Dear Mr. Carbone,
Some may have forgotten all the hours you spent during track season helping students perfect their form in shot put; I, for one, have not. In fair weather and foul, you could always be found after school down by the pit. Clad in your emerald green windbreaker with clipboard and measuring tape at the ready, you offered honest encouragement to anyone who tried. Of course, in my case, that usually took the form of one word: "scratch." But this potentially crushing evaluation of an all-out best-effort was invariably followed by a remark very few coaches would have wasted on a teenager: "So what? You'll get it. Now pick that thing up and let's go again."
That was the way you treated every situation involving students and we all knew it. You gave kids the gift of grace in moments of failure and the rare chance, as Browning said, "to dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall, and baffled, get up and begin again."
On behalf of every student who stumbled, thank you, Mr. Carbone, for teaching us it is possible to get up and go again.
Yours Truly,
Abbie Hage
Lakes High School, Class of '82
Go, Lancers!
