Defiance High School Student Changes Lives, Even after Death
By AMY McCARTY
FRN Managing Editor
If one student can make a difference, Scott Hammersmith has done just that.
Hammersmith took his own life in the spring of 2006 when he was a sophomore, however, in life and in death he touched the life of a man that will never forget him.
Varsity baseball coach and Defiance High School teacher Tom Held still remembers the day he heard the news.
“My doorbell rang following a baseball game,” he said. “A police officer said, ‘I’ve got some bad news coach. One of your players just took his life.’
“It was only an hour after the game”
Held still lights up when he talks of the former baseball standout, who would have been a senior this year.
“He was a great kid, from a great family,” he said. “He was an all-American boy, a good student and a good athlete.
“There was no warning no one had any idea. It was like the step over the line exercise, kids think others have perfect lives and have it together, but sometimes inside they are hurting.”
In the fall of 2006, Held saw an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show that talked about Challenge Day and he knew that the program needed to come to Defiance High School.
“I couldn’t get the program out of my mind,” he said. “I thought, ‘we need this in education.’”
Held and his assistant coach Rick Weaver began to implement some of the concepts of Challenge Day they picked-up from the program’s web-site, www.challengeday.org, with the baseball team. They used team building exercises at practices and encouraged the team to try to “Be The Change” by inviting students they didn’t know very well to eat lunch with them and reaching out to students who may be different from them.
“One day I was reviewing a video of the Oprah episode in my classroom shortly before the bell,” Held said. “Next thing I knew students were watching it.
“They didn’t get to see it all, but asked to watch it in full the next day.”
From there the idea of bringing Challenge Day to Defiance steam rolled. Fellow teacher Julie Brown and parents Heather Vittorio and Mary Weisgerber jumped quickly on board and the rest, as they say, is history.
According to Held, the reason the program is making history and changing lives is because of Hammersmith.
“I believe that God has a reason for everything,” Held said. “This is because of Scotty, it really is.
“Two years ago I wouldn’t have been doing this. I am not a touchy, feely person.”
But it takes just one person to be the change in the world and in life and death, for Held, that will always be Scott Hammersmith.
“That day, at that moment, I realized I am here for more than teaching and education,” he said. “I am here to make a big difference.
“I want to do more; I need to do more, for Scotty.”
Updated: 1/8/2008 11:12 PM