Former NWL football players plan their teaching careers

***Published in The Northwestern Press in May 2012***

Two longtime friends from Northwestern Lehigh’s class of 2008 who were both football players and aspiring teachers have recently graduated with teaching degrees and are sticking to Northwestern in their career plans.

Jake Bennett, who played outside linebacker for Millersville University for two years, graduated from with a degree in elementary education and is hoping to become a teacher at Northwestern Lehigh.

Charles Isamoyer, who played defensive tackle for Kutztown University for two years, graduated with a degree in secondary education in history May 12 and was recently hired to teach in the greater northwest of America: Alaska.

“Talk about two kids on the same path since playing flag football together,” Brenda Isamoyer, Charles’ mother, said. “And now here they are with the chance to live what they've dreamed of for so long. Jake’s parents and I are so proud of them both.”

Isamoyer, who was inspired to pursue a career as a history teacher in middle school by his eighth grade history teacher, Edward Roman, has accepted a job teaching at Lower Kuskokwim School District in the Eskimo village of Nunapitchuk, Alaska.

“Pretty weird, right?” Isamoyer joked.

According to Isamoyer, the road to him accepting a job in southern Alaska started at a Kutztown job fair at the Holiday Inn in Fogelsville.

“There were a bunch of different school districts there from different states like Delaware, Maryland and Virginia and I saw Alaska,” Isamoyer said. “I thought it’d be cool to check out and see what they had to say.”

Isamoyer attended an information seminar and was intrigued by what the Lower Kuskokwim representative had to say, so he set up an interview with them.

“I guess the interview went really well because a few weeks later, they sent out a request for one of my references—my cooperating teacher at the time—to come fill in a little bit about me and how he thought I would adapt in the teaching environment,” Isamoyer explained. “Because of what [my reference] gave me nothing but good responses, the assistant superintendent set up a Skype interview with me.”

After a successful Skype interview, Isamoyer was introduced to two principals from the school district, one of which liked him enough to ask the assistant superintendent if he could hire Isamoyer, who was then sent a contract and is currently in the process of getting back to them.

“It’s kind of weird seeing everything playing out how I thought it would,” Isamoyer said. “There were times during my sophomore and junior year of college where I thought [teaching] wasn’t what I wanted to do at all. I even had my doubts during student teaching.”

“I’m so happy for him that he landed a job and hopefully that luck sways my way,” Bennett said.

Bennett has applied for open teaching positions at Northwestern and Weisenberg Elementary as well as Parkland and other schools in the Lehigh Valley.

“I would love to get [a job at] Northwestern, but it’s real competitive,” Bennett said. “So we sit and we wait and we stay on the grind.”

Bennett was inspired to become a teacher through coaching Northwestern youth football with Isamoyer and through his job teaching in a daycare center throughout high school.

“I really like watching kids develop and seeing them succeed and I know now that that is the part that I really, really like and that I thought would make a good career for me,” Bennett said. “And I guess Charles felt the same way.”