I’m Canadian who lives in Quebec. I’d like to share a story with my American friends. Back in high school, our basketball coach was an American from Maine. He showed us how to play basketball — but he also gave us a few lessons about sports in particular and life in general.

He taught us:

• to hustle and play to win, but to always play fair and always have class. 
• to never criticize or blame our teammates, or anyone else on the court for that matter. 
• to stop whining after a bad call and — when things don’t go our way — to just shut up and play.
• that during a game, everybody has a job to do. So, run till you drop, box out, play defense and help out. 
• When we win, we win as a team. And, even if we lose, we still know everyone gave their best. That way, we always come out on top.

This was a long time ago, but I realize today that playing a sport I loved, with a very good coach, shaped my values and perception of life.

These days, as I follow the news and see what is going in the U.S., a thought keeps creeping back into my mind: “Something tells me the U.S. president probably never played basketball — at least not with a good coach.”

I’m thankful for coach Max Fortin.

Jean Couture
Sherbooke, Québec, Canada