ensure my parents that their son will be safe. I can't. He won't be safe.
The British Columbia Secondary Schools Football Association (BCSSFA) has spent the last few years making sure that we understand concussions, have medical staff on the field, teach heads-up tackling etc., yet they allow this inequity to exist and place many players in the province at risk.
At present, I am working as an adjunct teaching professor/faculty advisor for UBC. I work with teacher candidates and help them to understand the complexities of being a teacher.
One of the standards teachers profess to follow is: Educators value and care for all students and act in their best interests. How can this be if we are placing football players at risk?
There is another one: Educators are role models who act ethically and honestly. By letting players continue to practise and/or play, coaches are reinforcing that old, tiresome "jock" attitude of, "I'm a football player, I'm special."
People may dislike this strike, but so do so may of us in the system. However, it isn't easy to look in the eyes of a player and tell him that, although it is unfair that that coach is not adhering to the standards we are supposed to adhere to, I am and sometimes being right sucks.
Jim Stockman, via email
