The coach often arrives at Hubbard High School still wearing his bulletproof vest.
Removing his most valuable piece of police equipment sometimes becomes an afterthought for Sherman Sampson, a plainclothes Chicago police officer, when he’s trying to get to football or track practice on time.
Sampson finishes his shift in Englewood’s 7th District police station about 3 p.m. then starts a 15-minute trip to Hubbard on the Southwest Side.
“In that time, I have to turn off one side of my life and turn on the other,” he says.
Putting his job as a police officer behind him is a heavy-duty task. He needs to forget about the children he has investigated as crime suspects during the day, a result of chillingly dangerous scenarios that play out in grammar schools every day in Englewood, one of the city’s highest-crime areas.
Kids bringing guns–some real and some fake–to school. Gang fights. Drug deals. Sampson would like to forget all of it.
For at least a few hours each day, he manages to escape.
Sampson, 44, finds respite by coaching high school sports. He is Hubbard’s head coach for girls track in the spring and the football team’s defensive coordinator in the fall.
“I love the game, and I love working with youth,” Sampson says. “As many as we can save, that’s one less we have to pick up in a body bag on the street.”
Derrick Calhoun, 50, has a clear picture of what Sampson is talking about. Calhoun, a 25-year police veteran, is a sergeant who works overnight shifts with the Will County Sheriff’s Department. He has been a member of the county’s SWAT team since the unit was formed 18 years ago.
“You see the worst in people, and you see people at their worst,” Calhoun says of his job as a police officer. “It’s stressful, and you need some type of outlet.”
Like Sampson, Calhoun balances the rigors of police work with coaching. He finishes his police shifts at 6 a.m., sleeps about four or five hours and then heads to Morgan Park High School, where his girls track team is a powerhouse.
The police officers are part of an elite fraternity: They are two of 40 police officers, detectives and forensic or weapons experts who coach in Chicago public and private schools, according to a Tribune survey of city schools. Most are Chicago cops, although county, Illinois state police and a few nearby suburban police departments also are represented. In addition, about 15 firefighters hold jobs as assistant or head coaches.
A `win-win’ proposition
Supervisors often encourage police officers to mentor children at all levels in their communities, Chicago Police spokesman Pat Camden says.
“It’s a win-win proposition,” Camden says. “It’s not only a release on the positive side for police officers, it benefits the community.”
Those who coach at the high school level usually put in long hours with their teams. The benefits are numerous: Some of the city’s most successful athletes exhibit their coaches’ calm, collected behavior under unnerving circumstances–attributes their coaches need to survive and thrive in their hectic police work.
Moreover, at a time when many city residents are mistrustful of police officers, cops who coach gain an immeasurable level of respect from impressionable teenage student-athletes.
“You wouldn’t think he’s a cop,” Nathan Lyles, a junior safety on the Hubbard football team and a sprinter on the track team, says of Sampson. “He’s so cool and down to earth. It’s cool to see cops can be real people.”
The police officers who coach find the work reminds them of all that is right with children and teens.
“As a police officer, you’re always dealing with a negative situation,” Sampson says. “Someone has either done something wrong or someone has wronged them. You deal with youths who are on the wrong side of the law.”
Sampson nods approvingly as he watches his athletes complete a workout.
“This is refreshing,” he says.
If he didn’t coach at Hubbard, Sampson believes he would have burned out on police work years ago.
For nine years he served as a tactical officer, shadowing drug dealers and gang members. For the last three years he has been assigned to a school car, responding to threatening situations in his police district’s grammar schools.
“It’s disturbing,” Sampson says of the school emergencies he and partner LouBerda Topps-Watson investigate. “Some of the same things on the streets–narcotics, batteries–are going on in schools.”
Elton Harris, Hubbard’s head football coach and athletic director, hired Sampson as a Hubbard coach almost seven years ago. Harris and Sampson were teammates and fraternity brothers at Langston University in Oklahoma more than two decades ago.
Together, Harris and Sampson have built one of the state’s top football programs at Hubbard. The girls track team hasn’t been nearly as successful, but Sampson has a personal stake in that sport because his oldest of three daughters, Amber, is on the team.
The Hubbard football team advanced to the second round of the playoffs last season.
Occasionally a teen Sampson has confronted on the street turns up as a member of the football team. Such athletes get a fresh start with Sampson.
“It’s my way of sending a message,” he says. “`You have a chance to make a brand new start.'”
On the sidelines Harris is emotional and fiery–the opposite of Sampson.
“I’m the screaming lunatic,” Harris says. “Someone has to remain calm and keep me somewhat calm. That’s coach Sherm.”
Keeping their cool
Always poised. Always under control. Police officers begin to acquire those traits when they start at the police academy with psychological training, police spokesman Camden says. In Sampson’s case, his training began in the Marine Corps.
“The calmer you are, the harder you are for people to read,” Sampson says. “If you can leave a person guessing, you have an advantage right off the bat.”
Such characteristics follow him onto the playing field.
“In a tight situation in games, everyone is nervous,” he says. “You’re on the sideline and everyone is going crazy. If you give the perception you’re calm, the kids will relax.”
He and Morgan Park’s Calhoun appear unflappable. The same could be said of their athletes.
Morgan Park’s track teams carry an aura of confidence and steadiness that is uncommon in athletes so young. The Mustangs are favored to win their fifth straight state championship and eighth overall later this month.
Calhoun’s athletes take on the qualities of the authoritative 6-foot-3-inch, 225-pound police officer who coaches them without ever raising his voice.
“You know when he’s mad,” says Candice Neal, one of the state’s top sprinters. “It shows in his face, and that silent treatment gets us more than yelling.”
Calhoun, a 1970 Senn graduate and former track athlete, requires his athletes to attend a one-hour study hall before practice begins at 4 p.m., a rarity in high school sports because most coaches prefer to make full use of their practice time.
“Discipline. Team rules. Code of conduct. All of those things add up to structure,” Calhoun says as if he were reciting a police officer’s oath.
Neither Calhoun nor Sampson earns much for coaching. Most cops who coach could make far more if they took part-time jobs working security. Calhoun says he receives a $2,500 stipend as girls track coach.
“That’s not why I do it,” he says. “Initially I started doing it because I loved track. I still do.
“There’s a need to be served spending time with our young people.”
