Since the beginning of the school year I have come to like all my teachers, but the one that stands out the most is Gregory Nicholls. As US history teacher at Cypress Springs High School, Mr.Nicholls not only serves as a teacher, but he also serves as the head tennis coach. Everyday Mr.Nicholls exudes positive energy and serves as role model for the type of person he wants his students to be when they leave his class at the end of the year.

Mr. Nicholls’s number one character trait is his empathy. Students and athletes have bad days everyday. Mr.Nicholls deals with those students and athletes by using positive energy to bring their spirits up. 

“ The world is already trying to pull itself apart with all the negativity going on. I choose to be kind because I don’t want to add on to the negativity that the world already has.”

 Obviously no person can stay positive all the time because of all the negatives in life, but Mr.Nicholls finds ways to deal with his negativity instead of projecting it onto his coworkers, students, and athletes. The way he releases stress is by exercising and watching videos about things that are interesting to him. Also, he uses his wife as his personal therapist sometimes. Bad things happen at school, but Mr.Nicholls tries to leave those problems at school so it doesn’t affect his home life. When those problems do arise at home his wife is there to care for him and make him forget the problems that come with being a teacher.

Before becoming a high school teacher, Mr.Nicholls was a fourth grade teacher. Despite making such a big jump Mr.Nicholls’s mindset and energy stayed the exact same. 

“ I don’t like to look down on students regardless of whether they are in fourth grade or eleventh grade,” he said.

 He allowed himself to stay positive after the transition because  the situation he was in before was worse. For example, his classroom when he was teaching fourth grade had no A/C and there were rats. Even though Mr. Nicholls is happy where he is now, he sometimes misses his old job. He enjoys that in high school the students are independent and know what they are supposed to be doing. On the other hand he misses his old job because he feels as if he won’t be able to have as big of an impact on the life of his students.  He thrives at being a role model,  so not being there early in a child’s life to influence them and make them be good people worries him.

Mr.Nicholls uses the word empathetic to describe himself. Empathetic accurately fits him and his actions reflect that.

How did he become the tennis coach on top of being a teacher?

 “One of my former students asked me and I could just tell that the program needed my help,” he said.

. Mr. Nicholls started playing tennis at the age of seven in 1999. His dad had signed both him and his sister up to play tennis because it was a growing sport at the time. Even though Mr.Nicholls isn’t a pro at tennis he shows he cares for his athletes and he doesn’t allow ego to get in the way of his coaching. 

He says “ some of the athletes are even better than me”, but he says it with a smile on his face because he is just there so that his athletes can do something that they love

. Even though mentally he is a competitive person he pushes it all to the side so that he can allow his athletes to perform at the best of their ability. He teaches his athletes to treat every point as if it is their first because it allows them to not think about simple mistakes that they made before.

Mr Nicholls is a great person. He tries to live a problem free life by always being positive. He wants to influence his students and athletes to be great people in life.If there were more Mr. Nicholls out there the  world would be a better place.