It was more than just the seniors who were being recognized on the evening of Feb. 25, when the varsity mens basketball team held their senior night at 7 p.m., and the women had their final game of the season at 5:30 p.m., both against Tualatin. 

At the half time of both games, a group of teachers and mentors, all wearing the same green shirt, were called down to the floor of the main gym, when Brigham Baker, the school’s athletics director and an assistant principal, gave his speech.

“You, our esteemed teachers and recipients of the ‘Making A Difference’ campaign, are the shining example of compassion, leadership, and relentless dedication,” Baker said.

This campaign, ‘You Make A Difference,’ served to honor teachers who have made an impact in the lives of their students, allowing them to gain one-on-one recognition from the students who nominated them to be at the game and the audience in the stands, including families, students, and friends.

Brooke Cates, a court sports and weight training teacher as well as the womens basketball head coach, came up with the idea of bringing the campaign to West Linn after seeing it in a news story clip.

“I actually watched this video on YouTube earlier in the year, in the fall, and it was a football team from another state and they were doing this ‘You Make A Difference,’” Cates said. “The teachers were just overwhelmed with joy and tears and you could just tell it meant the world to them. And I’m like, ‘That is such a neat idea.’”

Believing that it would be a great opportunity for the varsity teams to reflect on who had made a difference in their lives, Cates, the mens basketball coaches, athletics admin Shannon Maloney, assistant principal Dawn Ahlgren, and Baker began West Linn’s ‘You Make A Difference’ campaign.

“Ms. Maloney and Ms. Ahlgren have been very involved in helping this whole thing come about. They’re both wonderful people and [have] huge hearts and so they’ve kind of been the rallying troops behind this whole thing,” Cates said. “They helped put it all together. And of course, our athletic director Brigham Baker is behind the whole thing as well, very supportive and thought it was a great idea and he helped get it launched.”

For their part, student-athletes chose three or fewer teachers, mentors, or other school employees from their entire school experience, from kindergarten to present day, to award with a note, t-shirt, and invitation to the final home game of the season.

Sharon Saultz, junior, is a member of the womens varsity basketball team, having been a part of the team for two years, and participated in this campaign alongside the rest of the team.

“We all just kind of spread out and spread that love throughout the people we care about, whether they go to West Linn, or whether they taught at an elementary school or another school, just kind of all over the place,” Saultz said.

Saultz chose two West Linn teachers, Dr. Ryan Jordan, psychology teacher, and Amanda Dowd, math teacher, and one coach from her past to recognize.

“One of them was Ms. Dowd, my math teacher. She means a lot to me because she has been really accommodating this season. We traveled for tournaments and when we miss school like that, it’s really valuable when we have teachers that are happy to help us catch up and stay in the class,” Saultz said. “[I also chose] Dr. Jordan, my AP [Psychology] teacher, and he’s one of our biggest supporters. He comes to as many of our games as he can and he’s really tied in with athletics and the Unified program, and so it means a lot to us that he’s so welcoming to basketball and welcoming to us.”

In addition to the shirt and note, Cates instructed the womens team to write a personal letter to their teacher or mentor.

“Because you’ve made a difference, but how have they made a difference? Let’s make it specific. You had them in what grade, and what did they do? What do you remember about them? And how that affects your life in a positive way,” Cates said.

Dowd received one of these personal notes from Saultz, who is in her AP Pre-Calculus class.

“She wrote me the sweetest card, and she said that I have made math really great for her this year, that she just appreciates all of the support that I give, and that she just respects me as a teacher and wanted me to come out and see her play, and I couldn’t agree more,” Dowd said.

Dowd has been teaching for 20 years, this year marking her tenth at West Linn. Over the years, Dowd has learned how to look to students when teaching, and Saultz is one who she can always rely on, much like Saultz does her.

“She’s an ‘affirmer’,” Dowd said. “It’s when you’re teaching and you can make eye contact with a student and you know that you’re reaching them, and they give you a nod or a smile. And she’s really vocal in a respectful way. If she doesn’t understand, she asks clarifying questions. She just makes my job lovely, and so just having her in the classroom makes my day better.”

In her first three years at the school, Dowd was a womens JV and JV2 coach, and has since tried to support the program by attending games when she can, another example of the support that she has given to students and a way that she hopes to impact them.

“When we have so many students it’s difficult to know one way or the other if we are making that impact. So for her to reach out to me and write me that card and personally invite me to the game, it actually was a little bit of [an] emotional moment for me, because I love her. That’s why I played, coached, all of that. For her to see me as someone that she wanted to be here, supporting her just meant a lot to me,” Dowd said. “Just to be able to see her face light up when she saw me and she came and gave me a hug after the game, it was actually really emotional and sweet.”

While Cates is a coach, she’s also a physical education teacher at the school, which gives her perspective on what this moment means for the many who were honored, but not as much as being recognized herself.

“We have the best job in the world. We get to work with kids who are so awesome, and maybe that’s why it means so much,” Cates said. “And I got a t-shirt from one of the boys on the boys basketball team, and I didn’t expect that. I hope that all the other teachers felt as wonderful as I did in that moment.”

Although Cates could have passed the idea onto another sport, she anticipated that her athletes would find meaning in the activity, taking it seriously and drawing not only satisfaction but lifelong skills from the campaign.

“This particular group of athletes is awesome. I have a remarkable group of young women in my basketball program right now, and they aren’t only great athletes, they are great people,” Cates said. “I knew they would take this project seriously, they would be very thoughtful with who they would select, and that it would be meaningful. So instead of just random shirts, I knew they would do the right thing the right way, and the boys, it’s the same way. The boys have an absolutely incredible group of young men in that program as well. It was the right year to start this because we had the right kids in the program.”

Having been together since June while playing in the summer league, the team has bonded through time spent together, especially on trips that require missing school. Saultz attributes the team’s chemistry and success to the teachers who accommodated them during these outings. 

“You look at us as a team, but then you see the reason we’re able to do that, and the reason we’re having success [on] these trips and staying accountable during school is because of our mentors,” Saultz said. “So I guess I would say we find success because of the people, like our teachers, that allow us to spend so much time together.”

Both of the teams have a chance to make it to the Chiles Center this year, with the women winning their game against Tualatin 64—57, and the men winning 71—49. The men’s team will play off against Cleveland on March 5, and the women against Sheldon on March 4.

Despite the womens team not having any seniors, and thus no senior night of their own with which to celebrate, the womens team plans to turn this campaign into a tradition to last the years.

“We hope that this tradition will continue into the future, we plan to do it every senior night,” Saultz said. “I think it’s really big that we’re able to spread the joy that they give to us back to them.”

Right now, the campaign has only been done with varsity basketball, but Saultz could see the activity growing into other sports in the future.

“I kind of appreciate that this campaign is special to varsity because I think it’s really meaningful. It’s really powerful to see a small group of us giving back to the community, but I think spreading this tradition and this moment through other sports is not a bad idea at all,” Saultz said. “I mean, so many different teachers don’t get credit for what they do and I think all of our athletes can agree that teachers make a huge difference in our career.”

The students are not the only ones who hope that the program will continue, or who feel that the other side of the relationship has made a difference.

“I know that a lot of the teachers that I talked with tonight were really touched, and even if they’re not getting to speak about it formally, it really made a huge impact for a lot of us because sometimes teaching feels hard, really hard,” Dowd said. “So to know that we have connections with the kids and that they want us to come support them, it means a lot to us. We love this, and we hope it keeps going because we want all of our staff to experience the joy of this.”