There’s no job more suited to the lifestyle of a GAA player than a primary school teacher.
Their working day starts at 9:00 and finishes at 3:00. They’ve the whole summer off.
What more could a GAA player want?
Of course, teachers will have to put in some work outside of these school hours, and dealing with children can be difficult at times, but for the most part, it couldn’t be any more suited to the schedule of a GAA player.
A teacher should never really have to miss training or a match because of work, seeing as the working day finishes at 3:00.
It’s easy for a teacher to plan way ahead in advance, because their working hours never change, barring a staff or a parent-teacher meeting.
Being a GAA player, depending on your level of committment, is time-consuming, and the lifestyle of a teacher provides a GAA player with all the time they could possibly need to prepare in the best manner possible.
A teacher has loads of time to fit gym sessions in, to prepare food, to relax during the summer months, to do all the things that people in other professions might struggle to get the time to do.
Tyrone star Tiernan McCann was speaking on The GAA Hour Show on Monday, and he spoke of his jealousy at the amount of free time his father gets as a teacher.
Host Colm Parkinson asked McCann about the role his father has on his gaelic football career, and the half back revealed his envy at the teacher lifestyle.
“He would be, aye, if he’s not on his holidays in Portugal. He only came back there the other day, he’s a teacher so I’m very jealous of the teachers.”
Many of his team-mates are also teachers, and he, as a pharmacist looks on to his peers thinking, wouldn’t it be grand to have all that time to prepare.
“I’m very jealous of all my friends who are teachers, especially this time of the year when they’ve loads of time off,” said the Killyclogher St. Mary’s club man.
It’s no wonder, then, that a host of GAA players are teachers. Take, the teacher training college of St. Pats Drumcondra which has produced many great GAA players such as Cillian O’Connor, Cormac Costello and Ciaran Kilkenny in recent times.
Mary Immaculate in Limerick won the Fitzgibbon Cup hurling competition for the last two years, with inter-county stars Cian Lynch, Ronan Maher and many others going down that path.
You wouldn’t blame them.
You can listen to this from 25″00′, and much more from The GAA Hour Show here.
