Coaching in the classroom

Marisa O’Neil

At most schools, athletes get the recognition, the booster clubs, the

awards and their names hanging in the hallways.

At Corona del Mar High School, Advanced Placement history students

get those same perks from teachers Jim Tomlin and Bill Leach. Now,

the two former coaches are coaching more and more students to not

only passing scores on the AP exam, but perfect scores.

“Schools celebrate athletics, but they don’t as often celebrate

academics,” Principal Sharon Fry said. “This way students can see the

names of kids who are academically successful but might not

necessarily be on the football field.”

Leach and Tomlin, who have more than 35 years of coaching

experience between them, are translating their work on the field into

unique ways to motivate their students. Those include award plaques,

T-shirts and immortalizing the names of students who pass the exam on

the classrooms’ walls.

“When you coach, you’re always working toward beating your

cross-town rival, qualifying for CIF, going to the state

championships,” Leach explained. “There is this always this

additional energy that you are trying to harness to achieve that

goal. We’ve transferred that athletic kind of goal setting to the AP

exam.”

COACHING IN THEIR PAST

Leach, a former cross country and track coach at Corona del Mar,

has taught social studies classes at the school since 1969 and

started teaching three sophomore AP world history classes two years

ago. In his second year of teaching the class, 97 of 120 students

passed the test, prompting Corona del Mar to add a fourth class.

Tomlin served as the school’s head track coach for 11 years,

leading the team to nine conference championships. In the 10 years he

has taught AP U.S. history to juniors, the number of students getting

a perfect five on the exam has increased.

Last year, nearly 75% of his students passed, 11 with perfect

grades. The year before, a record-high 24 got a five and Leach

predicts that his students from last year -- now in Tomlin’s class --

could beat even that.

“Mr. Tomlin and Mr. Leach embrace the idea that we’re going to be

a team and share our knowledge and work together,” senior Amanda

Rubenstein said. “I think that’s why we do so well on AP tests.

Everyone has something to add.”

Leach knows something about teamwork, after competing in swimming

at Corona del Mar and Newport Harbor high schools, on the U.S.

national water polo team and as a kayaker in the 1976 Olympics. He

compares preparing for the AP exam to training for the Olympics --

both provide a set goal to strive for.

“You can’t do well in athletics without effort,” he said. “It’s

the same in AP [classes]. You can’t fake your way through just

because you happen to be an intelligent person. But even if you don’t

pass the exam you’re still a better history person or a better

student.”

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE

Leach said that teaching AP classes is the closest to coaching

he’s come in his 34 years of teaching since in both cases, students

are usually there because they actually want to be there. Part of his

goal is to help them feel confident enough to tackle the challenges

his class and the exam bring.

“He’s given us examples of questions from last year and right now

they look impossible,” sophomore Willie Jacobson said of Leach. “But

by the end of the year [of studying] I know they won’t be as scary as

they are now.”

Kim Yourman, whose two children both went through Tomlin’s class,

said even though the class was difficult, they are both glad they

took it. Her son, Miles, is now a freshman at Dartmouth and her

daughter, Lindsey, is a junior at Harvard.

“Some students might be afraid of taking the classes because

they’re so much harder -- but they get so much out of it,” Yourman

said. “It was my daughter’s favorite class. She likes a challenge and

[Tomlin] definitely challenged her and changed her attitude about

history.”

Tomlin said that parents set up a booster club four years ago that

raises money for extra materials, pays for staff to extend library

hours before the exam and to bring in guest speakers for the class.

It also pays for the paint that past students have used to create

historical scenes on the walls of Tomlin’s classroom and the hallway

outside. He has selected a few students to paint the murals each

year, to help pique the interest of students who might be more

interested in art than studying history.

“I try to create a team feeling, that ‘We can do it’ attitude,”

Tomlin said. “It works on the football field and it’s working in the

classroom.”

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education and may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].