Recognized For Achievements Before MLB’s Midsummer Classic
A Middle Village physical education teacher was honored before the first pitch as one of 30 All-Star Teachers selected from around the country at the Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star game in Minneapolis.
William Termine teaches grades four through eight at P.S./I.S. 87 in Middle Village, and was among 29 other teachers honored on the field during the Mid-Summer Classic Tuesday, July 15. Each of 30 MLB teams was attached to an All-Star Teacher selection. Termine, a Yankees fan, was the representative for the Bronx Bombers
With thousands of nominations from coming students around the country, Termine was honored to be recognized, he said. He has taught at the school since 1998 and is a lifelong Queens resident, all features that made him attractive for the selection, he believes.
“I think that’s part of why they liked my story so much, that I’m a local person,” Termine told the Times Newsweekly prior to his trip to Minnesota. “I think it’s a fantastic honor to be selected considering so many people were nominated. It’s an honor.”
Termine has lived in Middle Village “my whole life,” he said.
“I do a lot of things in the community,” he added
He works to promote positive actions through example by preaching patience and discipline to his kids at school, and in the neighborhood, he said.
As a Yankees fan, Termine said he was looking forward to stepping on the field at a real MLB yard, and hoped meet his favorite player, the retiring Derek Jeter a second time.
“Hopefully I will get to meet some players, but the but the biggest thrill is to be on the field and be honored,” he said.
He has met Jeter previously, but this time would be special “because this is his last year and his last All- Star game since he is retiring,” Termine said.
He has been involved in sports his whole life, he said, and credits this for his embrace of competition and the lessons he tries to impart to students.
“That’s what drove me to become a P.E. teacher,” he said.
He believes baseball and teaching are conspiratorial in educating young people to be patient, disciplined and in getting them to embrace structure, both on the field, and in the classroom.
“Probably that’s because it’s a slow moving game, it requires patience and it’s a thinking game,” he said.
Termine was selected as part of MLB, People magazine and Target’s effort to recognize teachers, and raise the profile of the importance of education, a press release noted.
