Tonight I was lucky enough to get a chance to make portraits of the Salem Middle School 7th and 8th grade football teams as we do every year. I took a shot of every player on the two teams except one who happened to be late arriving. I did not want him to be left out so I agreed to hang around him he got there so we could take his portrait.

After the photo work was done for the team and after Eight Grade Head Coach John Hammond had left the field, Seventh Grade Coach Blair Thompson brought his team to the center of the field and had them take a knee to listen to what he had to say. Apparently the night before on a bus trip from Bedford something had happened that left coach Thompson less than impressed with his teams behavior. He began to address his team about the way that he expected his team to represent their school. He reminded them about what was printed across the jersey of every player on the team, "SALEM", and how their behavior was a direct reflection of not only their school but also their community. He told them about how he had coached for years and how he had coached even many of his assistant coaches and that then nor now would he accept less than perfect behavior from his players. The next statement he made was what got all of our attention. He said " boys, I was diagnosed with cancer four years ago and it was not fun. It fact "it sucked"! "It hurt and I was sick all the time and lay in bed most of the time, but you see the lessoned I learned and the struggles I had when I played football and high school sports at Salem Schools is the reason I am here today. I learned in sports that things don't always go the way you want them to go. Sometimes life can suck, but life goes on." Not an eye blinked, not a head turned. No one cleared their throat. I don't think a bird tweeted and for a moment I thought the water in Brock Creek stood still as he went on, not always in a calm voice. "You see, when you work for something and then it does not go the way you think it should you learn to deal with it. That is why you are here. Playing sports is what taught me how to be strong and how to be a leader! Winning is nice but you can't always win but you can act like gentlemen. You can act like men"! He said "I have coached teams that went winless and that is no fun, but I would rather do that than coach an undefeated team who is not 100 percent respected by their school and community."

He and coach Risen continued calmly for several more minutes until he turned and walked several steps away followed by the rest of his coaches. He looked back and said "I am done and we are through but it might be a good time for you guys to talk about this". He continued on his way and as i looked to the huddle of boys, they slowly all turned to the center of the circle and one after another and sometimes more than one at a time began to apologize to the rest of the team about their part in whatever had happened the night before. I heard sincere apologies coming from the mouths of seventh grade boys in ways that I have never heard grow men speak. I stood there in amazement as I took it all in. It literally brought tears to my eyes to hear those boys stand up for each other and talk about what leadership really is. What an example of leadership I saw in the way Blair Thompson handled this tonight as he overplayed winning by trying to emphasize leadership and sportsmanship. I could not help but wonder how many of these kids heard this from a true leader but had never heard it anywhere else including from me. I was extremely proud of the way Blair Thompson handled this and it made me proud to be a supporter of the black and gold!