A teacher with winning kids—end of debate

It is possible to get kids to think on their feet, even when you’re flat on your back. Just ask Philadelphia teacher and AFT member Philip Beauchemin, coach of Overbrook High School’s state champion mock-trial team in 2004.

The team took top state honors in the competition last year despite the fact that its long-time coach was gravely ill for much of the preparation period and despite the fact that Overbrook, a high school that serves one of Philadelphia’s high-needs communities, initially fielded a team of just five students against more than 260 rivals with a minimum of eight students competing on each squad.

But if you’re looking to cast this as a “David and Goliath” story, think again. Or at least give Overbrook’s mock-trial team its just acclaim as a perennial powerhouse in the mock trials, a team that always competes and often wins the state competition. Overbrook students have been winning or competing at the state championship level for the past eight or nine years, Beauchemin points out. “Every year the assumption is that Overbrook got lucky or I’m [legendary coach] ‘Bear’ Bryant,” he observes. But the secret of success lies in the talent and hard work of the students, he insists. At Overbrook, “every year there is a state championship team, and the question is whether I find it or not.”

In 2003, however, the process of finding and keeping a winning team was difficult at best. Several members of the squad dropped off the team when Beauchemin became ill. But as the situation became known in the community, two stars from past Overbrook teams stepped in to help guide the team while its coach recovered. Those Overbrook alumni—Tyray Miller and Khadijah Scott from previous state championship teams—helped the team members build the skills and confidence they needed while their coach recuperated at home. Eventually Beauchemin took a more direct role in coaching, with the 2004 team visiting his home for five- and six-hour preparation sessions while he was still tethered to an intravenous line. Both Miller and Scott stayed involved, since the coach’s recovery was long and difficult.

“They both deserve a lot of credit,” Beauchemin says. Many of his former students have gone on to receive full scholarships at prestigious schools such as Dartmouth and the University of California, Berkeley. Miller and Scott exemplify how former members of the squad “don’t just leave and forget” their high school once the competition is over.

Out to the old ball game
Illinois member celebrates 25th anniversary of sports club for at-risk youth

I like helping the kids,” says Richard “R.J.” Krause, a member of the East St. Louis (Ill.) Federation of Teachers.

There is one problem with his declaration, however: It’s an understatement.

For 25 years, the R.J. Krause All-Stars Sports Club has been providing opportunities to children in East St. Louis and Washington Park—which the East St. Louis Journal describes as “the two zip codes in the St. Louis area where kids are most at risk”—that are not readily available in a city more widely known for its poverty and crime.

Thousands of children have gone through Krause’s program, which not only offers opportunities to play organized sports at no cost to their families, but also is built around field trips to professional and collegiate sporting events as well as cultural activities.

The sports club has received a host of awards. Most recently, it was recognized by Focus St. Louis, a citizen-based nonprofit organization, which lauded the sports club for its longstanding work with disadvantaged youth and presented Krause with its What’s Right with the Region award for improving racial equality and social justice.

In 2001, Krause received the St. Louis Rams Community Quarterback Award and a $10,000 check for the program. Krause also was tapped for the Gatorade National Coach of the Year award and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. GEMM Drum Major Award. And then there is the van that was given to the program in 1993 by Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities.

Despite all the recognition, Krause is quick to point out that the program works because of all the volunteers who have helped him coach and chaperone over the years, including his brother Russell Krause and Victoria Stigar, who Krause describes as “the motivating coach” while he is “the strategy coach.”

Krause, a native of East St. Louis and a teacher at the Nelson Mandela Elementary School, began coaching children in 1964 as a high school freshman. He has coached more than 6,000 games and counting.