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 girls flag football head coach Jay Wilson, who is a Biology teacher at Kent Roosevelt.

• How many years have you taught at Kent Roosevelt: 10 years.
• Classes: Biology and Honors Biology.
• What made you want to become an educator?: As much as I loved the athletics part of school, I always loved learning, too. It sounds cliche, but my parents were teachers, and seeing the impact that they made on the lives of others was always something that I admired most about them.
• What is your favorite part of your job?: The students. They are all so different. That can make it difficult to build relationships, but it has also allowed me to grow as a person to try and understand others. It’s a blast being surrounded by young people, who have so much energy and passion.
• What have you learned about being an educator that you didn’t know before you started?: It’s not as easy as I thought it would be! It has required me to develop organizational skills I previously lacked and forced me to become a much more intentional planner on many different levels.
• Which teachers influenced you to go into education?: Field Local School teachers Beth Dyer, Tina Kruse, Joe Peterson, Patrick Youel, George Wetzel and Ashley Mauger. All of these teachers made learning so much fun. I wish I had realized back then how difficult that is to pull off, so I could have thanked them at the time. Nevertheless, thank you! I also have to mention Mr. Flaherty and our “side chats” about football.
• How do you apply some of your coaching to the classroom?: Just like on the field, we start with the small, fundamental skills first. Once we’ve shown mastery there, we build toward the more advanced concepts.
• How do you apply some of your classroom to your coaching?: It comes back to those organizational skills. It is important to set clear goals and have structured planning. It’s about analyzing where we currently are versus where we need to be with specific skills.
• Funniest thing that has ever happened to you in a classroom?: One year, I walked into class on Halloween wearing a mayonnaise costume, only to find one of my students wearing the exact same costume.
• Mentors in your building who have helped you along the way?: A huge shoutout to Heidi McClure, Ben Marquette and Kate Swango. I wouldn’t be the teacher I am today without them.