My first full-time job was teaching English on Fishers Island, a small island off the coast of eastern Connecticut. The year-round population was around 500 then and in the summer it ballooned to near 5000. The “summer people” were the super

rich, mainly from New York City or New Jersey. I mean rich like the Whitneys and the Firestones. I was hired to teach the children of the workers who tended to the summer residents. there were 28 students in the high school, divided by

grade. We taught each grade separately, so when it was time for seventh grade reading, two students would walk into my classroom.
The school was new and beautiful and money was not a problem. I was given a four-bedroom house on the water as part of my

salary. The 4-person senior class traveled to London for their senior class trip.
I was given $10,000 for the English department budget. When we studied A Streetcar Named Desire, we first read the book, then watched the movie and then went to Broadway to see the play.

The budget was voted on every spring, on a Tuesday, so even if the wealthy objected, they most likely would not travel to FI to vote.
Residents were very disappointed when they found out I had no children. They were always worried that without enough students, the school could

shut down and their children would have to go to school on the mainland. I understand that more now but being shunned was hurtful. I made friends with the few other transients on the island.
I lasted three years on Fishers Island and then was offered a one-year position

at Amherst Regional High. School. I found out about the job through a classmate in a summer seminar on African-American Literature. We studied Song of Solomon, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Native Son and Invisible Man. These books eventually became the core of many of my

courses in Amherst. I have taught them-no lie-hundreds of times to thousands of students.
This summer seminar also gave me the opportunity to be in a majority POC environment again. We went to see Coming to America one night and I was the only WW in the car and close to the only

WW in the theater.
Ithaca, Austin, Amherst. I liked living in college towns. I knew there was a vibrant ultimate scene as I had been to tournaments there, such as Mr. Pete’s Affair with 100+ teams. I thought it would be easy to start a team at the high school.

The signs I put up announcing our first meeting were thrown in the urinals. Only 4 students showed up to learn how to play on a beautiful fall weekend.
I eventually figured out that the best way to recruit was pouncing on those students who were the last ones to leave my class.

Our first game was against Silver Lake Regional High School on the South Shore of MA. My friend Greg taught there and his son put together a team of friends. We had a rough first half and I knew if we didn’t win this game, the team would fade away. So I taught

them a flick force at half time and we came away with the W.
This first team was mixed and it was the most diverse team I have ever coached. We had students from many backgrounds and were able to chant “Two Hands” in 14 different languages.
I realized later that the reason the

team had so few whites on it was because I was a new teacher and ARHS believed in a very stratified system of tracking. I wasn’t allowed to teach any of the advanced “white” classes and instead was given the standard and basic ones,

where most of the students of color resided.
The program continued to grow when we added a fall intramural league. At the height of its popularity, we had eight teams that competed weekly and it was a great way to get spring sport athletes hooked. I had numerous heated

conversations with lacrosse and baseball coaches whose players abandoned their sport for ultimate.
While we were building up our program, Michael Baccarini was doing the same in Atlanta. Mary Lowry, Jeff Jorgensen and others were planting ultimate seeds in Seattle.

Not much was happening with youth ultimate at the UPA. I called them one time and asked for all the addresses and contact names for youth teams. I was told that they don’t keep that kind of data.
As I continued to develop as a teacher, I realized that tracking in the high school

was intended to maintain the status quo. I once taught advanced African-American literature to a class with only one POC. They received extra points toward their GPA for taking an advanced class. Teachers made the placement decision in painful one-on-one

meetings and it was the rare teacher who moved a student to a higher level. Some teachers even “front-loaded” their courses with so many early difficult assignments to purposely make the less confident students drop out. The reason I digress

in this way is because THIS SHIT PISSES ME OFF. The more I learned about systemic discrimination, the more political I became.