Inspirational Teacher

The most inspirational teacher I have ever become engaged with was my high school accounting, government, and economics teacher.  His name was Mr. Long.  Mr. Long was not only a teacher in multiple classes, but the high school football coach as well.  He always pushed me to succeed in the class room to the best of my ability and most of the time I found this extremely stressful, but looking back on it I am so very thankful for what he did.  Not only did he push me in the class room, but on the field as well.  After a long rough day of school and you thought you were out of Mr. Longs ‘crosshairs’, there was practice.  On the field Mr. Long stressed the importance of teamwork and dedication and was a great example of this since he was much older than most coaches around.  When you went to practice, he was not any different than during the classroom or someone running into him at the grocery store.  Mr. Long was a very straight forward man and taught me to be the same by pushing me on and off the field.  In the classroom, he put forth as much effort into my education as I would allow him and wanted me to build off my strengths.  On the field, he pushed me to be the best player, both mentally and statistically, I could be.  After all of the influence he had on both my education and athletic career, I have him to thank for all he has done to make me the man I am today.  Because of everything he has done, I want to thank him.