story by Claire Miller
Lee Green enjoyed playing sports growing up and soon took opportunities to coach youth sports teams.
He also watched how his parents – a nurse and a coach, respectively – used their professional careers to make a positive impact on others.
“I was able to see how my father worked with others to inspire them and encourage them, and my mother’s nursing career taught me about compassion and caring for others, regardless of their circumstances,” he said. “Both of them showed me that to be good at something, you really had to work hard and have a passion for what you do in life.”
Green has since become a coach and teacher, and his time as a master’s student in health and physical education has challenged him to rethink how he approached his coursework and his teaching practices.
He also revisited the personal teaching philosophy he wrote during his undergraduate program and adjusted it to reflect how he and his students can strive for excellence.
“Dr. Jacalyn Lund and Dr. Terry Fisher encouraged my thinking to reach a higher level and to not just meet the standard, but to exceed it,” he said. “I now have the tools in place to be an extraordinary instructor who challenges my students not only physically, but cognitively.”
After graduating this fall, Green plans to apply the lessons he learned in his master’s program to his coaching and hopes to find ways he can inspire future educators.
“One day, I would love to be able to develop curriculums and lead teachers to a new and better way of teaching,” he said. “I read a book a few years ago where the author wrote about how to measure success and simply asked, ‘What will you leave behind that will continue to grow?’ Now, that is quite a mission for life.”