Monday, July 24, 2006

with a cherry on top

My boss is awfully persuasive it seems [is that an oxymoron? ;-) ] . . .
After initially turning down his request back in the Spring, today I re-thought and gave him a final, reconsidered "yes." Granted, I suppose it could have been the student's request I was agreeing to more so than his. What it was that I agreed to was starting up, and coaching, a girl's Cross Country team. There is a small Cross Country team at the moment--has been for 2 years now--but it is only for boys as there has been no female coach.
My reasoning in not doing it was that I felt unqualified, having no coaching experience beyond my experience running on the team myself and running on my own ever since. Besides, the prospect of starting the team from scratch just seemed terribly daunting.
But this morning one of the high schoolers came to my desk in the library [after the headmaster had just asked me to think about it again], and she asked if it was true that I was going to start a team up this fall. I told her that it was true that I was thinking about it, but that I wasn't sure if I was up to it and explained why. Looking at me with a convincingly pleading expression, she assured me that there were only a few girls, that they would be "easy" to coach, and that she really wanted the chance to run . . .
And how could I possibly turn her down at that point?
Hearing me laugh as he walked by the library, the headmaster poked his head in and innocently asked what she had come to see me about, what she had said?
Laughing again, I replied that she had said "Please" :-)

2 comments:

Julia said...

It's funny how people sometimes can't perceive really obvious things about themselves. To me, you'd OBVIOUSLY make a great cross country coach. I can't believe you didn't see this!

anna j said...

You are of course right about perceptions . . . but you must also keep in mind that you, my dear friend, have always insisted upon a much too grand an opinion of my abilities and strengths :-)