Mrs. Carter had been teaching for nearly twenty years, and she had learned one thing about teenagers:<\/p>\n
They always had an excuse.<\/p>\n
But her 15-year-old student, Ethan, seemed to have more excuses than anyone else.<\/p>\n
That Monday morning, Ethan walked into class nearly twenty minutes late.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter stopped writing on the board and looked at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan,\u201d she said, \u201cthis is the third time this month you\u2019ve been late.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mrs. Carter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were late yesterday too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
She crossed her arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo why were you late today?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan looked completely serious.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a dream that I was playing football.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few students laughed.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter raised an eyebrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cA dream?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, ma\u2019am.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what were you doing in this dream?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was playing in the biggest game of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
She sighed.<\/p>\n
\u201cEthan, dreams are not an excuse for being late to school.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI scored the winning goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The class laughed again.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter tried not to smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat still doesn’t explain why you were twenty minutes late.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game went into extra time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entire classroom burst into laughter.<\/p>\n
Even Mrs. Carter couldn’t hold back a smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery funny,\u201d she said. \u201cNow sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan took his seat.<\/p>\n
But Mrs. Carter noticed something strange.<\/p>\n
He looked exhausted.<\/p>\n
His eyes were red, and there were dark circles beneath them.<\/p>\n
During lunch, she saw Ethan sitting alone on the school steps.<\/p>\n
She walked over.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you okay?\u201d<\/p>\n
He quickly smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don’t look fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked down.<\/p>\n
After a long silence, he finally said,<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad lost his job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter sat beside him.<\/p>\n
Ethan explained that his father had been unemployed for several months.<\/p>\n
His mother had started working extra hours.<\/p>\n
Ethan had taken a part-time job at a small grocery store after school to help his family.<\/p>\n
Some nights, he didn’t get home until late.<\/p>\n
Then he still had homework to finish.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter suddenly understood why he was always tired.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the football dream?\u201d she asked gently.<\/p>\n
Ethan smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball is the one thing that makes me forget everything for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat position do you play?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cForward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGood enough to score the winning goal?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next week, Mrs. Carter discovered that Ethan’s school football team had reached the regional championship.<\/p>\n
But Ethan was thinking about quitting.<\/p>\n
His family couldn’t afford the travel expenses and equipment.<\/p>\n
When Mrs. Carter heard about it, she spoke with the principal.<\/p>\n
The school found a way to help.<\/p>\n
Ethan stayed on the team.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, the championship match arrived.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter sat in the stands with several other teachers.<\/p>\n
The game was tied.<\/p>\n
The final minutes were disappearing.<\/p>\n
Then Ethan received the ball.<\/p>\n
He ran past one defender.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
With only seconds left, he took the shot.<\/p>\n
The ball went straight into the net.<\/p>\n
The crowd erupted.<\/p>\n
Ethan’s teammates ran toward him.<\/p>\n
He had scored the winning goal.<\/p>\n
After the match, Mrs. Carter walked over.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell,\u201d she said with a smile, \u201cI guess you really did score the winning goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd was there extra time?\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a little.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Carter smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext time, try to finish your dreams before school starts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ethan laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ll try.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years later, Ethan returned to the school as a successful football coach.<\/p>\n
The first person he visited was Mrs. Carter.<\/p>\n
He handed her a framed photograph from that championship game.<\/p>\n
Written across the bottom were the words:<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you for believing in me when I was only a tired kid with too many excuses.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Mrs. Carter smiled through tears.<\/p>\n She finally understood that sometimes what looks like an excuse is actually a young person quietly carrying a burden no one else can see.<\/p>\n And sometimes, one teacher taking the time to ask,<\/p>\n \u201cAre you really okay?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n can change a student’s entire life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mrs. Carter had been teaching for nearly twenty years, and she had learned one thing about teenagers: They always had an excuse. But her 15-year-old student, Ethan, seemed to have … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-h-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21410,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21409\/revisions\/21410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dyreadfullstory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}