Cougar to Trailblazer part 2

Cougar to Trailblazer part 2. This is the conclusion to last week’s post regarding decision to move from the Somerset Cougars to the Babcock Trailblazers.

If you haven’t read last week’s post, I recommend that you take a moment and read that before you move on.

Chatting with Bill

Bill contacted me in final part of 2024. The Babcock schools were taking the plunge into the Arts. They were building a dedicated building for the Arts program and he wanted to talk to me about it.

We chatted for a while. Bill asked if I would be willing to have a zoom call with the school’s president. He felt that I could give some advice on how to start the program well. And, I could give some insight on what kind of person they should be looking to fill the Arts teaching positions.

Sounded good to me.

We set up a meeting for the beginning of 2025.

Second chat

Bill and I sat down with the Babcock Neighborhood school’s President via Zoom. Bill started the meeting by asking me to tell the President a little about my background.

Everyone likes talking about themselves and I’m no exception. I started with my Norwin Band experience and worked my way through the TKA years. I was hopeful that this would give my advice more weight in the eyes of the BNC President.

We talked about various issues. I stressed the need for someone who could keep the Arts staff egos in control. My TKA years had shown me that someone needed to step in and settle these issues amicably and fairly.

Somewhere in the course of our conversation the president said, “What we really want is you.”

I nearly fell out of my chair.

This wasn’t why we were talking. This wasn’t a job interview. I was just helping an old friend.

Somerset Canyons had been very good to me and I had no intention of moving to any new job.

Visiting Babcock

No one expected me to jump up and say, “YES”! This was going to take some time.

The next logical step would be for me and Brenda (my wife) to come and visit the school. Bill offered to let us stay at his house and Brenda and I booked a date.

We immediately fell in love with the Babcock community. Things seemed more calm and a good bit slower than Palm Beach County.

The school itself had an interesting design. It didn’t look like a usual school. It looked like an Apple version of a school. Lots of glass.

We spent the evening with Bill and his wonderful wife. It isn’t often that Brenda and I connect with a couple as well as we did with them.

The entire trip was wonderful.

And, Bill made sure to get us some Babcock swag before we went home.

Decisions decisions

It took another month and a half before I felt that I had all of the pieces of the puzzle needed to make an informed decision.

We were now in March. Somerset had sent out their ‘intent to return’ form. There was no blank for ‘undecided’ so I held onto the form as long as I could, but they wanted it back. I returned it with neither yes or no checked.

Someone asked me if I had made a pro and con list. That sounded like a good idea.

I sat down and made my pro and con list. I won’t give details of what I put on that list, but… the con side filled the page and the pro side had only one item…

We loved Babcock Ranch.

I went into spring break completely undecided about what to do.

Wait,…what??

If you’ve gotten this far you might be confused. The cons heavily outweighed the pros and you STILL decided to take the new job??

Yes.

Let me explain.

I started Spring Break 90% sure I was not taking the job. It didn’t make sense. But, I wanted to give the idea one more chance. I asked Brenda if she would go with me one more time to Babcock Ranch.

We weren’t going to meet anyone or have any agenda. We would look at the community where we would potentially live. That’s all.

Deciding

We looked at the house we would rent. I felt this enormous pull on me. We needed to live here. This was where we belonged.

I received a text message while we were walking around the house. It was from the Babcock President. She wanted to know if I had thought about when I would start!

I told her I could start in June.

The decision was made.

A little more detail

There was a little more involved in the decision than what I’ve indicated.

I felt that I was facing a binary decision.

Stay at Somerset for about 10 more years. I like the people and I’ve developed a good reputation. The job is dialed in. Easy to keep going. The money was reasonable.

Or…

Move to Babcock and face some of the greatest challenges that I have ever faced. There is no music program at the school. There isn’t a local feeder school that will be sending me students. This is starting from scratch!

And, I’m going to be 60! Shouldn’t I be looking at retirement?

This led to my binary choice:

Stay where I am and sleep walk through the next 10 years, or move and challenge myself.

Once I had this in my mind, I couldn’t say, no.