Plenty of lessons to be learned from Mount Vernon’s recent hire

Too often, we fail to see the good in people. We focus on the negative instead of taking time to appreciate those among us who are trying to make a difference in the world.

Well, dear readers, that is about to change.

In the small East Texas town of Mount Vernon, there lives an extraordinary school superintendent by the name of Jason McCullough. His commitment to education is breathtaking.

On Friday night, just as his latest crop of high school graduates was about to accept their diplomas, McCullough and Mount Vernon’s district released a statement hailing the hire of Art Briles — a man who, while a football coach by title, is above all else a teacher.

“(W)e believe our students will benefit greatly from his skills and experience,” McCullough said.

Seldom has an educator displayed such passion for kids’ growth. Later, in an interview with ESPN-Central Texas radio, McCullough further described the many ways the impressionable teenagers of Mount Vernon will benefit from the wisdom of the coach who once turned Baylor into a college football power.

“(W)e believe that he will be able to use his life experiences to teach our young people how to deal with hardships, grow through adversity and develop strong character,” McCullough said.

Indeed, all of those hardships and all of that adversity has provided Briles with a template for the lessons he now can impart to the youth of Mount Vernon. Among them:

Never question yourself: There might come a time in life when you get blindsided by wild accusations. You might be getting paid millions of dollars to oversee a successful football program, only to learn that an investigation by the Pepper Hamilton law firm finds that 17 women reported being sexually assaulted by 19 of your players.

It is in these moments when you should know you did the best you could.

It doesn’t matter if the same investigation finds five different instances of your football staff and coaches engaging in behavior that stifled school and police investigations. It doesn’t matter if the university ends up settling many of these cases. It doesn’t matter if you are found to have sent text messages responding to an allegation about five players raping a woman at an off-campus party by saying, “Those are some bad dudes. Why was she around those guys?”

Never ask yourself why you kept them on the team.

If your own lawyer arranges for you to attend a mediation session for one of the victims so that you may apologize in person, don’t go. Briles didn’t, and he apparently just brushed it off when the woman’s attorney said his “failure to show up adds insult to injury and left her feeling even more betrayed.”

And if you must go on TV to talk about it all, it’s OK to appear contrite in a general

sense, but never be specific. Say things like Briles did, talking about “how sorry I was that she got victimized,” and maybe admit that, like other humans, you’ve made mistakes.

Do not be specific about them, though. After all, self-reflection is for the weak.

When a neighbor is in trouble, lend an ear but protect your own interests: Kids of Mount Vernon, someday you might get approached by someone vulnerable, someone hurting, someone in need, and you absolutely should be there for them. But even if you are the most powerful person at your institution, and even if that someone in need tells you she has been sexually assaulted by someone on your team, you must be careful.

Advise her to report the alleged crime to the police, just like Briles said he did, but do no more.

You might be tempted, as a decent human being, to help this vulnerable person make the report, understanding that it might make all the difference in the world for her to know that she has your support, and that you take her allegations seriously, and that her alleged attacker would not be shielded by a program like so many others allegedly had been shielded in the past.

But you cannot put yourself or your team at risk like that. Thousands of fans and alumni are counting on you to keep the machine humming, and millions of dollars are at stake.

Tell her to go to the cops. That way, years later you can declare you did the absolute bare minimum. And be darn proud of it.

Always believe in redemption: Maybe you never should come out and say this directly, but never forget that certain people always will be inclined to see you as the real victim. Fans will sell T-shirts with your initials, making you out to be a martyr even while lawsuits allege as many as 52 acts of rape by 31 of your players over a four-year period. Former assistants will start a public relations campaign downplaying the scope of the scandal and insisting you were done wrong.

Many in the public will find this to be grotesque, but they underestimate your persistence. Sure, outrage will be so severe that it costs you a shot at a job in the Canadian Football League, and then another one at Southern Miss, but eventually you will find some true believers, like the ones on the school board at Mount Vernon.

They will recognize your struggle. They will recognize your moral fiber. They will recognize what kind of example you can set. They also will recognize your winning percentage.

And then, as impossible as it might be for even you to believe, they will decide that you should guide their children.

That’s quite a lesson.