Editor’s note: Today we present our second blog posting. We will be asking for insights from people from across the community who have something to say about their experiences, the ongoing state of affairs, or their lives that will speak to our current time together. This week we hear from Jeanne Hess a first-term member of the Kalamazoo City Commission. Until her retirement in August of 2019, she was a professor and chairwoman of the Department of Physical Education at Kalamazoo College. She was also head volleyball coach. If you would like to contribute please let us know. — Kathy Jennings, Managing Editor, Southwest Michigan's Second Wave
With my athletic coaching career now in the rear-view mirror, I am focusing energies on my obligation to Kalamazoo as a city commissioner, on my “encore career” of writing, speaking, and podcasting, and on connecting with my family and friends as we get used to this new normal.
My first book,
Sportuality: Finding Joy in the Games, examines words that, when used in a sporting context, can unite or divide, depending on the meaning we give them. One of those words is “community,” which literally means, “to have charge of together.” I find that now, in the absence of sport, the lessons we learn from sport can and should be applied to life in general because we are all connected, all in community.
As a coach, when adversity found its way to an individual or our team, I’d often quote philosopher Friederich Nietzsche saying, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” implying that as we worked our way through periods of loss or hardship, we would emerge more unified, more aware and stronger.
This past weekend, my husband Jim and I were in the middle of our virtual Key West vacation. Jim and I had planned to be there in person from March 25 until April 1. That can’t happen, so we’re doing something daily to recall the sun and fun of the island. Now that there are 10 confirmed cases of people with coronavirus there, we’re grateful to be #safeathome here in
Kalamazoo. But just the thought of being there feeds my soul, making it stronger.
Physically, we are practicing what I preached for 35 years: We keep ourselves moving! Getting out for a daily walk not only gives us an aerobic benefit, but we also get to check in with neighbors as they pass us on the street, and we experience the nature all around us. Our basement gym has also been handy, in the absence of other facilities, helping us to maintain our health and strength.
Our spiritual muscles are now much stronger. Our faith communities are finding ways to feed our spirit; to give us hope and faith in this rapidly changing and very challenging time. And I love it. Honestly, I never thought we’d be attending online mass! I also find that the gaps in my day are now filled with prayer, spiritual reading, and intentional conversations with friends and loved ones.
Each day, my work as a city commissioner in Kalamazoo continues to occupy chunks of time. From online meetings and keeping up with the work of city employees, to finding ways to advance the ongoing business that comes before the commission, all of us are learning in community, together. I am ever amazed at the work of our dedicated city and public servants. Because of them, we are stronger, together.
I think that many of us are emotionally struggling with this forced separation, even as we mentally know it to be for the greater good. Just like not having sport to occupy our time, perhaps this retreat from society allows us the freedom to clean out our emotional closets so that when this, too, has passed, we can decide what thoughts and activities we want to put back into the closets of our lives. By realizing what is important, we make our actions, and therefore our outcomes, stronger.
When I was in middle school, the only sporting activity for girls was cheerleading. I was a darned good one. And now, having lived through a career in athletics enabled by Title IX, I feel like I’ve grown from cheer-leading to cheer-leadership. I believe in Kalamazoo. I believe in you. I believe in us. I believe that all of us, having charge of this community of Kalamazoo, will weather these storms together, and will emerge … stronger.
Jeanne Hess is a first-term member of the Kalamazoo City Commission. Until her retirement in August of 2019, she was a professor and chairwoman of the Department of Physical Education at Kalamazoo College. She was also head volleyball coach.
Photos
At her final game as head volleyball coach at Kalamazoo College, Oct. 28, 2018, Jeanne Hess is surrounded by family. From left are: daughter-in-law Laura (holding grandson Charlie); son Kevan; Jeanne with husband Jim, daughter-in-law Amanda (holding granddaughter Aubrey; and son Andrew (holding grandson Connor).
Young women did not receive letterman jackets when Jeanne Hess played volley there. She graduated in 1980. That thinking changed many years later after young women cried foul, and in 2019, the university sent out 900 jackets to women who lettered in sports from 1973 and 1991. "I got this 40 years after I earned it," Hess said. "... It was a moment of justice for me." One of her sons had received his U-M letterman jacket years earlier.
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