Coach Herriot

The offensive and defensive linemen (including me) sat in the lobby of Arrowhead High School, right by the athletic doors. Usually, everyday after school, we went the weight room and participated in a football workout with the team. However, today felt different. Frequent lifters on the team were not there, they flooded into the gym on the west side of our campus. I was confused until one of the seniors, Andy, told me,”You should try throwing shot put for the track team.” So I did.

When I first saw Coach Herriot, he was the head track coach and I was a freshman sitting amongst the other 150+ track and field athletes. We sat and listened as the intimidating, muscular coach with the barbed wire arm tattoo paced the floor and told us in an enthusiastic and stern voice, “We will never, never, have a day off of practice. You may see that baseball, softball, and tennis are canceled because of rain, but never us. This is track, not a sport that you may just come and show up to as you please, you are expected to be here every day. Many of you are coming from the couch to the track, so expect to be very tired and sore for the first week, but you must get through it because eventually it will subside and success will take its place.”

From this first encounter with Coach Herriot, I could tell he was a passionate person. When I see a coach that cares, I tend to work harder out of respect for their time and effort.

When second semester came, I checked my classes as eagerly as all of the other students. When I was coach Herriot would be my history teacher, I wasn’t sure what to think. At this point, we still did not know each other well.

As I walked into his class the first day, it felt like a different environment than at track practice. As I looked at the life size cutouts of famous presidents and I saw the cool photo of the sunrise on the SMART Board, I instantly felt as relaxed as a dog lying by a sunny window, and the room felt like a good learning environment.

One of the things I looked forward to every time I walked into his classroom even if I was having a terrible day, was another awesome photo that he had captured. I enjoyed the fact that he took these photos where we live and I like knowing there are such cool sights so close to home.

Coach Herriot’s descriptive style of teaching made learning easy, and as long as I paid attention and filled out quality notes. As he taught the class, it was impossible not to learn something cool every day. I earned the best grade I ever have in that class—nearly a 98 percent.

It is the only class I can remember being excited for every day.

My first real encounter with Coach Herriot outside of school came at the JV regional indoor championship. I had gotten quite a bit stronger since my freshman year and was trying to do well in shot put. When I went to throw, I surprised myself as much as I surprised everyone else by winning the entire meet and breaking our high school sophomore record.

After everyone threw and that portion of the meet was over, I was happy with myself, but I did not expect that coach Herriot would be even happier. When I went and told him how far I had thrown he was visibly excited not only for me, but with me. I could tell that coach Herriot felt that any athlete on his team was an extension of him and that when the athlete succeeded, in a way, he did too. This is one of the greatest properties a coach can have.

When you see that your coach is pulling for you and wants you to win, it makes you want to want to work even harder and give even more effort into being better and trying your hardest to win. For all of these reasons, I believe that Coach Herriot is the kind of man deserving of winning the teacher of the month award.