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Inside Education and Health Sciences

Finding his niche at the intersection of basketball and teaching

Caleb South has a lot on his plate.

As a senior in the University of Dayton's Department of Teacher Education, he spends his weekdays student teaching at Stebbins High School, working with students with special needs. He'll be an intervention specialist at Centerville High School starting next fall. 

His passion, however, is basketball. After a day of student teaching, South spends his evenings training kids between third and 12th grade — sometimes one-on-one, sometimes an entire team — to improve their skills in the sport he loves. In the winter he coaches a high school team. In the spring he spends his weekends as the director of player development for Midwest Basketball Club, a regional organization sponsored by Adidas for high school students, and is the head coach of their 17u gold team — an elite team for athletes 17 years old and under.

On a typical day during basketball season, South wakes up at 4:45 a.m. and doesn't stop working until after 9 p.m. His time is divided between teaching, training and coaching.

"I want to impact lives," he said. "I think the whole point of life is how many lives you touch."

South has always loved basketball. As a high school player, he scored 1,700 career points before a number of injuries prevented him from playing basketball in college and beyond. Now he takes his skills and passion and redirects it into helping young people play the sport. 

In his UD teacher education classes, South learned a number of research-based teaching practices: social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practice, scaffolding, and differentiated instruction, to name a few. 

Novea McIntosh, assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education, taught South in a course about educating diverse student populations in inclusive settings, and saw how he took these concepts from class immediately into real-life application. 

"As a male of color, he is intent on attending to the emotional needs of students by understanding their narratives, developing trusting relationships and practicing reciprocal vulnerability in coaching," McIntosh said. "He arms them with the tools to be successful on the court and in life."

For example, differentiated instruction means to know that the needs of one student differ from the needs of another student, and to tailor a teaching strategy for what that specific student needs. In addition to applying this concept to lesson plans, he also applies it to the workout plan for an athlete or team. 

Connie Bowman, associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education, said that teaching and coaching go hand-in-hand — determining students' strengths and weaknesses, then making a plan to help them achieve their goals and objectives. 

"He has taken what he has learned in teacher education, and used those strategies as a coach-teacher," Bowman said. "To me, that is what teaching is about. Working with the whole person. Helping them to be able to achieve their potential."

He teaches kids about basketball, but knows that he's also responsible for teaching them skills off-court too: to have a good work ethic and to be a good person. He knows that they see him as a leader and mentor, and he does his best to act like it.

"I love teaching. I chose education because I want to serve, to impact lives," he said. "Basketball is teaching. There are kids that look up to me in my program — I just never want to let them down."

South doesn't like to look too far into the future. 

"There's something to be said for just being present," he said. "Not focusing too far into the future. I always say, 'be where your feet are.'"

Caleb South has a lot on his plate, and he wouldn't change a thing.

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