James Massey teaches history and advanced U.S. History to 11th-graders at Mount de Sales Academy in Macon.  He also teaches elective courses on the Civil War and World War II to juniors and seniors and works as an adjunct professor at Macon State College. He teaches U.S. History at the college. Teaching has been part of Massey’s life for the past 22 years and he continues to enjoy it.
 
“I really got into teaching primarily to coach football,” says Massey. “But I found my niche in life as a teacher. I still coach but I definitely enjoy the teaching more than I do the coaching.” Massey had two dreams: to write sports stories for a newspaper and to coach.  He was able to do both.  He worked for the sports section at the Union Recorder newspaper in Milledgeville for five years and says the experience was rewarding.  “I loved it!” Massey remarks. “I loved the deadline pressure, I was two years as a sports writer and three years as the sports editor and I really, really enjoyed it….all of the pressure and all of the [duties] of covering different sports and being able to cover Georgia and Georgia Tech and the Falcons and the Braves, it was just a lot of fun.”
 
Massey met assistant coach, Bruce Wayne from Milledgeville, who had accepted the head football coach position at Monroe Academy in Forsyth and invited Massey to come along.  “I jumped at the opportunity and I’ve been teaching ever since,” says Massey. Teaching has had a profound impact on his life. “It enables me to stay in touch with what’s going on in…”says Massey. “As a teacher, you really need to pay attention to what’s going on, politics, economics, and sociology - that really challenges you to stay abreast of what’s going on in the world.”
 
Besides wanting to write about sports, the dream of coaching also became a reality in Massey’s life. “I’ve been really fortunate… this is my fourth different school,” says Massey. “I’ve been coaching football for 20 years and my passion is basketball. I was a head basketball coach for 10 years at three different schools and picked up whatever spring sport they wanted me to pick up at the time.” Massey says he enjoys the level of competition in sports and making sure his team performs optimally every night. “I enjoyed the competition as a kid and it’s just something you never outgrow,” he says.
 
Currently, Massey is the assistant football coach and the assistant baseball coach at Mount de Sales Academy. His three daughters still attend school.  21 year old Katherine is majoring in marketing at Macon State College; Ashley, 15, is a sophomore at Mount de Sales; and 13 year old Jamie is an eighth-grader at Mount de Sales.   Massey says he took a break from coaching years ago, so he could spend more time with his family.  Balancing family life with teaching and coaching can be challenging, but Massey believes that Mount de Sales has taught his daughters and himself the importance of giving back to the community.
 
“De Sales is a school that really emphasizes community service and service education, “says Massey. “…just the example of being someone that’s there to help someone, I’d like to think I taught that lesson of giving back.”  At Mount de Sales, students are required to do 20 hours of community service. “They go the extra mile to make community service part of the curriculum,” says Massey. “We challenge our kids to be a part of figuring out problems; to think if they work at something, they can make it better.”  Students enjoy speakers from around the world, including hearing from a child who experienced a tsunami.  
 
This is Massey’s 10th year at Mount de Sales and recently, he was nominated as the STAR teacher of the year by his student, Maxine Anderson. She attributes her success to Massey. “I feel very special in that regard, to be singled out,” he says. “It means the world to me.”