Stripling, Maton has learned from fellow teachers, is a mix of Anglo, black, Hispanic and Asian students, more than half of them poor, with all the financial, language and other challenges of an urban district. Despite all that, Maton said he is sure he has more in common with his students than it appears. I come from a nontraditional family myself. I know what motivates kids. Reared by his maternal grandparents since he was 3, Maton is somewhat distant from his divorced mother and father, though he has been getting closer to his mother in recent years.
Every kid has choices.
I know the right and wrong ones because I've had to make them. I very easily could have made the wrong ones. Maton's grandmother Joyce Beaver said she is, in a way, glad he gave up football for teaching. The last time she saw him play, during his senior year of college, he broke his leg. She always believed that teaching and coaching would be a good fit for him, and that he could make a difference with young kids.