A Winning Life Coach

Jeff Eben, 45, has spent the past 20 years of his life working tirelessly with young people in the San Joaquin Valley, ten as principal at Fort Washington Elementary School and as a ground-breaking principal of a new high school, Clovis East High School, which serves more than 2,500 students.

During his years as a sports loving youngster growing up in La Cañada Flintridge, Eben’s original life plan was not to become a lauded and honored educator, author or motivational speaker. But fate intervened.

Eben attended La Cañada Elementary School and the former Foothill Intermediate School. One of four siblings, two older and one younger, Eben recalls he could look down from his home on Alta Canyada and see Descanso Gardens.

In the summer of 1973 though, his father Norrie Eben, head football coach at La Cañada High, and his mother decided to end their marriage

“It was a great summer between seventh and eighth grade. That was when the freeway was just completed and there was a party held on the freeway,” said Eben. “I also did community theater, the Wizard of Oz, and it was a big, huge thing where everyone came. But that summer, my parents separated and my older siblings were already on their own, so my brother and I went with my mom back to Fresno.”

In Fresno, Eben attended Clovis High School where he excelled as a football center. Then, on October 2, 1977, Eben went water skiing at Millerton Lake and hit a submerged rock, breaking his neck in three places. The accident left him a quadriplegic at age 16.

During his hospitalization he was visited by a Clovis High coach who posed a question, “How many wins have you had today?,” which would later become the title of Eben’s book.

“I thought he was kidding, because even he could see that I was in dire straits,” Eben said in his biography, recalling his coach’s question. “I ignored him, so he proceeded to make a list of all the things for which I could be thankful.”

Eben came to realize that concentrating on daily wins and living one day at a time would bring him what he was looking for, success in meeting his day-to-day goals.

He decided to major in journalism at Cal State Fresno and, utilizing a variety of creative techniques to aid him in his physical struggles, earned his degree. In 1986 he became a sixth-grade teacher at Fort Washington Elementary School in the Clovis Unified School District and, in a wheelchair, became an inspiration to students and staff alike. His goal was to meet challenges through common courtesy, common goals and mutual respect.

By 2005, Eben’s reputation earned him an offer to be principal of a new high school in Clovis. He relished the challenge. “I had a vision for the school: ‘Feel the Love.’ Centered around that concept we defined culturally a statement, a constitution which we put in each classroom with the involvement of student government.”

Eben’s concept for staff and students alike, of competence, connectiveness and compassion was so successful and well-received he began speaking publicly on the topic and authored his book. Recently retired, he now spends an average of two weeks a month speaking at various universities, including Oxford University, numerous school districts, at conferences and book signings.

Today, Eben lives in the Fresno area with his wife Michelle and children Jared and Noelle. He says he enjoys traveling back to the LCF area, where he still visits with former classmates.

(Write Eben atJeffEben@clovisusd.k12.ca.us; his website is www.jeffeben.com)