Male Teacher of the Year: Coach Carhart

For the 2019-2020 school year, Coach Chris Carhart has been selected to be one of the teachers of the year. Rangeview would most definitely not be the same without this caring, selfless, coach and teacher. There is no doubt that he has built an amazing connection with his students and fellow co-workers this year, along with the other 7 years he’s been teaching at Rangeview.

Carhart loves to run track –  he’s the coach of the track team and has been coaching for 16 years. He was also named the state track coach of the year, three years ago. Carhart has a great heart and compassion for his track team. Even during quarantine he does daily cooking lessons for his track team, as well as organizing an Olympic gold medalist to talk to the team. 

“Rangeview is lucky to have Coach Carhart. I had the opportunity to coach with him and he has brought belief to Rangeview,” said Brandon Alconcel, teacher and head football coach. Carhart felt he always wanted to be a teacher and a coach. “I always wanted to be the person I needed at the time for the kids,” Carhart said. He had always loved sports, not because of the sport but because it felt as if it was a safe place for him.

Coach Carhart’s love and passion for track all began when he was a junior in high school. Growing up he played baseball and football. “I loved both of these sports but I kind of fell out of love with baseball just kind of because of the culture of it,” Carhart said. He loved the game, he just didn’t love the people around the game anymore. “I could steal a base at will and I realized all the other things that went along with getting a scholarship,” Carhart added on. He then realized all the other things that went along with getting a baseball scholarship.

“Baseball scholarships are really hard to get and I realized I was the fastest kid at school and I needed to be on track and that was going to help me with my primary sport, which was football. I started becoming really good at football around that time and it turned out I just started falling in love with track right away,” He added on. Carhart has the highest ever participation in track at RHS since he’s been at Rangeview.

A big part of why Carhart is the way he is, is because of his childhood. “Not knowing what home life was going to be like from day to day was very traumatizing, like having to think about how the bills are going to be paid as a kid, or not knowing how drunk my mom was going to be when I got home,” Carhart said. The only safe/consistent place that he knew was practice and school, which is why he takes his job very seriously and truly cares for each student and their well-being.

The most rewarding thing to Carhart is when a student feels safe enough to open up to him, knowing that he is there for them. As well as knowing there are a certain number of kids in Rangeview that look forward to seeing him every day as well as knowing they can come to him.

 “He has an innate ability to inspire adults and teenagers to achieve anything they set out to do,” Alconcel said. 

Some things that Carhart does to make sure that his students are succeeding is communicating with his students as much as he can and letting them know that he’s there – he checks in as much as he can to know he is there for them.

“It’s difficult at times with the kids that aren’t necessarily reaching out, but I’m not very concerned with the assignments. I’m more concerned with the students feeling supported and not providing them extra stress on top of what they are already experiencing. I’m trying to unload the stress as much as I can,” Carhart said.

Carhart believes the person that he is today is because of his struggles and failures. “I think that’s what makes everyone who they are. Getting kicked around really makes you learn lessons a lot better than making it easy. It also gives you a lot more empathy and makes you a better person,” Carhart said.

“I love and miss you, and it’s a great day to be a raider”- Coach Carhart.