Phillips Exeter coach to share spiritual insights at Bates College

David Weber, English faculty member and cross-country track coach at Phillips Exeter Academy, will share spiritual truths discovered during three decades of coaching and teaching in his talk, Coaching the Heart: Coaching, Teaching, Writing and the Spiritual Path at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 24, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Avenue. The public is invited free of charge to attend this presentation, part of the series “Spiritual Journeys: Stories of the Soul 2003-04,” sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain. Call 207-786-8272 for more information.

Weber—a teacher and coach first, an activist second—claims that his best work has been accomplished by helping his teenage students to believe in the reality and value of their own stories, whether in the classroom or on the playing field.

In his coaching, Weber aims to ground the physical requirements of competitive distance running in a broader celebration of sports. His activism involves environmental issues and those linked to the cultural debates about sexual orientation. In his essays and poems, he tries to find a hedge against the loss of memory and to speak as he would aloud to a friendly listener.