Noah Tarasi remembers where his athletic life began: seventh grade, football, Monmouth-Roseville Junior High School. He had always liked being active, but he started organized athletics relatively late. Once they started though, they multiplied! Football continued into high school alongside wrestling and track, making him a three-sport athlete by the time he graduated.

This fall, Tarasi added junior high football coach to his responsibilities, working with seventh- and eighth-graders in the same building where he first put on a uniform himself.

"I started coaching where I started my athletic journey," he said.

Tarasi's life has a lot of Monmouth circles in it. He grew up here, attended Monmouth-Roseville from beginning to end, graduated in 2019, and then went to Monmouth College.

"I've been in the school district my entire life," he said.

College was where the next part of his life came into focus. Tarasi didn't arrive with some lifelong conviction that he would become a teacher. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure what he wanted to do until an advisor noticed something.

"Hey, you're really good with kids, and you would make a great teacher."

Tarasi considered it. "You know what? You're right." That was pretty much it.

He chose physical education, graduated, and returned to Monmouth-Roseville. Now in his fourth year teaching PE, Tarasi works with second- and third-graders, introducing them to some of the same basic skills that once opened a world to him: throwing, catching, tumbling, volleyball, golf, even throwing a Frisbee.

"I like to cover everything," Tarasi said, "so they have at least a basic understanding of everything that could be coming their way."

That variety is intentional. Not every child loves football. Not every child wants to play basketball. Some may discover golf. Others might find volleyball or wrestling. Somewhere beyond the most familiar sports could be the activity that gets a child moving and keeps that child moving for years.

"It opens their eyes to all the different sports that there are," Tarasi said.

That is part of what makes physical education different from simply giving children time to run around. Recess is important, Tarasi believes, but PE provides structure. Students learn fundamental movement skills and how to use them, and just as importantly, they learn how to use those skills with other people.

"They work together a lot in PE, and they learn social skills."

Throwing a ball requires someone to catch it. A game requires rules. A team requires cooperation, and winning and losing both require a response. “Sports,” Tarasi said, are "a great social construct," creating opportunities to meet people, build relationships, and connect. And before any of that can happen, somebody has to teach the fundamentals.

"Their skills have to start somewhere," he said. For Tarasi, second and third grade is an ideal place.

He knows, of course, that most of his students will not become elite athletes. That isn't really the point. The greater hope is that they find something they enjoy enough to remain active. Tarasi understands the value of finding that connection because athletics became one of his own.

He also understands the value of finding a place that fits. For him, that place is Monmouth.

"My family. It's my community. It's where I've been my entire life," he said. "I know everyone around here. It's like a little family."

Some young adults grow up eager to leave their hometown and build something somewhere else. Tarasi never felt that pull. He had built relationships here, his family was here, his friends were here, and the small-town life suited him.

"I don't have a reason to start over," he said. "It's perfect for me."

Even coaching waited until the time felt right. When Tarasi began teaching, he deliberately resisted taking on too much, choosing to focus on becoming a good teacher first.

"Coaching was not my main priority when I came into teaching," he said. "My first priority was teaching the kids."

Four years in, he felt ready, and he went back to the junior high, back to football, back to seventh and eighth grade, back to the place where a seventh-grader named Noah Tarasi once discovered something that would become an important part of his life.

Now another kid gets to walk into that same building and try something new. Maybe it will be football. Maybe wrestling, golf, track, or volleyball. Maybe something nobody expects. Tarasi only knows that every kid deserves the chance to find it.

After all, their skills have to start somewhere.