Throughout his long teaching and coaching career, Duane Jourdeans always has known the power of positivity. Last summer, he was reminded that positivity pays.

That was when Justin Larson, a player on the Spring Valley High School Football team that Jourdeans positively coached to a Wisconsin state championship in 2000, made one last attempt to lure his former coach to Saint Thomas Academy. After trying for five years, the grit, persistence and positivity that Larson learned from Jourdeans finally resulted in player and coach reuniting.

“The last five years,” Jourdeans said, “whenever there was an opening, Justin would try to reel me in.”

Now the two are not only faculty colleagues but also fellow assistant football coaches. The entire Academy community is glad that worked out, and nobody is happier about it than Jourdeans himself.

“This is a great experience for me,” he said. “I’ve been coaching football and basketball my entire teaching career, so I’ve been around a lot of groups of men, but never experienced an all-boys classroom. I see the brotherhood there. I see guys pulling for each other, supporting each other. I see selflessness in the classroom and on the field.”

In both environments, Jourdeans strives to help his Cadets become better people, he said. “I’ve always been concerned with the types of husbands and fathers my students will be. I’m seeing that now as a lot of them, like Justin, are coaching with great success. I get emotional thinking about that.”

Teaching 9^th-grade Rhetorical Skills and a senior elective course titled “Film and Literature,” Jourdeans teaches his passions, such as Jaws and another suspenseful book/film, Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. “In the classroom, we work together,” he said. “We share ideas. Instead of my just telling them things, we keep it collaborative.”

And, no surprise, he keeps things positive. “I try to move people from a negative or neutral state to positive. I try every day to do positive priming. Sometimes that’s a video. Other times it’s asking them to name three things that went well in the last 24 hours or three things they’re grateful for.”

That’s been Jourdeans’ way since he was a three-sport high school athlete in Wisconsin, through his undergrad years as a two-sport athlete at UW-River Falls and while earning master’s degrees there and at St. Mary’s University, his seven years at Spring Valley, the next nine at Baldwin-Woodville High School, and the next four at St. Croix Central High School and as an adjunct professor at UW-Oshkosh.

All those years, Jourdeans also worked as a professional speaker under the brand Upward Spiral, which he co-created with his wife, Heather, who teaches at St. Croix Central. “We help leaders, educators, students, athletes, and parents maximize their potential through emotional intelligence and positive psychology strategies,” said Jourdeans, who also leads workshops in using sports as character education for the non-profit Positive Coaching Alliance.

In his few months at the Academy, Jourdeans has been impressed with the differences he notices in his peers and in the student body. “When we ask our football players what’s their mission, they answer in a way that lets me know they’re locked in on that mission. I don’t think that happens at every other school. They bring the same mentality to the classroom. And they’re grateful. I’ve only had a handful of kids over the years who ever said thanks. Here, most of the students thank me on their way out of the classroom every day.”