By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The “Coaches in the Classroom” feature is a weekly series that spotlights and celebrates coaches throughout Portage County, who spend their days in the classrooms and hallways leading today’s student-athletes to be tomorrow’s leaders.

Today’s spotlight is on Kent Roosevelt High School’s Curtis Black, who is a Career Technical Education Student Success Coordinator and is the Rough Riders’ boys basketball head coach.

• School district: Kent City Schools.
• How many years?: Four.
• Classes taught?: Career Technical Education Student Success Coordinator.
• What made you want to become an educator?: My path to becoming an educator started with a passion for helping kids. At age 20, I became an Educational Aide at both the elementary (Holden) and middle school (Stanton) levels, and I fell in love with the work. Those experiences helped confirm that education was where I was meant to be.
• What is your favorite part of your job?: My favorite part of the job is the relationships I get to build with our Kent students as well as students from the Six District Educational Compact. Students from Stow, Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson, Tallmadge, and Woodridge spend a lot of their day at Roosevelt, and I’m fortunate to work with them daily and support them alongside our Kent students.
• What have you learned about being an educator that you didn’t know before you started?: I’ve learned how important it is to simply be present and available for students throughout the day. Even if you only have a student for one class period, you can still become someone they rely on at many different points during their day. That’s not something that most people teach you about when being in education, but you learn quickly.
• Which teachers influenced you to go into education?: The teachers who influenced me to go into education are Cameron Black Sr., Sandy Benshoff, Cynthia Botzman, Jeremy Garver-Hughes, Ben Dunlap, John Callaway, Shawn Bates, Joe Shaw, Ann Puhalla, the late Deborah Wade, Kathy Scott and Jack Amrhein.
• How do you apply some of your coaching to the classroom?: I apply my coaching to the classroom by recognizing that all students learn differently and need to be taught differently. Whether you’re coaching or teaching, there’s usually one main message, but how that message is delivered has to be tailored to the individual. Motivation also plays a huge role. You have to learn what your students care about and use that to keep them engaged and motivated.
• How do you apply some of your classroom experience to coaching?: I bring classroom skills into coaching by practicing patience and asking questions. Mistakes are going to happen, and things won’t always go as planned, but patience helps steady the ship. Asking questions matters, because I want to understand what my players are thinking and the reasoning behind the decisions they make on the floor, whether they’re good or bad.
• Funniest thing that has ever happened to you in a classroom?: I can’t pinpoint just one funny moment. The funniest moments usually come when athletes from different schools and different sports start debating who’s better and which team is the best. I always enjoy sitting back and letting them go at it.
• Mentors in your building who have helped you along the way: Nikki Marchmon-Boykin, Ben Dunlap, Heidi Jurging, Brent Pfeiffer, Robin Golden, Craig Foreman, Kelly Foreman, Paula Fisher, Al Ehlert, Jen Sepi, Jessica Evanson, Carrie Harris, Amy Larkin and Mike Haney.