First, let me introduce myself and justify why I might have anything worthwhile to say to the SHAPE America audience. Many years have passed since I was a teaching fellow at the University of Oregon in the same doctoral studies program as SHAPE America President, Steve Jefferies. For much of that time I’ve been ensconced in a liberal arts university, living the life of the university professor; happily teaching in the classroom, somewhat reluctantly serving in the college administration, and producing books with such esoteric titles as Contemporary Kinesiology and Health Ethics.

But it’s also true that in my dim and distant past, I received my teaching certification and experienced the life of teaching physical education. Given my world and worldview as a young teacher/coach back in the seventies in a comprehensive school in Oxfordshire, England, I’ve no doubt that public school PE teaching in the fast-paced world of contemporary America is very different. But I also suspect that some of the challenges and basic questions that I faced then and there are similar to issues you are encountering here and now. Similarly, although I have spent many years studying sport theory, I have also experienced the blood, sweat, and tears of coaching, both as the tennis coach at Wellesley College in the seventies and as the coach of the Women’s Soccer program at the College of William and Mary in the eighties. My point is that I have toiled in the trenches teaching students various physical activities and have had many years to reflect upon those experiences. So I was pleased when Steve asked me to share some thoughts and I’m hopeful that I can say something worthwhile to help shape SHAPE America.

Let’s take a journey (Destination: 50 million strong)
In his speech as candidate for President-Elect at the 2014 AAHPERD/SHAPE America Convention in St. Louis, Steve Jefferies suggested we should use the superb delivery system of a physical education teacher in every school to help us reach the goal of making “50 million strong,” meaning ensuring that the approximately 50 million young people in our schools are physically active and leading healthy lives. He identified a key ingredient to success in this venture as “a clear and unifying goal to strive for.” Because I share Steve’s concern for the future and have studied values intensively and extensively throughout my career, I plan to make this focus on a clear and unifying goal that we should strive for, the centerpiece of my essay.