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 Waterloo softball head coach Brenda Flarida, who is in her 32nd year as a teacher, with 29 of those years being at Waterloo.

• How many years have you taught at Waterloo?: 29 years.
• What classes have you taught?: 8th grade Math and Language Arts, 5th grade Math.
• What made you want to become an educator?: I have wanted to be a teacher since I was a young girl.
• What is your favorite part of your job?: Making a difference in the lives of student-athletes. I take pride in building relationships and letting kids know how much I care about them and am always there for them.
• What have you learned about being an educator that you didn’t know before you started?: How many students I have had the privilege to influence. The best part is seeing  students years later and how many students I have reached. It is extremely gratifying when former players reach out to me and we stay in contact with each other and especially when they come back to games to be supportive of our program.
• Which teachers influenced you to go into education?: I knew I wanted to go into education as a young girl, but had many amazing teachers and mentors along the way.
• How do you apply some of your coaching to the classroom and vice versa?: One main philosophy I believe in and use in the classroom and on my team is there are three things that we can control: Effort, attitude and be a good teammate/classmagte. It translates to the playing field and in life. That is one thing I hope my players always remember.
• Fun memories from your classroom?: Each year we have an end-of-year kickball game between the 4th and 5th grades and my homeroom is reigning champs for five years in a row.
• Mentors in your building who have helped you along the way?: My most recent mentor would be Mike Devies. He is our current athletic director and football coach, and he is someone that I can always rely on and talk through situations with. We believe in many similar things when it comes to building relationships with student-athletes.