When Madmen Lead the Blind
9 May
Losing a parent at that age is very difficult. Even more difficult was watching my mother lose her husband. Saying it was a terrible year doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the excruciating anguish and confusion and rage. But unlike Hamlet, for me there was no Claudius. Nowhere I could concentrate my vehemence and enact revenge. Just a slip up by a careless doctor who forgot to prescribe blood thinners to an immobile patient.
I felt deserted by everyone.
It was a tough year. There was a roster of kids that were to be expelled. I made the list.
Everyone had given up on me that year. Everyone. Besides one person. Eric Spee. A young, passionate teacher who had the courage to live and act and imbue poetry and get his hands dirty in a sea of apathetically vapid, multiple-choice scantron test-giving drones.
Spee spent time with me. Encouraged me. Inspired me. And Challenged me.
During my junior year, I can still remember being in the gym, working on my “stop and pop” (fellow ballers know what I’m talking about) for a couple hours.
Spee walks in.
“What are you gonna do with that jump shot in five years?”
No one had ever spoken to me like that in my entire life.
That day I picked up a copy of Julius Caesar. And so began my love affair with Shakespeare.
A few weeks later, Spee asked me to be Fluellen in his production of Henry V. I was a jock, a basketball player for God’s sake. Anyone who understands the social dynamics of high school will understand this impasse. I did it.
Why did Spee do this for me? Because he needed some moron who never read a line of Shakespeare to babysit for two months? No, it’s because Spee knew something that I have since learned.
Shakespeare elevates the spirit of the human heart in ways few things can.
When I was recruited to play basketball in college, my coach famously told the story of his recruiting trip to come see me. He paid a surprise visit to my high school on the night Spee and I launched our second Shakespearean production “Much Ado About Nothing”. I was playing Benedick. He said in all his years coaching, he had never seen an All State basketball player as a lead in a Shakespearean production. And so he gave me the scholarship having never seen me shoot a solitary jump shot.
As I write this, I am in Stratford-upon-Avon
Literally, hundreds of thousands of people have been reintroduced to Shakespeare through these efforts. And millions more will during the next few years.
And none of it would have been possible had it not been for a part time teacher who mustered the audacity to believe in a punk kid who the world had given up on.
Here’s to you, Spee. Thank you for seeing in others what most people miss. And for having the boldness to do something about it. I’ll never forget what you did. Thank you.
___
This post is part of project we initiated with Blogging Shakespeare to get people talking about Shakespeare’s impact in their lives around his birthday. Over one hundred bloggers from all over the world were involved writing posts and using the #hbws hashtag. You can see more on that project here.
___
People ask how they can help me all the time. So if you’re wondering, the best way to help is by sharing. If you think this post is valuable please consider Retweeting, Sharing on Facebook or emailing this post to someone you know who really needs it. I would truly appreciate it. 
