[spoilers] Armitage: “He’s a math teacher and a football coach”? Really, Richard?
Interview with the Into the Storm cast at Lifeforfilm.com. Okay — I thought he was an English teacher? Did I miss something?
Vice Principal, teacher, coach and father of two, Gary Morris [sic!], played by Armitage, forms a quick bond with Sarah Wayne Callies’s Allison Stone, when in a snap moment Gary saves her from one of the tornadoes.
“One of the keys to the character is that he’s a math teacher and football coach,” says Armitage. “So I worked backwards from what he’d be required to do. He’s kind of a sporty guy, but he’s no hero. An extreme event like this becomes about a normal guy, an everyman, having to effectively run into a burning building or dive into water to save a kid. You don’t know if you can do it until that moment presents itself.”
Me + Richard Armitage 
The article also says “School’s out, and aside from the occasional faculty member, campus is deserted.” The newest trailer shows them all at graduation!
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Gary the math-teachin’ coach will become a hero, of course. That’s how he rolls. He’d just better stay alive, that’s all I can say! (Todd Garner, remember–I warned you!) 😉
I didn’t really know what he was supposed to teach, if I read it somewhere, I had forgotten it.
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The writers are really falling down, it’s the social studies teacher who coaches football. And Armitage does not have the build of a football coach. Unless he means soccer …
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I could see him as a basketball coach, too. Tall and rangy and those big hands . . . sigh Soccer is growing here in the US, that could be a possibility. Ha, here we seem to have a lot of history teachers who end up coaching, too. 😉
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At the school districts I’ve worked with, it’s often the high school math teacher who’s also the football coach. But then I’ve also met a couple of social studies/history teachers who also coached football. So either would work for me.
I’ve never met a high school English teacher who coached football, though.
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There was an English teacher/ coach at my high school. Actually, he was the AP Brit Lit teacher (and he was an asshole,) but he coached baseball, not football.
My Geometry teacher was one of the football coaches, though.
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I think this kind of thing happens a lot in the midwest–teachers are required to fill more than one slot to save on salaries.
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Actually, the headmaster where I taught a few years here had been an English teacher and high school football coach before he went into administration.
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Here we have teachers serving in multiple capacities, too—teaching, serving as asst. principals, coaching sports, cheerleading, yearbook, newspaper, club sponsors and so forth. They usually wear numerous hats, which is why the whole 8 to 3:30 work day thing is pretty much a crock.
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OK something I had a question about–why is the graduation apparently taking place during the day? I have never seen a high school graduation take place other than at night, barring some conditions forcing them to move it to a daytime hour.
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Our school (private), has graduation on the lawn in early evening (6:00) with plenty of daylight left to enjoy the ceremony without artificial lighting.
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Here the ceremonies start while there is still daylight, but it’s always dark by the time it’s over. Granted, it is dark by 8 p.m. here and that is not so in other parts of the country. I recall in western SD it didn’t get dark until after 9. And the three public schools and one private school here vary greatly in class size. Our heat and humidity factor also play a part—it’s not so stifling hot here in south Alabama for an outdoor event once the sun goes down. I guess what confuses me is I haven’t seen any footage of any action happening after dark, so—it made me assume the ceremony was not that late in the day . . . if everything else comes afterwards, that is. ??
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In western NY we have ceremonies all times of the day. My son’s was outside in the early evening. My niece had a daytime graduation on a Saturday. It all depends on the availability of a venue. Sunset was at 8:54 pm today.
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I should add all our public school graduations do typically take place outdoors in the football stadiums when the weather allows—one year when I was still working for the newspaper, we had monsoon rains all week and all the schools had to move theirs indoors, save one school, who had theirs under a big pavilion at Hank Williams Park (it holds more people than anywhere else in town). Our private school has always held their graduation ceremonies indoors (their field’s facilities aren’t ideal for such occasions) and are now held in one of the churches. I know traditions vary from place to place, the size of the school and availability of venues, and depending on what the climate is like. Because the football stadium of my alma mater holds more people than even the large h.s. auditorium holds, it’s always a big problem when they *can’t* hold the exercises there—that means everyone can’t necessarily attend.
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Yes, often in small towns too teachers have to be flexible and do more with small budgets. I mean my vice principal was just that and didn’t teach classes. True most football coaches are a bit larger but not always. He is a man who can do many things and possibly the type who volunteers. Living in the Midwest I’d say that he would be familiar with tornado season and how they work but in a situation like this everything changes. There are cases where there are multiple tornadoes and all but something like this where it would be an F5 at least all bets are off. You do what you have to do and often without thinking much about it until it is all over.
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I think that I needed my high school math teachers to look like Richard, many I would have got the subject better.
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Hm, but let’s talk about this:
“‘It struck me, this interaction between Allison and Gary,’ admits Wayne Callies. ‘Their story is the story about the ways in which strangers can become incredibly intimate with one another during a crisis.'”
Just how intimate? What are we going to get to see?
salacious eyebrows
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I hope very.
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Oh yes. Hopes have gone sky high.
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It seems that the interview took place during the shooting. Matt Walsh says : “Just yesterday we had to run through rain. ”
Since, some details may have changed.
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yeah, I think they did this at the time, and the stuff is being released now.
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In the UK and Australia the sports coaches have a reputation for being too stupid to teach ‘real’ subjects. So it seems a bit far fetched to me that poor old Gary could teach either maths or English.
with apologies to any sports teachers out there.. 😉
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TBH, there is that perception here in the US, too—the whole “dumb jock” stereotype, translating into coaches who aren’t all that bright, either. And actually, I have to admit I got pretty miffed when I saw my headmaster having to explain to one of the coaches—who made far more money than I did—how to do the report cards for his homeroom students.me It really did not require a rocket scientist, trust me. I found it both amusing and distressing when the same coach turned in physical education grades for students to me as a homeroom teacher—and some of those students either didn’t take PE or were no longer attending the school. *sigh*
All that being said, there *are* scholar athletes out there, and some of them become teachers and administrators. Our class’s valedictorian, a math whiz, was also a cheerleader and an outstanding athlete, and went on to become a teacher and coach.
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My geometry teacher was also quarterback on our CFL ( Canadian Football League) team. Math grad. Far from dumb. He continued post CFL career as a vice-principle and principal in the education system. A very strong personality, too. But not dumb.
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My brother-in-law taught social studies and coached football, wrestling and track. He is a smart, smart man and is now a vice principal. I don’t know a more dedicated teacher/man. His students frequently come back to see him. He lives in western NY State.
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I can’t find a date on this article, but it reads as if it was written while they were filming, with all the references to how the set, equipment etc. looks….. I found it interesting though, since I’ve not seen some of this information before.
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I was partially being obtuse — but the coincidence between history (social studies) and football coach is frequent enough in my experience that colleagues notice it, and also that sometimes when I ask a student why they don’t want to be a history teacher, they say, because I don’t want to coach football.
If he’d been a history teacher, of course, my standards for the film would have become even higher …
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