The Pissing Match at an Elite Private School

The truth is slowly emerging surrounding the removal of famed swim coach Dick Shoulberg after 44 years at his post at Germantown Academy, outside Philadelphia. An incident two years ago between two teenage boys appears to underlie Shoulberg's leave for "personnel" reasons. It's alleged that one youth urinated on the other. Not surprisingly, the boys reportedly still don't get along. How Shoulberg, a coach to numerous Olympic athletes, handled the matter is still not clear. The Philadelphia Inquirer tonight posted a more complete story.

For previous blogs on the developing story:
http://unretiring.blogspot.com/2013/12/is-acclaimed-swim-coach-dick-shoulberg.html

http://unretiring.blogspot.com/2013/12/swim-coach-story-is-not-yet-over.html

Swim Coach Story is Not Yet Over

Pressure is building to reinstate in some fashion Dick Shoulberg, the nationally renowned, much-loved swim coach at Germantown Academy, whose dismissal this fall became public in the last few days.  It had to come out. Too many people are upset. On Nov. 26, just before Thanksgiving, GA held a very private, closed- door, meeting with parents of swimmers who were outraged by Shoulberg's leaving.
"They had a meeting because the kids were so upset. They love this guy," one parent of a high school swimmer coached by Shoulberg told me today. The school has been "absolutely unfair to him." Shoulberg is "one of the "biggest influences in my daughter's life. My daughter is getting heavily recruited because of him."

According to this parent, those at the meeting "ripped" the current head of this prestigious private school. And some of them are very influential people in the Philadelphia community.
What triggered this fiasco? According to this parent, it was a verbal student-on-student hazing incident that Shoulberg reported "up the line." And while there was a "gentleman's agreement" for Shoulberg to come back, that's been mired in lawyer-speak, apparently.
Is this version of events true? I have no idea.
Meanwhile, a letter writing campaign in support of Shoulberg has launched, some of which appears on the website www.swimswam.com. Chuck Connor, former president of the American Swimming Coaches Association writes with passion of his long connection to Shoulberg.
"What I find so unique about how Dick Shoulberg does his work, and lives his life, is that he is an open book. He can be abrupt and perhaps you are feeling challenged by this. His emotions are worn on his sleeve. I’ve seen him tremble and cry in embarrassment over receiving yet another national award, and generate a similar emotion calling his wife to tell her of the achievements of your students. I’ve watched him greet your students for swim classes with a booming voice that shakes them. And they love it."
It's had nearly 1,000 "likes."
Clearly, age plays a role in the outrage. I'm not sure how to parse it exactly. Shoulberg -- at "74 1/2," as he puts it -- is clearly an "elder" in the way that Indian societies used the word: revered, deserving of respect, wise. Many still want to sit at his feet (or in the pool) to learn from his lifetime of experience and success. 
Perhaps GA will find a way through this public relations disaster to figure that out.

To Be an 'Elder' -- Seeking Wisdom; Sharing Wisdom

Susan Rona, back in Montreal

Susan Rona, a Canadian educator, dedicated her career to proving that children, especially minority children, can succeed if their teachers believe that they can. It was a mission that absorbed her entirely.  And she was at the top of her game, having been invited to present her work to the European Parliament.

Then suddenly, it was gone.

“When I found myself retired, I didn’t make a decision to retire,” explained Susan, whose native tongue, Hungarian, aided her advocacy for Roma (gypsy) children in Eastern Europe. “This large international organization and I came to a point where it was time for us to part. So I went from my professional life being in 30 countries and feeling like my job in the world was to save the world -- especially  the lives of disadvantaged minorities and create a better world for them -- to doing nothing.”

The void she faced “terrified” her.

“I remember going to parties and people saying to me, ‘What do you do?’ and I had to run out the door or burst out crying because I just couldn’t answer that question. Over time, I developed an answer, which was, “I’m in transition.”

It was a response, really. Not an answer. 

Back home in Montreal, she kept searching.

“I spent a year seeing a life coach because I realized I didn’t need a therapist. I wasn’t depressed for no reason. I was situationally depressed because I didn’t know what to do with my life.”

At one point, the coach told Susan “that he saw me in my previous life as the captain of a ship who was constantly in rough waters and negotiating rough seas but that now I was a landlocked sailor who was looking out to sea and couldn't get out there -- and didn't necessarily want to get out there -- but didn't know what to do with myself.”

“That really spoke to me.”

So Susan asked herself, as a “landlocked sailor who didn’t want to manage any more boats and didn’t want to manage any more people and didn’t want to navigate rough seas, what is it that I did want to do?”

The answer came to her on an assignment for the Canadian government in the Yukon. At a meeting of First Nations people, “I was observing this woman who was an elder in the community and she wasn’t educated. But she was incredibly wise, and all the young people were looking to her for her insight and her wisdom.

“It was at that moment that I discovered that really what I wanted to be was an elder.

She no longer wanted to manage those “rough seas” anymore, “but I did want to support other people to do it well. And I wanted to be an elder in life, helping people find their paths through some of the wisdom I had developed over time.”

For that reason, Susan went on to train to become a professional, certified life coach. (susanrona.coaching@gmail.com)

Susan had another wise role model. Her father. And it’s timely that I publish this story now, on the anniversary of his death, two years ago.

“Maybe watching and experiencing my wonderful father age with the grace that he had and seeing how he could lose his ability to walk, he could lose his ability to move, he could lose his independence and yet still remain such a powerful soul, who gave so much to everybody. The fact that I spent the last five years of my life before he died having him as the center, the core of my existence, I learned a lot. So I aspire to be a wise elder.”

No longer, says Susan, does she need to be famous or successful or make money.

“I don’t need any of that. All I want is to live in a way that I will have no regrets, giving to those whom I love and to those who I don’t necessarily love but can help. So I can support them through some of what I’ve learned.”