Ruden Sports News

I’ve always said that teaching is our most underpaid and underappreciated profession. Teachers wield an incredible amount of responsibility, and the best ones help inspire minds and change lives.

By extension, the same holds true for high school coaches. They come under the microscope and have their strategies questioned, but the elite mold not just better athletes but better people. Their pay ends up well below minimum wage. And they must deal with a minority of intrusive parents who can create major problems.

Consider this an introduction to something that happened to me last night that is worth sharing. I had dinner at Capital Grille in Stamford with my friend Ralph Antonacci, an owner of Innovative Health & Rehabilitation. Among his patient list is a large number of high school athletes. He provides the staff athletic trainers at Stamford, Westhill, Norwalk and Brien McMahon.

We ate at the bar, watching the Packers-Cardinals game. As always, part of our conversation involved high school sports.

At the end of the night, when I asked for the check, the bartender informed us that a woman sitting on the other side of Ralph, who had left way before we had finished, paid our tab. Tip included. She didn’t want us to pay a penny. All the bartender said was it had something to do with us being high school coaches.

Neither Ralph nor I ever got a good look at the woman. She never spoke to us. The bartender did not know her. We have no way of identifying her to say thank you. It was a truly generous act. And Capital Grille is not an inexpensive restaurant.

I have no idea if the bartender may have misunderstood, and either Ralph had treated or I had written about someone she knew. I prefer to think that she thought we were coaches and wanted to treat us to a good meal in appreciation.

You read about stories like this, but it was a first for me. And it was reassuring to know that there are still many people who recognize the job high school coaches do, and one wanted to express gratitude in the most selfless manner possible.

If the woman happens to read this, Ralph and I would like to thank you very much.