What's The Purpose?

Let me first start off by letting all the educator's out there know that I have the utmost respect for you and don't know how you guys deal with some of the things you have to deal with on a day to day basis when it comes to kids and seeing the home lives ( or lack of ) some of them come from. So to all of you I say THANK YOU.

I hope I can relay this experience in writing, it may be long so bare with me. As I have stated before on here I am a football coach at a local high school here in Tampa. I take this very serious and not just a tool to fill an "egotistical need". We have a particular player, I'll call him Joe, that during Spring Practice was really a slacker and didn't give much effort during practice. Now this kid is to be one of my starters. Because of his lack of caring and drive to be better I stayed on him pretty good. Towards the end he semi started responding and then in the game although he didn't play outstanding he did show us more than we thought we would see. So Spring practice is over and we're heading into summer workouts. Now this is the kid that we figured would miss half the workouts and never put in the time he should put in. To this date the kid is yet to miss a workout and has lost fifteen pounds over the summer. So you're thinking Greg what's the story here. Well within the last week I've found out that this kid is pretty much left to fend for himself. He works at McDonald's to try and pay for the things he needs. His parents are not around and he lives with the friend of an uncle. From his minimum wage job he's left to pay insurance, gas, food, school, clothes, supplies etc. I know he has a car, but myself and another coach have sumised that it's simply a convience thing so that no one has to be responsible for getting him from point a to point b. It just sadens(sp?) me that here is a kid that is going into his senior year of high school, which should be the absolutely best time of his life and he has absolutely nothing to look forward to. No senior pictures, class ring, homecoming, yearbook etc. And all that aside the kid has to be worried about living day to day AND trying to get a quality education. I know this happens with millions of kids across this country everyday, but I guess this situation has touched me more since I'm so close to it and because I haven't had to really deal with a situation like this previously. He couldn't even pay $20 for a physical so he could play football and I worry about having money to go on vacation for a week. We are working with him to get him the things he needs just to live day to day. I will be cleaning out my closet and have plenty for him. I can only sumise that the reason educators ( most ) are in this profession is to make a difference in kids lives and I feel that is my priority in coaching. Hope this story transfered to here and that I didn't rammble and swerve all over the place, but for some odd reason I feel there is a purpose that this kid and this situation was put into my life and I look forward to the day I can reflect back and say now I know. I'll keep you posted on Joe as the year progresses.