All Perkins Local Schools students are getting schooled in “The Pirate Way,” the district’s culture initiative, during the 2022-2023 academic year. One of the first lessons came as part of an historic district-wide assembly, when all students, grades kindergarten through 12, came together on Friday, September 2, in Firelands Health Stadium at Perkins High School.
Kyle Hallock, a 2007 PHS grad and current head baseball coach at Bowling State University, delivered the keynote address to the 1,800 students in the stadium.
“Wow, take a look around you,” Coach Hallock told the students sitting on the football field’s turf. “This is history. It’s the first time everyone in Perkins School district has been together at one time.”
Coach Hallock has deep connections to Perkins Schools. He attended all four buildings before graduating and heading to Kent State on a baseball scholarship. His mother, Jennifer Hallock, taught 4th grade at Meadowlawn for 30 years before retiring at the end of last school year. Coach Hallock’s baseball career took him from Kent State, where he won the Mid-American Conference Player of the Year Award, to playing minor league baseball in the Houston Astros organization. He became a college baseball coach in 2014, and became the head coach for BGSU in 2020.
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Surrounded by the Perkins students on a warm, sunny morning, Coach Hallock reminisced that as a college and professional baseball player, the last thing he thought about before stepping the mound in college and in professional baseball was, “I’m Kyle Hallock, I’m from Perkins Township, I’m a Perkins Pirate. If you don’t know those things, you’re about to.”
“The Pirate Way” is based on Focus 3, a mindset employed by college and professional athletes, corporations, and other organizations. The Pirate Way encourages Perkins students and staff to maintain positive attitudes and respond to adversity by keeping their cool and staying “above the line.”
Over the past two school years, the program has been introduced to Perkins administrators, teachers, faculty, and staff. This year, teachers and staff will teach regular lessons on the specifics of The Pirate Way. Each building has grade-specific lessons to share with the students.
During Coach Hallock’s address from the Perkins 50-yard line, he told students, “The Pirate Way is not a sometime thing – it’s an all-the-time thing. It’s an everyday thing. It’s a lifestyle that will serve you on the field, off the field, in the community, and in the classroom.”