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Stanford football field

My Major is Not My Career: Greg Beale

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Stanford football field

 

My goal was law.  I was a Political Science major at Stanford, while playing football at the same time.  That was not an easy thing to do then, fifty years ago, and is not an easy thing to do now.  I know that the demands of football at Stanford now  are more than what we had to do then, with year round training, summer workouts, etc., etc.  We had the same demands, but weren’t kept on campus during the summer.  I don’t know how they do it.

And to carry a 3.5 GPA with all that was not easy either.  

Then it came time to do the law thing.  I took the LSAT and about half way through it, when a question was posed about how to legally handle a rear end car collision, I decided that it wasn’t for me.

So I enrolled in CSU Sacramento in the teacher credential program, with an aim to be a civics teacher and football coach.  And that is exactly what I did, for 15 years.

Then, the coaching thing ran out finally.  After 25 years of my 35 year old life centered around 100 yards of green grass, I stopped.

I moved into administration, the bastion of failed coaches.  And I found my calling.  The improvement of education K-16 was my passion.   I also became very active with school accreditation,  lower socioeconomic student achievement a major motivating factor.

I used to tell my students that life is not a straight linear line.  It is a start, restart, adapt, fail, then try again, or change direction, sometimes for good, sometimes not... but never quit.

I learned that resilience on the football field.  I learned that in life.  Serve others and never quit...

Greg Beale

Political Science
Class of 1969

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