As I try to find a topic today, there are so many things that I want to write about, so many things that are on my mind, but I realize that I need to keep this post safe. I can’t write about a co-worker or 4, I can’t write about my feelings over my changed plans for today, I can’t write about how I feel about my daughter’s teacher being fired this week, my thoughts on how unfair high school sports and extra curricular activities have become, so many things on my mind that I want to write about, yet I will stick with something safe.
I instead will write about something good that I feel I can share. My daughter is on the high school volleyball team but never plays and is 15th out of 15. The other girls give her a hard time and are trying to get her to quit. However, her determination has paid off. The head coach for the past 38 years resigned earlier this year and they are conducting interviews tonight for the new coach. They needed to fill a couple of spots with players and decided not to go with the current varsity squad members but instead chose a couple of sophomores to sit in on the interviews. Her dedication to the sport, her never give up attitude caused them to choose her as one of the two student represantives instead of one of the starters on the team. This really helped the way she felt about sticking it out. They cut as a freshman and she made the cut there, basically because of her team spirit and never say die attitude, she has put up with the other girls harassing her for way to long (one of them since they were 3) and was leaning towards dropping out this year, but with a new coach coming in and now this honor she has decided to stick it out. I am proud of her for not letting them make her quit.
We need to get high school athletics in check. Kids can’t play unless their family had the money and time to put them on a travel leaque when they were in 2nd or 3rd grade, causing the family to spend a lot of money on uniforms, hotels, traveling, eating out every weekend and giving up family time. Too many coaches anymore are in it for their child’s glory. They coach and make their kid the star and the resign once their kids have graduated.
So much to be learned from athletics but are we making sure that our students are learning the right things from athletics and other extra curricular activities?
Musings of an old English teacher 
I hear you. We finally gave in and put our daughter on a travel team to play softball after she did not make the JV team. It is a competitive process too. She did not make the first travel team she tried out for. But we have to travel and play on weekends. I am worried about the amount of time it is going to take and also missing church. I want my daughter to go to college though and one route is athletics.
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I agree with you about wanting her to go to college, but missing church was one of the downfalls for us, plus my oldest didn’t want to be a typical athlete, she instead wanted to be a cheerleader. I watched my cousins put their son on a travel team for baseball and miss every single family even because they were on the road. He ended up getting Mr. Baseball for the state of Iowa his senior year and a college scholarship. Then he was injured, didn’t have the grades and had to drop out of college. He struggled to get a college education at that point. I have decided to push academics instead with my kids. Hoping it pays off for both.
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I’m in the same place today–so many things I want to write about, but can’t. I completely agree with you about kids and sports. My kids aren’t athletes–the remind of this a lot–and I was. But it was a whole different world when I was a kid.
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I ruled out almost everything that happened today, in favor of writing about my faithful cat. Who usually sleeps next to my keyboard while I write, but is out prowling around.
Personally, I think there are segments of American culture that have gone completely batty about sports. It is about something way beyond the games any more.
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