I come from a huge family of teachers. But I admit that I was a little shocked when our youngest son, Chris Lucius, decided to become a coach and a teacher.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I knew that he would be a great coach and that he was a great communicator with the young people in our church and community. As a third-generation Mississippi educator, I also knew that Chris was fully aware of the pros and cons of teaching. He would not walk into the profession blindly; that was for sure.
But I truly wondered if he would actually enjoy teaching on a daily basis. After all, learning had always been a challenge for him, after being diagnosed with dyslexia in early elementary school. In fact, school had never been easy for Chris.
Granted, he always worked diligently and graduated from high school and college with good grades, but those grades were earned through hard, hard work. The main enjoyment he had during his school years came from sports. His love for football, basketball, track, and especially baseball was the incentive that drove him to complete his daily school work.
So, when he was hired for his first teaching and coaching job at East Union Attendance Center in Blue Springs, Mississippi, I knew beyond a doubt that he would be a great football and baseball assistant coach, but I prayed that he would also be great at the day-to-day grind of teaching.
I should never have doubted his God-given assignment, because Chris Lucius absolutely loved teaching science to his junior high students. His eyes sparkled when he told us about his classes and their excitement over learning. He laughed continually at the various antics of his students, and he bragged constantly about their achievements.
He even took the time to write a grant for some kind of strange little lizard for his classroom. The idea came from an especially interesting unit on reptiles versus amphibians. Once their lizard arrived, I loved the stories of how the students voted on their new pet’s name and took turns caring for him.
But I think the most amazing aspect of Chris’s teaching journey was the way his confidence in his personal writing skills improved.
Now, keep in mind that dyslexia had always made reading and writing a chore for Chris, rather than a pleasure. And even though he had also always enjoyed writing stories and devotionals for us as a family, he had never really shared his work outside of that small circle – until he became a teacher and coach.
He began to write and post inspirational devotionals for his athletes and their families online. At first, they were relatively short and simple. But then, less than three months after accepting his teaching job at East Union, Chris was diagnosed with leukemia, and that’s when his writing began to grow and change.
Over the next six years, as he continually battled for his health, the lessons he learned on that journey drove the direction and depth of his writing – as well as the intensity with which he loved and taught his students and players.
As his parents, we were truly amazed at the confidence and absolute humility with which he wrote and lived. His words forever changed us, and they also left a lasting impact on his students and their parents when he died on June 20, 2023, only a couple of weeks after helping East Union’s baseball team win another state championship trophy.
On June 1, 2023, Coach Chris Lucius wrote one of his last posts to his players and to the rest of us who loved him. He spoke about his joy of simply being with his team inside that dugout during the state championship games. And he also used a small weed he noticed growing in that concrete dugout to teach us a lasting lesson on gratitude and the importance of enjoying every moment of this life, even the tough ones.
Three years later, I still see his profound words from that post (and others) pop up on the pages of his students, their parents, and our friends and family. It is so comforting to know that Coach Lucius’s words continue to impact others who are going through tough times, whether it’s battling dyslexia, battling cancer, or simply battling the daily struggles of life.
So, in honor of Coach Chris Lucius and in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, I offer his precious words to teachers and students throughout Mississippi: “I pray that God blesses you and helps you grow in that tight, uncomfortable situation you are in right now.”
