A Memorable Teacher

     I will always remember my first day of high school newspaper; I walked into the class with a few friends ready for just another regular class, but that’s not quite what I got. Not far behind us stooped in our teacher, a tallish, stubby man sweating very prominently who I would have the privilege of getting to know over the next three years of my life, a man named Cecil Kent Smith.
     My first impression of the man wasn’t the best, his awkwardness was ridiculous. The large sweat stains hiding under his armpits and the shakiness of his voice made him difficult to take serious. But as the days went by, I learned to like him; for some reason he let us call him “Coach” (his only classes were journalism and study hall) and he was much more relaxed than the other stereotypical high school teachers. However, Coach Smith wasn’t the perfect teacher; he unfortunately had the organizational skills of a 3rd grade boy.
     It wasn’t that I had a bittersweet relationship with the guy or anything; I had always liked him, and never thought of him as a “bad teacher.” But going through three full years of spending at least an hour with Smith every weekday, I learned a lot, and not always through good example.
     His personality and almost weirdness was something I really admired. I’d be sitting in the room trying to study for some test I had coming up, but even though he saw me busy he would still bring up last night’s big game to me or something like that, and as much as I didn’t want to, I’d find myself having an hour long conversation about the Rangers by the time I had to go in for my test. I may have suffered in U.S. History a little bit, but at the same time it turned my mood from stressful to spirited.     
     Lots of things he said to me were meaningful too, my most remembered being “When somebody is doing something right, let ‘em know.” I’ve noticed how much this actually helps when you work, and from both perspectives. It gives the worker a sense of reward, and also helps the giver of the advice to keep his workers’ spirits high and keep them productive.
     Like I said though, Smith was no perfect man. The staff would spend many late nights trying to finish the paper for press due to his lack of prior planning, and more than a few times did the paper accidentally run unprofessional headlines for stories (for example, one issue a basketball headline was “BALLIN’,” nothing more, nothing less). This reflected his personal organization too; I one time went to his car for him only to find it filled with breadcrumbs, paper, clothes and even a half empty can of Old Spice. Despite it all, I learned from Smith’s flaws. No good person can be perfect, and from this I strived to keep myself more organized than my teacher counterpart. I also discovered that organization is the framework of all large-scale things, and without it everything can fall apart.
     My memories will always live on for Kent Smith, who sadly took a better job at another school a few summers ago, and I will never cease to be amazed about how interesting of a person he was and how he impacted me. From breadcrumbs to baseball, Kent Smith was a man of a man.