My parents bought their first house in 1961. $13,000. They both lived to 93 years, the last seven in a nursing home. My one sister and I split only the sale of said house.
My first job included basketball coaching and that was when schools first integrated in our area. Our school didn’t have football or women’s varsity sports. Like most similar schools the first black kids we had were athletes, men’s basketball players. Most were the first in their eastern north carolina families to go to college.
The wtiting below comes from WHY TEACH AND COACH?:
********************
You never know who you’re influencing when you coach. The same was
true for teaching in college. Formal classroom or just talking to kids.
A basketball player named Damien Carter appeared in my doorway one
day at Elon. He said he rode up and down I-85 often and had planned to
stop by many times.
He was in his 40s, had been a pretty solid player at Atlantic Christian
College, having transferred from UNC-Wilmington. At Wilmington he
hadn’t played as much as he wanted. The same was true at ACC later on,
and he found his chances of pro ball weren’t going to materialize. He was
about to quit college though his grades were good.
I don’t remember the specific conversation with Damien, but it was one
of fifty I’d had with basketball players.
It went like this:
Are you the first from your family to go to college? Often the answer was
yes. You’re not going to make $100,000 playing pro ball, you understand?
You can get your degree and get a good job. People are looking for athletic
people with degrees.
Your job is to elevate your family and its expectations one generation.
Put your money in compound interest, and expect your children to go
to college.
I agreed with Damien that was the gist of what I advised the “first kids.”
Damien smiled and added, “Coach, my two daughters have college
degrees, and I’ve got a million bucks in the bank!” Compound interest.
***************
What I inherited from parents wasn’t material. Nor did I select a high paying job. We all valued education. Both of our son’s have done well. They have advanced our family a generation. And at age 82, and along with my wife, we may be able to help others. Even Warren Buffett limited his kids, reasoning it made it dangerous to give them too much.
I do feel good about the gifts a teacher /coach can give. Later in retirement I stumbled on “hobby writing” . Recently I have all the good advice I have free online. i have tried to “leave it all on the field (or court)”