First Person: Teacher Appreciation Week

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"Today's lesson is in downloading photos."

The following article originally appeared on this website on May 9, 2008. Since we are currently in the throes of Teacher Appreciation Week in this country, we thought we'd bring it back for another run. Kickball. Heh. Enjoy.

Thing you didn't know No. 1: it's the end of Teacher Appreciation Week. No. 2: it's Teachers' Day in Malaysia. And numero tres: I used to be a teacher. This means very little to you, because you don't know me, unless you're one of the handful of people that does. I taught at JW Oates Elementary School (if I'm gonna bold "Kobe," I'm gonna bold that) in Houston from 2003 to 2005, and now I work for ESPN. Odd. But when I was teaching, my love of sports didn't abate. One story of appreciation, if you click through.

Every year around Cinco De Mayo, JW Oates would hold a big fundraiser; normally, it was some type of carnival. In 2005, it also involved a kickball game pitting one mixed student/faculty team against another. I'm not athletic in the least—I'm actually quite "un-athletic". Still, I was beloved in that community (kidding), so I had to play. And honestly, who can't kick a rubber ball moving at less than five miles per hour?

In grand sports movie fashion (see below for a "Clip Reel" of some of the best moments from 'em), I came up in the sixth (read: ninth) inning with the bases (read: school t-shirts strewn about at roughly equal distances from each other) loaded and us down three (read: no one was keeping score). It was, in the immortal words of Houston resident Tracy McGrady, "all on me."

I strode to the plate (in a pair of sweatpants) and took a deep breath, staring down my adversary. She was 12 years old, read at a fourth-grade level (I taught third grade; it wasn't theoretically my fault), might have been 5'11 and could roll a ball with the vigor of this guy. Earlier in the game, I had kicked one pop-up, one kinda sorta double and a weak grounder back to her. There was no way I was taking this yard, but yet, that was exactly what I needed to do. I was doomed.

To make the situation worse, pretty much every student and staff member at the school—about 200-plus people—was watching this unfold. I'm not good with crowds.

The first ball rolled in. I sized it up, and lifted my ginormous leg at exactly the right moment. I missed the ball completely.

Completely.

The roar of laughter from the attendees was deafening. "Mr. Bauer Sucks!" was a common catcall (I've never been called "Mr." in my life since that moment, so it was both poignant and miserable at once). Coach Albert, the PE dude at Oates, even guffawed. He was my homeboy at the time. Ugh.

I brushed off my ego and rolled the ball back to my 12 year-old nemesis, ready for Round II. Quickly, she rolled it back in. It was coming faster than the first one, but I wasn't gonna let the same embarrassment envelop me again. I timed it out, lifted my leg and booted the sucker into orbit.

As Jake Vaughn will tell you, 'That sucker still hasn't landed yet.'

Gone, well over the fence behind JW Oates. There were cows on the other side of that fence (I once taught about subject-verb agreement and had a cow meander up to the window; it was pretty awesome). The ball sailed over the cows and frankly, they were even impressed.

The catcalls were instantly replaced by cheers. As I rounded third for home, a pre-kindergarten student reached up to give me a high five. I may have knocked him over; I'm honestly not entirely sure. Europhia tends to cloud moments such as these. All I know is: I won a charity kickball game at a public school in Texas with a walk-off and cows were beaming at me.

So think about it: my greatest moment of athletic glory, aside from interviewing Brady Quinn , was beating kids half my age at a recess sport on a dirt patch behind an elementary school. If that's not reason enough to celebrate teachers, I have no idea what is.

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