The other day I was thinking about three people who made a big impact on my life. Not surprisingly, they were all teachers.

I had Mr. Louis Davis for business math my senior year at Madisonville High School. Mr. Davis was entertaining to say the least. Although he was a little older than most of my teachers, he had a youthful zeal for life. He would crack us up with his hilarious anecdotes and crack the whip when we got out of line.

One time, I was the subject of his whip cracking. I was cutting up in class and Mr. Davis yanked me to the front of the room right by his desk. That move not only put me in my place, it also placed me in position to improve my grades. Sitting at the front eliminated distractions and forced me to focus on a subject that I was already finding difficult. Years later, I shared the story with Mr. Davis. By the smile on his lips and the twinkle in his eye, I could tell there was a purpose to the punishment. He not only reined me in, he raised the bar.

Another memorable teacher was Mrs. Blanche Webber. She taught freshman history. I've always loved history and I credit Mrs. Webber for nurturing that love. Like Mr. Davis, Mrs. Webber was no pushover. She demanded respect and your attention. When she didn't get it, you paid the price. But that didn't happen often because Mrs. Webber had the wonderful gift of making history come alive. The way she delivered in the classroom almost made me feel like I had a front-row seat for whatever world-changing event we were studying.

She was also great with her sayings. The one I remember the most was one she told the class often: "Ya'll better be like ants and get on the ball!" For weeks we all wondered about the "ants" part. Then she explained. She said one day a group of ants wanted to build a new home. They just so happened to build it on a golf course. It didn't take long before their home was being destroyed daily by bad golfers who were nailing their mound trying to hit the ball. The queen ant sent out a scout to survey the problem. He watched for several days before returning with this recommendation: the safest place for the ants was on the ball.

The final person is Coach Lural McCloud. Coach Mac, as we called him, was my basketball coach my junior and senior years. Again, another strong disciplinarian and a man of few words. But his passion for the game and young people was unmistakable. Coach Mac's practices were never pleasant, making us repeat a drill over and over until we ran it to perfection, but come game time, we were always prepared.

One of my favorite Coach Mac stories took place in Cameron. We were preparing to take on the Mighty Yoe when I got a wild hair to show off a little. During pregame warmup, I took off and slammed down a thunderous, one-handed dunk. Problem was, it's against the rules. Sure enough, the referee saw it and assessed our team a technical foul before the game had even started. As I (slowly) returned to the bench, there was Coach Mac, arms crossed, shaking his head and muttering, "Brown, Brown, Brown." That's all I needed to hear to know I was in big trouble. When the game was ready to begin, I was getting set to take the floor with the rest of the starters. Coach Mac turned to me and said, "Going somewhere Dr. J? I think you best ride some pine a little while and think about what you did to your team." Lesson learned.

All three of these wonderful people have much in common. They were intelligent, compassionate, wise, caring...and African-American. During these final couple of weeks of Black History Month, don't forget to honor those who may not have moved mountains, but have certainly helped you make it over a few.