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Coach Carter is a touching story about the important role that educators can play in the

lives of their students. It is an incredibly honest and brutal tail of how our expectations for

students can drastically change their course and outlook on life. Watching this film as an

educator and a student myself made me look at the situations in a different light. While Coach

Ken Carter really had the students best interest at heart, some of his methods did not always

highlight that and he could have really been aided in his endeavors by the help of a mentor. If I

was Coach Carter’s mentor, I would have helped him to better fit in with the school and students

while working on more effective ways to accomplish his goals.

The first way I could have helped Coach Carter as a mentor is to better his

communication with the principal. As stated in Mentoring Teachers: Navigating the Real-World

Tensions, “Mentors must learn not only to navigate their relationship with principals, but they

often find themselves trying to improve communication between the principal and beginning

teachers,” (Lieberman et al., 1993, p. 32). As a mentor, I could have served as a way to

communicate between Principal Garrison and Coach Carter. In the beginning, the Principal

seemed willing to help Carter, however as his goals became more complex she began to get more

frustrated. A mentor could have helped keep their relationship in check and made sure that both

side’s concerns were expressed in a more productive way. Having a mentor explain to the

principal about Coach Carter’s goals could have helped her understand and want to support him

more. 

The next way I could have served Coach Carter was by serving as a bridge between him

and the teachers and helping communicate and meet both of their needs. As stated in Mentoring

Teachers: Navigating the Real-World Tensions, “Through building relationships at a school,

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mentors can positively influence how administrators, veteran teachers, and resource teachers

view and behave with new teachers. In heartwarming cases, mentors tell of people at a school

who thought a particular teacher would not make it and came around to see that with time and

support teachers can blossom and become a model for effective teaching,” (Lieberman et al.,

1993, pp. 33-34). Coach Carter came into the school and was immediately an outcast. He was

just the basketball coach and teachers viewed him that way. They believed he had no place in the

students education or caring what went on inside their classrooms. However, as seen in the

movie, with time and eventual support, Carter was able to succeed and some teachers were able

to see the value in his goals. A mentor really could have helped Ken Carter with his struggles in

this area. Teachers were reluctant to talk to or help Carter because they did not understand his

goals and didn’t want to create more work for themselves. However, if Carter has a good mentor,

they could have helped to get the progress reports and talk to the teachers about the importance

of this. Instead of just adding it to the teacher’s plates, the mentor could have aided in creating

the progress reports to help both parties. A mentor could have helped to explain the contract to

the teachers and find a better system of accountability instead of teachers suddenly feeling

overwhelmed when Carter suddenly wanted all this information and started a lockout because of

it. There was no previous relationship build and the teachers felt like Carter was attacking their

teaching abilities. A mentor could have been an incredible resource to help Ken Carter develop a

relationship with the other teachers on campus and work towards a common goal.

The third way I could have been an effective mentor for Ken Carter was by helping

prepare him for the home life of the students and parents he would be working with. While

Coach Carter did live in Richmond and go to school there, he and his son were living more

privileged lives than the rest of the students. As a mentor, I could have helped prepare Coach
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Carter for this drastic difference. Even when it came to his contract, I could have helped him

understand what parts of it may not sit well with the families, and help him come up with a plan

to address it, instead of him harshly enforcing these rules. When Carter first introduced his

contract, he had a bad reaction from the students and their parents. While in the end this was

necessary to get them to understand the points of it, a mentor could have helped him to better

understand the families and find ways to address their concerns more directly. Even something

as simple as having to wear a tie on game days. This may not seem like a major request when his

son goes to private school, but for many families this was out of reach. But they also didn’t want

to seem poor and took offense to Carter insinuating as such. A mentor could have really aided in

this by first talking to Carter about the financial situation of the families. Then Carter and the

mentor could have helped by working with a school counselor to find some cheaper options to

get the boys some ties. If Coach Carter had worked through this with a mentor, the families may

have had a better reaction. His students faced a lot at home such as drugs, teenage pregnancy,

death, and family members in jail. Carter should not have had to deal with these heavy burdens

on his own and needed another teacher or mentor to help him recognize these problems and find

solutions for them. 

The fourth way I could have been an aid to Coach Carter was through being another

person to work through his ideas and goals with. He had positive intentions and wanted the best

for the students, but struggled to really show a plan. As a mentor, I could have helped him take

more appropriate steps to reach his goals for the students instead of being so harsh on them. As

Ruterford wrote, you should, “use your mentor as a sounding board for your concerns, questions,

and even successes.  They are there to help, listen and support you. Make the effort even if they

don’t” (1995). Coach Carter really just needed to have a mentor as a sounding board to help talk
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through his goals and actions. From the beginning, he had amazing intentions. However, he was

not able to communicate these goals to the students, parents, and staff until they were all angry

with him. Eventually he got through to the students, which were the ones who mattered, however

he didn’t have to wait until a school board hearing to discuss his goals and concerns. If I was

Coach Ken Carter’s mentor, I would have been able to help him better communicate his goals

and take more effective actions. Coach Carter was not misguided in what was best for the

students, but he was sometimes misguided on the best way to achieve what he set out to do. He

really needed a mentor to help him feel not so alone, support his decisions, and help him think

through his actions first. 

The final way I could have served to help Coach Carter as a mentor was through

involving him in the school community. Throughout the movie, Coach Carter felt like an

outsider in the community and the school. They did not treat him like everyone else, and a

mentor could have helped to bridge this divide. As a mentor, I would have made sure he had a

place in the school system, and advocated for his position more than just being seen as a

basketball coach who should be winning games. I would have given Ken Carter the document

Messages for New Teachers and discussed the main point as asking for help and using the people

around you to help accomplish goals (Ruterford, 1995). Carter really just needed a way to be

brought into the community. He really had no one on his side besides eventually his players and

his own son. He needed a mentor to help him be a part of the community. The entire community

of Richmond was not a strong one. Everyone had poor home lives and no one was proud to say

they lived in Richmond. Teachers knew that most students would fail anyways and gave up

trying. Students didn’t expect anything more out of life. There was no community. As Watkins

stated, “Whether new teachers come to the classroom as a second career or directly from a
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teacher education program, they all share the need for support and belonging. Establishing a

learning community that values the ideas and experiences of all its members will sustain new

teachers through their early years” (1995). There was no community here at Richmond, besides

the love of sports. Everyone loved the kids and knew the one place they could succeed was

sports. Carter had to work to create a community just on his own with his players, however if he

had a mentor, he may have been able to become a part of the school community easier. 

The movie Coach Carter was a fantastic example of how we as educators need to always

do what is right for our students regardless of anything external. I knew of this movie previously

because it was an amazing sports movie, however I never realized that it is much more about the

importance of a good teacher than sports. Watching this movie as a future educator and a

possible mentor really started to put this importance in a new light and realize how crucial it is to

have impactful mentors on a school campus. Coach Carter would have been able to be more

successful with a mentor and a school community that supported his endeavors. I hope that I can

work to be such an impactful teacher such as Ken Carter and make sure to always keep my kids

best interests at heart in all my interactions with them. 

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References

Flores, M. A. (2006). Being a Novice Teacher in Two Different Settings: Struggles, Continuities,

and Discontinuities. Teachers College Record, 108(10), 2021–2052. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-

9620.2006.00773.x

Lieberman, A., Hanson, S., & Gless, J. (2012). Mentoring teachers: Navigating the Real-World

Tensions. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Ruterford, P. (2005). The 21st Century Mentor’s Handbook: Creating a Culture for Learning. w.

doi: ISBN 978-0-966336-6-4

Watkins, P. (2005). The Principals Role in Attracting, Retaining, and Developing New Teachers:

Three Strategies for Collaboration and Support. The Clearing House: A Journal of

Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 79(2), 83–87. doi: 10.3200/tchs.79.2.83-87