Question for the coaches
I was a high school golf coach for the last four years before I left teaching at the end of last year. During one of our last tournaments of the ladies season one of my girls (who also happens to be my goddaughter) decided to do something stupid.
Her ball landed in this gully and she went down to get it. She navigated a thicket of thorns and branches only get down there and find that the mud in the bottom of the gully was mid shin deep. She immediately lost both her shoes (“got the ball back though” was her rebuttal to my feedback). Seeing this, I went down and asked if she needed help, to which she said yes. Given the temperature, the thorns, and the fact that she was now barefoot, I decided to just carry her out and then go back to try and find her shoes. I carried her with one arm behind her knees and the other behind her back, dropped her back on the fairway, and went back for her shoes.
One of the yearbook kids happened to take a picture of me bringing her up the hill and the office staff (one of which is her grandmother) thought it was funny enough to put on the athletics page of the school’s website.
A few weeks ago, a former colleague texted me that a parent called the school absolutely livid about the picture because “staff shouldn’t be touching students that way.” I’ve tried to just move on from it, and I’ve told myself it doesn’t really matter but I’m wondering now if what I did was wrong or if I should have handled the situation differently.