Seahawks Quarterback Now a Teacher

What a great story from the Times.  Former Seahawks quarterback, Jon Kitna, is teaching high school math at Lincoln High in Tacoma.   What makes this story even better is that was his plan all along.
 From the story:

Quarterbacks from Central Washington University don't usually move on to the NFL. Not even the really good ones, and as great as Kitna was, he graduated with a degree in math education and had every expectation his next gig would be in a classroom and not under center. He applied for his first teaching job before he signed with an NFL team.

He doesn't know when he decided he was going to do this, because he can't remember a time when this wasn't part of his plan.

"I never knew I wasn't going to do it," Kitna said.

But he made the Seattle scout team and stayed.  He ended up also playing for the Bengals, Lions and (boo) Cowboys.

Here's a teacher:

It's not hard to imagine a former NFL quarterback filling his afternoons with football. It's tougher to imagine that same man — a guy who was making $3 million last year — arriving on campus at 7 a.m. and bringing breakfast for kids who need extra help, hosting a home room and then teaching two periods of algebra.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Great story. The history (3 generations of Kitna's), the wife who says that she didn't marry an NFL player, she married a math teacher, a grown-up who cares about teaching. All beautiful.

I am reading a book on the history of women teachers in Seattle. It's fascinating, too. One premise of the book is that Seattle attracted great, long term teachers in the interwar years because of a great superintendent.
5/20/12, 11:24 AM
Anonymous said…
oops, me zb
5/20/12, 11:24 AM
Shannon said…
I have the pleasure of working for Tacoma Public Schools and spend a lot of time at Lincoln High School. In addition to Jon, the boy's basketball coach is also a star Lincoln player who came back to teach and coach at the school he went to. Jennifer Kitna is also a teacher, having given up a position teaching PE in Tacoma to follow Jon when the NFL came calling. The Shelton and Kina families are committed to making a difference for the kids who walk the halls that they did. Kudos to Lincoln Principal Pat Erwin for recognizing that it is important for kids in "tough" schools to tangibly see that great things are possible for them. And kudos to the district and the Tacoma Education Association for recognizing that teacher/coaches sometimes warrant a special way of hiring.
5/20/12, 2:14 PM
dan dempsey said…
Shannon,

Please explain: "kudos to the district and the Tacoma Education Association for recognizing that teacher/coaches sometimes warrant a special way of hiring."
5/22/12, 7:33 AM
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