Growing up and traveling in various countries including Portugal, Korea and Japan, new staff member G. Benjamin Myles chose to settle down in Cincinnati after hearing his wife’s praise of the city and schools.
“My wife was an alum. Graduated in 2004. My first date we ever had she said Cincinnati is amazing. It has a great school, Walnut Hills, but I’m like, ‘It’s our first date, who talks about their high school on the first date?’ But then when we finally moved here, I was like, okay, I get it now.” Myles said.
As a new coach and teacher at WHHS, Myles’ first step to support his students and athletes is to create a strong relationship with them.
“The first day I came [to practice] I was injured, so I came pretty late into the summer,” Leule Mesfin, ’24, student and athlete of Myles said. “But the first day I came he already knew my name. He said ‘I’m your APUSH teacher, I have to know you,’ but he does that for everybody.”
In the classroom, Myles pushes his students to think outside of the prompt and wants them to answer through their own unique perspectives. He also encourages his students to pay attention to all the content and explains how they can do well on the AP exam.
“He said as a joke that he’s known for giving students cramps from writing notes. He’s really punctual on the details, and I like that, it helps a lot,” Mesfin said. “He tells us all the time, the graders, they don’t know you, they don’t even see your name. They just see what you wrote. He wants us not to be good test takers, but to be good at describing our thoughts to the graders.”
Similar to his teaching, Myles tells his players to focus on the details and gives them weekly homework that works to strengthen that skill.
“They have to watch a film of our last or next opponent every weekend and break it down [to] what they did good, what they did bad, what another team did good, [and] what the other team did bad. It all starts with being intelligent,” Myles said.
Myles hopes to better the football team by incorporating WHHS’ greatest quality into their play.
“We’re the smartest school in the state of Ohio,” Myles said. “We never want to put that on the backburner of what we do. We have to make sure we’re being intelligent when we come on the field, and all we have to do is execute that intelligence.”
Myles also believes that a good and strong football team needs to be connected. To create that team atmosphere, Myles coordinated a 12 hour practice during the summer which included a speaker from the Cincinnati Bengals, breakfast on the field and bowling.
“We had this eagle rise and grind,” Leule said. “We came at midnight, and we had practice until like nine or 10 a.m. It was on Marx so we were able to see the sunrise over us, [and] then all the parents came and made pancakes for us. Afterwards we went bowling, and bowling was really nice because everyone was too tired to argue or anything, so we just had a lot of fun.”
As Myles continues to work hard, he is also grateful for all the support he has gotten from the WHHS staff.
“A lot of the teachers and the administration have been really helpful in helping me get myself through all the rooms and to the other sides of the building,” Myles said. “There’s been Mrs. Handshoe, who graduated with my wife. Mrs. Nolan, Mr. Cabral and Mr. Shaw, the other AP psychology teacher who taught my wife in 2003. Mitch in the APUSH department has been phenomenal. Mr. Chambers is great. This is a great place to work. It’s a great place to teach.”
Myles also gives his gratitude and appreciation to the Nuthouse who inspires him to do his best as the new head football coach.
“I’m beyond happy and passionate to be here and this is something I plan to do for a long time,” Myles said. “The Nuthouse is amazing. The first home game with Withroe, huge shout out to the Nuthouse. They are phenomenal…the band was awesome as well. Keep it up, and football will keep working to make them proud.”