Not a teacher. Not a coach. Not a single one of you.
A janitor named Hector Alvarez, who fixed my broken glasses with a screwdriver and told me I'd be alright.
So the program is his.
The Alvarez Initiative.
Because he saw a kid nobody else would, and that turned out to be worth more than everything the popular kids in this room have done in the ten years since."
Nobody laughed now.
A few people were crying.
Grant — the ringleader — stood up, and for a second I think everyone expected him to say something cruel, one last time.
Instead, he said, in a voice nobody had ever heard from him, "Daniel. I'm sorry. I've been sorry for years. I didn't know how to—"
"I know," Daniel said, not unkindly. "That's the eighty percent talking. It's okay, Grant. Do better with your own kids. That's the only apology that counts."
