High School Sports...ahhh, the "Glory Days"

In many ways, athletics at my school seem to be a joke. I don’t coach, and honestly, I don’t think that I could because of the atmosphere surrounding athletics. Throughout this school year, our teams have proven to be mediocre at best. The students are all extremely athletic, but it seems that they let the athleticism get to their heads and there is no real improvement in the teams. Fundamentals in all the sports are sorely lacking and they are trying to get by on pure athleticism.

In the fall, the football team advanced to the first round of the playoffs before bowing out, but after watching the team’s performance, I think they qualified for the playoffs just because the other teams in the division were worse, not because we were much better. I saw several games this season, and all of them were riddled with turnovers poor decision making. I don’t know how many times I saw our punt returners try and return a punt that landed inside our own 10 yard line or how many ways our QB’s and RB’s managed to mishandle snaps and handoffs. I just thought that by the end of the year, many of these mental mistakes would be taken care of, and teams that are considered to be the best in their respective divisions just don’t make mistakes like that.

Also in the fall, the girls’ softball team’s season came to a screeching halt before the season even started when there was nobody hired to coach the team.

Winter, of course, brings with it the basketball season, which at this school was not a real source of pride. The boys’ team was a train wreck from the get-go, and at some point I think that just about every boy in the school was on the team. Kids came and went, some quit, some were dismissed, more came, and more quit or were dismissed, and finally the athletic director came up with a rule that if you quit a team, you could not participate in another school sport until the sport you quit finished its season. Thank goodness they did that or else I’m not sure we would have fielded a team for the post-season tournament since so many kids quit when track season started. After talking to several of the boys on the team, most were dissatisfied with the coach and how he yelled and made them run. On the court, the boys got murdalized in just about every game they played. The same mental mistakes that plagued the football team carried over into basketball season. Again, they were relying too much on their athleticism and not enough on fundamentals and organization.

The girls, however, had a fairly respectable season and seem to avoid many of the problems that they boys had…however, I must confess that I only saw two or three girls games this year.

In my mind, spring means one thing…baseball. I was so excited to go out and watch some baseball after school…was I ever let down. I went to one game and decided that was all the baseball I needed to see. I watched as our pitcher threw a no-hitter through four innings and the other pitcher had a two-hitter going. Now, you would think that this was some sort of a pitcher’s duel and a low-scoring affair. On the contrary, the score was 12-6. Most innings went like this: walk, walk, hit batter, wild pitch, walk, error on an infielder, strike out, walk, walk, error, walk, wild pitch, passed ball, strike out, thrown out stealing. After four innings it was time to leave before my head exploded.

We just started track season, and we seem to be doing really well so far…it’s too early to pass judgment just yet.

So, at my school, this is how athletics works. The coaches do a good job of keeping the kids in line, and they do a good job of helping other teachers with their athletes. The coaches that I have worked with have been extremely cooperative and supportive and there have been no shenanigans from them. Nobody complains, so I guess this year is just another year for our teams.