Students feel quake through Haitian coach

By Ralph Ellis

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Mendell Midy coaches basketball at the Epstein School. These days have found him coaching humanity too.

Students at the Jewish school in Sandy Springs witnessed the emotional roller coaster Haitians in the United States are riding after the earthquake that devastated their nation. Midy, who coaches several of the school's basketball teams, comes from Haiti and for several days, he didn’t know if his parents survived.

But he kept coaching despite the uncertainty. His players worried.

“I was scared because I had no idea what was happening with him,” said eighth-grader Jake Berne.

Two days after the quake, Midy discovered through a friend’s Facebook page that his parents survived. When he told his players at practice, they celebrated.

“To my surprise they were as happy as I was,” Midy said. “I was getting hugs left and right. It was like one of their parents or friends were alive. It was a happy family moment.”

Berne wasn’t at that practice, but felt a sense of elation.

“It was relief all over,” he said.

But suffering continues. Midy also learned several distant relatives had perished.

Ten days after the quake, Haitian storylines continue to play out around metropolitan Atlanta, which has responded to the disaster with financial, medical and humanitarian support. But in one small 600-student school just outside the Perimeter, the story has been made more real by a man in the gym

Midy, 29, of Lawrenceville, has lived in the Atlanta area about a year and a half. He grew up partly in a suburb of Port-au-Prince and partly in the United States. He works fulltime with a financial company in Alpharetta and was hired to coach this school year.

The school, which has students through the eighth grade, always raises money for global tragedies. Having Midy on campus “brought immediacy to the situation,” said Stan Beiner, head of school.

“It’s their coach worrying about his relatives,” Beiner said. “The kids were aware of his situation and very concerned about him.”

Kids in the early childhood programs will donate their charity collections to Haitian relief. Elementary students are making and selling “Hope for Haiti” bracelets.

Middle school students are holding fundraisers, such as hot chocolate mornings, and donating proceeds from a school dance.

Seventh-grader Alex Platt and his buddy, Ari Soran, already had a three-on-three basketball tournament planned for March 7 to go along with their bar mitzvahs.

“It’s customary to raise money for some sort of organization and give back as a Good Samaritan kind of thing,” Platt said.

When they heard about the earthquake, Platt and Soran decided to use the money for Haiti.

“Our school has always been the kind of school that reaches out,” Platt said.

Midy tried to concentrate on basketball with the students, but admitted the earthquake brought out complex emotions.

“Even when you get good news, you can’t enjoy it like you should because you expect bad news on the back end,” he said.

For him, that meant learning one of his father’s cousins and her children perished.

“These were people I knew,” he said. “Yes, they’re distant relatives, but they were people I hung out with.”

That kind of news has made him avoid watching television coverage of the quake because he’s “burned out on the images.”

For the moment, Midy said he has much to be grateful for. His parents are scheduled to fly to Atlanta this weekend for a visit. And an entire school is pulling for its basketball coach in Sandy Springs.