Dr. Lisa Cooper, starting her first full year as the principal of Culver City High School, so admired her father – as a wise parent who coached rather than as a coach who happened to be a parent – that she followed him into the field.
Entering her 10th year on campus, Dr. Cooper’s fellow administrators and students know – a lesson from her father — how closely she tracks the lives of boys and girls away from the classroom.
As a high school student herself, and as she matured into young womanhood through college and afterward at Bishop Amat, she held close to her sensitive heart the coaching/teaching philosophy of her father. Deeply imprinted on her mind was the exquisite individual care he took of each player. It caused many players to return in later years, share their success with him and thank him for his last contributions.
More than two decades later, these recollections bring a golden glow to the often smiling face of the accomplished Lisa Cooper.
There was a Don’t lesson she also learned.
“You build a relationship with persons, showing you care for them,” she said. “That makes a big difference. When you are checking on their grades, holding them accountable for things good and bad, that says something about you.”
Question: What about the more deeply involved you become?
“That,” says Dr. Cooper, “is a fine line because you are not the parent.”
Is it difficult to find the line and then hew to the line?
“Yes,” the former coach said succinctly. “You care about your players the same way we care about our students. Sometimes they come to us because they trust us. But you do have to establish that there is a fine line. Boundaries must be established. You tell the student you appreciate his or her trust in you, seeing you as someone there to help. Then we will see about going to the next level.”
(To be continued)
