jjakq27 Posted February 3, 2005 Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...030427/1067/SPTTime and trust turned around Reese PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - It was a gamble, any way you looked at it. Over here was this middle-class white woman, a Seton graduate, married to a guy from Roger Bacon, raised in white-bread Delhi in a two-parent family where mom stayed home. Over there was this downtown black kid, shuffled from place to place depending on where the rent was paid, allergic to school, with dreams you could fit in a shirt pocket.She taught math at Aiken High. He went to Woodward, until Woodward dismissed him for the small reason that he didn't show up. Why should Karen Buckmeier take a chance on Ike Reese? There were lots of kids at Aiken who showed more promise. Time was precious. Why use it on someone who missed, by his own accounting, "80-odd days" at Woodward the year before?Why should he, Ike Reese, trust this woman? What had any teacher ever done for him? He hated school. He'd rather be out playing basketball, "doing what I thought was cool." School? He saw no future in that.It was a gamble all right, to give your trust and your time to someone you really didn't know. Reese still isn't sure why he saved his biggest leap of faith for Karen Buckmeier.Buckmeier says she saw potential in Reese and wanted to mine it for whatever it was worth. That's what the best teachers do."He just needed someone to believe in him, and to believe in himself," Buckmeier said Wednesday."She saw something in me I didn't see in myself," Reese said Wednesday.And away they went.This is a love story, a trust story, a respect story and a story about the extraordinary potential of the human spirit. It's also a little about football. Reese graduated from Aiken in 1993, went to Michigan State on a full ride and was a fifth-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Eagles. He just made his first Pro Bowl team and is playing for the championship of the football-speaking world on Sunday.He never would have done any of it without Buckmeier, who was on him like ketchup on fries from the day he showed up in her Algebra class. She never would be the person she has become, either, without the quiet needs of the student she called by his given name, Isaiah, and the life he decided to put in her hands."He opened my eyes to the struggles students came to me with (and) made me a better teacher and person," Buckmeier said.Before Buckmeier, Reese was "a knucklehead" by his own admission. Even his first quarter at Aiken, he estimates he missed "about a day a week." Reese would blow off an after-school tutoring session in her room, she'd hunt him down at a local gym."Don't expect me to help you, Isaiah," Buckmeier said."Mrs. B, you're embarrassing me in front of the fellas," Reese said.When he didn't show up at school, she'd call his home. "He's sick," someone would say. Buckmeier would see Reese the next day. "Where were you?" she'd ask. "Not sick," he'd say."She wasn't angry," Reese recalled. "That wasn't the look on her face. She was more disappointed. For someone to put so much time and effort into me, I owed her." He told his family to tell the teacher named Mrs. Buckmeier the truth.And he began showing up every day. By the second semester of his first year at Aiken, Reese made the honor roll. The mentoring continued. Buckmeier would give Reese a ride home from school. He had moved from Corryville to Golf Manor. It could take him two hours and three Metro buses to get home.She encouraged him to stay after school, to do his homework in her room. Kids at Aiken started asking Ike if Buckmeier was his mother. When the college recruiters came calling, Buckmeier and Reese's mom made the trips with him. Buckmeier attended both his graduations, and the family party on the day the Eagles drafted him.Reese has a 13-year-old son, Michael, now, who Reese said "is also a knucklehead." He threatens to send Michael to "Mrs. B."Mrs. B is in her second year as an assistant principal at Wyoming High. She likes the commitment to education and the parental involvement. She misses the chance to make a big difference in a student's life. Regardless, she already has left one huge footprint.Trust, respect, friendship. It all seems so simple. Sometimes, it really is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted February 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2005 Ike Reese is a free agent after the season. He was also selected to go to the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bengals take a run at him if the price is right. They guy makes plays on kick coverage and would be a good backup at LB. He also might enjoy playing for the home team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhillyGirl Posted February 5, 2005 Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 Ike Reese is a free agent after the season. He was also selected to go to the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bengals take a run at him if the price is right. They guy makes plays on kick coverage and would be a good backup at LB. He also might enjoy playing for the home team. He'll be staying in Philly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjakq27 Posted February 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 5, 2005 Ike Reese is a free agent after the season. He was also selected to go to the Pro Bowl. I'd like to see the Bengals take a run at him if the price is right. They guy makes plays on kick coverage and would be a good backup at LB. He also might enjoy playing for the home team.He'll be staying in Philly. I can wish can't I? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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