Well, as principal, I can't think of a - there's so many things that
happened over the course of fourteen years as principal and I can't
think of a specific one right off the top of my head. But I know that
that was a very trying time in almost any school that you went in to at
that period of time. And, I think that it has come across as well as
could be expected. I know that from the standpoint of most
administrators, there's still a lot of pressure involved. With the
desegregation process because of a lot of the governmental mandates and
also from the county mandates handed down that you could or could not
agree with. Some of the record keeping, affirmative action - that kind
of stuff. Affirmative action is one thing that
when they tell you that you have to have so many blacks doing this and
so many whites doing that and that kind of thing and you know that
that's probably [not] for the best interest of your school at that
particular time, and yet you still have to go with it. That's the kind
of stuff that I'm talking about. The suspension records, those kinds of
things. How you discipline one person compared to how you discipline
another person of another race. A lot of the special ed kinds of [UNCLEAR] were handed down. There's just a tremendous
amount of pressure on school administrators at this point in time. And,
a lot of them are not equipped.
I think that's why you're seeing so many schools systems hiring deputies
to be in the halls. That's to take some of that pressure away from the
administrators and let them be school people. When I was principal, we
didn't have deputies. You were the law and order of that place and they
expect you to look after it. If that meant grabbing somebody by the
shirt collar, that's what you did. In most cases, at that time, most of
the principals that I knew were ex-coaches. And, I think that had a lot
to do with it. That, plus the fact that being able to be second guessed
- every coach has been second guessed and every principal is going to be
second guessed on a lot of his decisions and you have to learn to have a
thick skin or you're not going to survive. Being able to think on your
feet. I used to make the statement to some people in a lot of the
educational meetings that I'd go to that - I'd tell them right up front
that I'm prejudiced. But I want to tell you this: I think every high
school principal should have at least coached for at least three years
before they ever apply for an administrative position. And I would give
those reasons. Thick skin, being able to think on your feet, physically
being able to handle yourself and knowing what to do in different
situations. I don't think it is as true today with the deputies and the
law enforcement being in the schools as it was, say, fifteen/twenty
years ago. At that point in time, it was your baby. You had to handle
it. And then you had to live with the consequences… no matter what they
were.