‘Be Good, Be Kind, Work Hard, Be Humble’

Aaron Davidson

Every day, before Aaron Davidson walked out the door to go to work, he would say the same thing to his young son, Nolan: “Be good. Be nice. Work hard, Be humble.” Then they’d hug and Aaron would head off to his job as a PE teacher and track and cross country coach at Blue Valley West High School.

Nolan would return to the highlights he was watching from the previous night’s sporting events.

That’s not an unusual story, until you realize that the tradition started when Nolan was in kindergarten. Nolan had been sent to the “time out wall” after an incident with another student, and Aaron wanted to remind his son how to behave in school and on the playing field.

“It was like a daily reminder of how you act at school,” Aaron remembered. “If you do these things, you’re gonna be good.”

Those daily encounters are what Aaron misses the most since Nolan’s death last fall from injuries sustained in a car accident. Their car was hit by a drunk driver as they were going from one of Nolan’s games to watch a high school basketball game. Nolan never regained consciousness and died at Kansas City’s Children’s Mercy Hospital seven days later.