Marcus Huffman is very much a jack of all trades. He doubles as a JV football coach and government teacher. This is Huffman’s second year at THS. “I love my job, I think it’s the greatest job in the world,” he said, “20 years ago I wanted to be a government teacher at Tunstall High School. It took me 20 years, but I’m here, and I’m so grateful.”
Huffman had Mr. Touart here at THS for four years in a row. He expresses that he thought he wanted to be a history teacher after his AP history class, but he took a government class and his mind was changed. He knew he wanted to teach government.
While Huffman is very passionate about his job, he also has a love for sports. He serves as JV football coach and is very proud of his position.
“I want excellence in every area of my life. I want to be the very best teacher that I can possibly be, but that requires a softer side of me. To be a coach on the gridiron demands the harder side of me because I need my players to become agile, mobile, and hostile,” he said. He conveys that as a coach, although he is required to maintain discipline, he still loves all of his players and cares about them as individuals, as well as athletes.
“Sometimes you have to listen a little bit more, watch a little bit more, and see examples from people who’ve experienced more,” Huffman said. Huffman said that another way he has grown is by learning to be forgiving of himself and of others. He said that he has learned to keep his composure with students and athletes and help them solve problems instead of chewing them out for their mistakes.
Huffman believes that being a student comes before being an athlete. “I want to start and play my smartest people, my people who work the hardest in the classroom. So be that student who proves their athletic ability by being teachable in the classroom and in the film room,” says Huffman. “To any student, I would tell them that not only is a 3.0 GPA minimum but developing relationships with your teachers is going to be the most important thing,” he continued. He said that at a high school level it’s important to have the social skills to be able to build relationships with teachers and peers and that will carry over into college and, eventually, the work field.
He said to never lose sight of your goals. “Life might take you in a different direction at first, but if that’s truly your goal, never lose sight of it because life might create an avenue for you to go back and achieve that goal,” he says. Huffman goes on to explain how he was working in a detention center and was inspired by the teachers there interacting with their students. He said he loved working there, and loved working with the kids there, but he missed the classroom. He was challenged by a teacher to go back and get his license in education.
Mr. Huffman can be an example to all of us, some as students, and some of us as student-athletes. He explains that they must be taken equally as serious. He’s a role model as to how, through perseverance, goals can inevitably become reality.
