It’s way more than wins and losses
As rotten as the weather has been this week, I’m finding myself not so critical of it. Now don’t get me wrong, I would much rather cover athletic events when it’s 75 and sunny, but compared to last year at this time how can I complain about anything? Flowers are in bloom and so are high school sports.
My schedule this week looks like this: Monday- baseball game, Tuesday - track meet, Wednesday - tennis match, Thursday - track meet, Friday - tennis match, Saturday - baseball game. Love it! Mid-april last year my schedule went something like this: Monday - no events planned, what will I write about?; Tuesday - no events planned, will I have a job tomorrow?; Wednesday - no events planned, should I mow the lawn again?; Thursday - no events planned, should I just make stuff up?; Friday - no events planned, how long will this last?
Besides the fact that there are athletic events going on, two situations arose over the last two weeks that made my fulfilling job even more so and it had nothing to do with winning or losing, just the goodness found in people.
A helping hand
At the Laville track meet on Tuesday, I saw something I had never seen before and probably won’t see again. In the 110 high hurdles race, LV’S Alex Rice was narrowly winning with about three hurdles to go when the second place runner in the lane next to him hit a hurdle hard and fell down. To everyone’s amazement, Rice stopped and helped the fallen hurdler. Even more amazing, without any momentum now, both runners got over the next hurdle somehow, then finished the race. Rice still managed to end up winning the race too. In my book he was definitely the winner, but it wasn’t because he crossed the finish line first. It was because of his outstanding concern for another person.
Coach/team connection
The second situation involved a coach. No, this is not another story of a coach going overboard and yelling and screaming at somebody. Just the opposite. This coach, whose name won’t be divulged out of respect for him/ her, was talking to me after an event was complete and was tearing up while talking about his/her team. The coach felt so much pride for his/her athletes that it was emotional talking about the progress the team was making. Seeing the improvement that was taking place was having a profound effect This is not the first time a coach has choked up to me while talking about their team, just the most recent.
I don’t think the general public realizes how much coaches pour into their craft and those under their watch. I cannot think of one coach whose team’s I have covered that didn’t want the best for their players. Not necessarily more wins, but that they would become better people from their experiences in athletics.