Simson Garcia | Sports Editor

One coach and one player, in one frustrating lacrosse game, came together on the sidelines. The player was down on himself after his team’s struggles on the field, losing to that end. The coach pulled him to the side, calmed him down and talked to him.

“I had to reassure him that ‘hey, everything’s going to be alright man. It’s just a setback.’ I pretty much took him through the way I would through my students,” said Ronald Rothstein.

Rothstein is a Western alumni, who’s also an assistant coach for Western’s lacrosse club team and an instructional assistant for the Salem-Keizer school district. The students Rothstein currently works with, according to him, “have a long range of different diagnoses like autism spectrum, ADHD, or they’re emotionally disturbed or another way to put it, emotionally dysregulated, so they don’t have the right coping mechanism to channel their frustration, anxiety, and sadness.”

He specifically teaches in a classroom of 12 students, teaching academics, writing, reading and other basic education.

“But we also have a big emphasis on teaching them to control their behavior, how to manage self-control, how to manage being obedient and following expectations,” Rothstein commented.

The last part is something that’s important in Rothstein’s classroom.

“That’s a key phrase I use, ‘teaching them to follow expectations’ because a lot of kids like to bend the rules and not follow the same expectations as others.” Rothstein explained that it’s one of the factors that holds his students back from transitioning into the traditional classroom.

“My classroom has less students, more staff so that way we’re giving these students more undivided attention to help them with their behavior issues,” mentioned Rothstein.

Initially wanting to be a social studies teacher, with social sciences eventually being the degree he’d attain, a change occurred. Leading up to his graduation in 2014, he came to a realization that he no longer, for the time being, wished to follow up on his major to become a social studies teacher. The minor in special education was the degree he followed up on after gaining experience to his resume.

“The job I had at the time, while in college, was a group home, called Work Unlimited. It’s a non-profit that houses adolescents and adults with developmental disabilities,” Rothstein said.

While there Rothstein taught them life skills: how to follow a schedule and basic needs like cooking, cleaning and chores.

Work Unlimited helped Rothstein help others. It was at this particular job where Rothstein learned how to help his future students cope with behavioral issues, build a self regulatory skill to keep them from hurting others or themselves, and a de-escalation process that calmed them down if they got angry or frustrated.

A master’s degree in special education is now planned for Rothstein.

“It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for quite some time now … I’m attending a school in Boston in the fall. I’m going to get what’s called an Applied Behavioral Analysis,” Rothstein mentioned.

Obtaining the latter makes him a nationally certified behavioral analyst, something that will stretch his opportunities to find work in his specialized area.

Rothstein’s been able juggle both worlds of classroom and field, and mentioned like in the first example of how he’s been able to transfer his teaching skills back and forth between classroom and field.

An avid sports enthusiast his entire life, he started playing full contact football in kindergarten while growing up in New York. He was a three-star athlete in high school, playing in all years.

But the biggest sports blast off in his life, or “shock” rather, came with the game of lacrosse at Western.

“It was the best chapter in my life in sports,” said Rothstein. Rothstein played goalie throughout his years on the field.

The chapter had four parts — all successful seasons, with storybook endings.

“We had this motto, ‘we shocked the world,’” Rothstein commented.

Western won their conference championship in Rothstein’s first three years. Up to that point, the team had won six straight conference titles, but lost in the first round of the Nationals each time. His most significant year, he states, came during his senior year in 2014 when his team went 15-1 before losing in an upset to Western Washington for the conference championship. The Wolves’s at large seed, however, enabled them to earn a legitimate seed in the playoffs. They’d finally got past the first round before “going out with a bang” as Rothstein expressed, to eventual champions Grand Valley State.

Now an assistant coach for Western’s lacrosse team, a position he’s held for two years, he hopes to “bring that swagger back” with the new batch of lacrosse athletes.

“We have a lot of incoming freshman, a lot of them look to have that tenacity to come out and put in the work,” said Rothstein.

After a discussion with the lacrosse athlete, Rothstein wanted to note that “life gets tough, but it only gets better.”

His go-to quote he uses with both his students and athletes is by Ralph Waldo-Emerson; “Nothing great could ever be achieved without enthusiasm.”

“I try to come in every practice like ‘hey, c’mon let’s go, let’s keep the momentum going’, or, I go in the classroom and I’m like ‘hey c’mon let me help you, we got this, we’re okay,’” Rothstein said.

Rothstein commented that he does this to motivate and so “people can see that and pass it on, because that will make everyone achieve and be successful.”

Contact the author at journalsports@wou.edu

Photo by: Ron Rothstein