: About Me

Mary (names have been changed to protect the innocent), more than anyone on the U-13 girls soccer team I coached, longed for a hug. The only daughter in a dysfunctional family of five (dad, mom, and two older brothers) Mary had suffered through the painful divorce of her parents, the drug dependency of her eldest sibling, and being ignored by her other brother. All of Mary's actions at practices screamed of the desire to have a strong male role model in her life, and each afternoon, she would return home to an absence of the very thing for which she craved. Through fifteen years of teachin...