The following comes from "Playing for Coach Meyer" by "Steve Smiley. It begs the question, what does your program stand for?!
Janitor Dan was one of the janitors at Northern during my days on campus and he had actually been in some trouble with the law and was sent to prison. Knowing Dan on a personal level, it was tough to see somebody that I knew go to jail, but Coach Meyer made sure that everybody on the team still stayed in contact with Dan. As Coach states, “even though a person is in a bad situation, that doesn’t mean that we, as his friends, turn our back on him.” Coach Meyer had us set up a schedule where every player on the team wrote Dan letters while he was in jail. We had about fifteen guys on the team, so we created a schedule where guy had two assigned days each month to write a letter to Dan, and the numbers worked out where he would receive a letter from somebody basically every day. It was a great idea and for the most part we all stayed fairly consistent in writing Dan letters. In return, Dan would write Coach Meyer his own letters from time to time, and Coach would share those letters with us. Every time Dan wrote, it was clear in his letters that just reading whatever we had to say helped him get through the day. To impact somebody’s life and help them in a situation like Dan’s was a great feeling. Staying in touch with “Janitor Dan” was one of the greatest things we did as a program.
You can purchase this book (it's a great read from the eyes of a player) at Coach Meyer's site: http://www.coachmeyer.com/
