By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The “Coaches in the Classroom” feature is a weekly series designed to spotlight and celebrate 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 second-year Southeast High School girls basketball coach Ashley Callihan, who is a middle school Science and STEM teacher at Southeast Middle School.

• How long have you been employed at Southeast?: 4 years.
• Classes taught?: Seventh grade Science and STEM. I have also taught Biology and Anatomy before coming to Southeast.
• What made you want to become an educator?: Becoming a teacher was always in the back of my mind growing up. I changed my mind a lot throughout high school, but I knew I wanted to work with kids and have a career where every day is a new experience. Once I began my student-teaching experience, I knew it was where I was meant to be.
• What is the favorite part of your job?: Having the opportunity to be a positive influence and make a difference in one’s life. I also love getting to see the growth that students make in their careers since setting foot in your classroom.
• What have you learned about being an educator that you didn’t know before you started?: Teaching is so much more than being an expert in your content area. You truly can’t anticipate what every day will bring, so you have to be able to adapt on the fly and be able to problem solve quickly.
• Which teachers influenced you to go into education?: There are many teachers who inspired me, but the ones who stick out the most have been Jen Ritch and Cheryl Stires.
• How do you apply some of your coaching to the classroom?: You won’t get buy in from your students and athletes without passion. You have to show how much you care for them and show your passion in what you are trying to teach to get their commitment.
• How do you apply some of your classroom to your coaching?: Just like in the classroom, your players learn in a variety of ways. For example, when trying to teach a play, some players have to watch an example, draw it up, walk through it themselves or teach others to fully understand. The same goes for the classroom when trying to deliver a lesson or teach a concept.
• Funniest thing that has ever happened to you in a classroom?: There are a lot of funny moments every day in teaching middle school. I don’t have one yet that sticks out from the rest.
• Mentors in your building who have helped you along the way?: I love getting to work with the other seventh-grade teachers in my building. Being the most recent hire in that department, I have gone to many of them for questions and advice. Those teachers are Jessica Shaheen, Rick Reynolds, Kelly Canfield, Scott Garrett, Deb Pusin and Mike Stiles. Fellow Science teacher and coach Dean Dunlavy has also helped me along the way.