About Me
I am in my 30th year of teaching. I have been at La Jolla High for twenty-two years. Before La Jolla, I taught at Scripps Ranch High School. I have been teaching history and coaching (boys and girls water polo, boys basketball, boys and girls swimming) since I began my career as a teacher. I currently teach five sections of Advanced Placement European. I am a GATE certified teacher and I hold a masters degree in education. I have led professional workshops at national conferences including the annual conferences for National Association of Social Sciences, the Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development and the California Association of Social Sciences. I have mentored student teachers as a master teacher for students from UCSD, SDSU, USD, National University and USIU. I was also one of sixteen teachers from across the United States chosen to participate in a six week workshop sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities which focused on Plato, Thucydides and Sophocles. I have traveled to Europe five times; as a tourist in 1987 I visited 13 countries, to Italy as a coach with the Twenty and Under National Water Polo Team for a month, and to Hungary two different times with our La Jolla High School boys water polo team. In the winter of 2018/19, I traveled to Denmark with my wife and son to meet our daughter who was studying abroad in Copenhagen. We toured for three weeks after meeting up with her to seven countries, 11 Cities, including Paris, Madrid, Florence, and Rome. I have also traveled to Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and several states throughout the United States. I truly love history and hope to impart a genuine intellectual curiosity on to my students.
As I mentioned, besides teaching I also coach water polo and swimming. I have been lucky enough to be involved with nine CIF Championships as a head coach, seven in swimming and two in water polo. Our Men's Swim Team has also won eleven City Championships over the last fifteen years. I was named the 2001 Development Coach of the Year by United States Water Polo and I was named the California High School Swim Coach of the Year in 1999 by the California High School Coaches Association. Most recently, I was named the California High School Water Polo Coach of the Year for 2018 and was one of three finalists for the National High School Coach of the Year for Water Polo. I had the opportunity to serve as a coach with the USA Men's Water Polo Twenty and Under National Team in 2002 and 2003 coaching the top 20 year old water polo players in the country where we traveled to Sicily and Naples and ended with our participation in the Junior World Championships. John Mann and Peter Varellas, both starters for the US Olympic Team in Rio 2016, were members of that junior team, as was Brian Alexander who is now the mental skills coach for the US National Team, works with several collegiate division I teams, and also works with our athletes here at La Jolla. Coaching has allowed me a great opportunity to be involved with students beyond the confines of the classroom and develop a more personal rapport with them which has proven to be of great personal benefit and growth to me and hopefully I have had a positive influence on a few kids along the way.
I also am the club adviser for a few clubs on campus and I volunteer to supervise at virtually every dance, as well as attend many music and theater events and a multitude of different athletic events. I try to do my best to let the students know that what they do on and around campus is important and matters.
I really enjoy exercising and have been racing triathlons and ultra marathons for several years. I have raced six Ironman distance triathlons, most recently I raced an Ironman in Couer d Alene, Idaho and an Ironman in Louisville, Kentucky. On my bicycle I have ridden in the Death Ride in Lake Tahoe (twice), which definitely lived up to it's billing. I have also run several ultra-marathons including the 135 mile Badwater Ultra in Death Valley where the temperature set new record highs at a 131 degrees, a 100 mile run in Riverside (three times), a 100 mile run in San Yacinto, a 100 miler in the high desert of Arizona, two 100 mile runs in Texas, and a race in the Grand Canyon that went from rim to rim to rim. The last five springs I have also run the Badwater 81 mile race from the Salton Sea, across the Borrego Desert, to the top of Palomar Mtn. I also ran the Badwater Cape Fear in North Carolina, a fifty mile run on Bald Head Island, which was mostly run in soft sand. I am most proud of running 100 miles on the track at LJHS fifteen times as an event to raise money for cancer research. As a three time cancer survivor, and with my wife's battle with breast cancer (she's as healthy as ever now!) any chance I get to race to raise money to fight this disease is something I look forward to. I have also done lots of work with the Challenged Athletes Foundation and the students will have a chance to hear about my work at CAF and have a chance to participate.
I am married, thirty years now, and I have two kids. Both of my kids went to LJHS. My daughter, Lexi, attended Brown University where she studied Public Health and played water polo for Brown all four years. She is working for a consulting company in New York City and living in Manhattan now. My son, Cole, just graduated from Brown University and he also played water polo all four years. His freshman year at Brown he was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Year and has earned All Eastern Conference Honors as well as making the All Academic Honor Roll. My wife, Utahna, is a teacher at Pacific Beach Elementary where she currently has a third grade class.
Links to media coverage of some of my fundraising efforts via running;
https://www.kusi.com/man-runs-more-than-100-miles-in-honor-of-those-impacted-by-cancer/
https://fox5sandiego.com/2019/06/05/la-jolla-high-coach-running-110-miles-for-cancer-research/
https://www.pancan.org/stories/survivors/moments-matter-tom-atwell/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6VhXPcXUBI
http://www.kusi.com/coach-runs-100-miles-for-american-cancer-societys-relay-for-life/