More Than a Coach by Jack

More Than a Coach by Jack - January 2025 Scholarship Essay

Throughout my time as a high school student my passion was always geared more towards athletics. Not to say that I wasn’t a good student, but I was usually thinking about what practice after school would look like or who the next opponent is. That changed when I met Andrew Szalkowski. Everyone at school calls him Coach Ski for short. Coach Ski is a man that was able to tie everything together for me and leave an everlasting impression on my educational journey. I am honored to call him my mentor.
It all started when I met him my Junior year. Our football team was coming off another losing season, so it was time for a change in staff. Coach Ski became the new head coach and health teacher at St. Clair High School. What sets him aside from everyone else is his passion for helping others. You can see that having a positive interaction with a student truly brings him joy. I was immediately drawn to that positive attitude, and so was everybody else. He brings a presence that anyone is lucky to be around. I bonded with him during my senior year of football. As I stated before, athletics were very important to me so having such a great role model as a coach was super special. Not to mention, we were winning lots of football games and shifting the culture. What I came to realize though was that it wasn’t about football at all. It was about character. Coach Ski would always put his players education above all else because he wanted us to be successful in the future. Even after the season ended he would ensure that we were staying disciplined in the classroom and continuing to hold ourselves to a high standard.
Coach Ski has a passion for shaping people to become the best that they can possibly be. All of the lessons that he taught me applied to my life and made me better off the field. I realized the importance of growing up and taking on the next stage of my life, and that happens to be my education. I have been accepted into Michigan State University and I will be attending in the fall. The lessons about hard work, discipline, and accountability are all things I now apply in the classroom thanks to Coach Ski. He has made me a better person and student. The success and happiness that came out of the second half of my high school career are due in part to Andrew Szalkowski. He is a man that I am thankful to have in my life. I have become a better student and I will only continue to grow in my academic career thanks to him.