Football Brings Optimism
August 18, 2021 at 12:36 a.m.
Football Brings Optimism
By Roger Grossman-
After talking with the Warsaw coaches and players, and talking with the people from Leo about the prospects of their seasons and remembering the things I had heard and read from other coaches in football and other sports over the preceding week, I realized I felt like I had been there before but I couldn’t place where. It was like meeting someone and knowing you know them, but not knowing their name or even where you’d met before.
About the time I got to State Road 205, it hit me.
The week before the fall sports season begins, which in the case of our local schools is also the first week of their school calendar, is a week of hope and optimism—and it’s the very same feeling we get in the spring.
Stay with me on this one.
We human beings, generally, crave structure. Some people more than others, and very few of us want it to dominate us 365 days a year. But a lot of us—even most of us—are comfortable living in our groove. And what that groove looks like for you looks very different than what mine or anyone else’s looks like. That’s ok!
The start of the school year for people ages newborn to 65 functions in that groove from the first day of school to the last day of school in May or June. Of course, as kids grow from preschool or elementary to middle school and so on, adjustments are needed.
But the rhythm of it is still the same, and even if it’s not perfect, it’s “us” and we learn to go with it.
From a sports standpoint, all of the sports teams—fall, winter and spring—have been working toward their stated goals. The first day of school is a mile marker on their path to their season or seasons.
And with that comes a level of excitement, and possibly some positive anxiety, about what is to come.
Everyone in the state has the same record, 0-0. No matter who’s back and who graduated and who moved to the next town over, there is a feeling of wonder that can only be matched by what we feel in spring time.
Baseball teams are the living embodiment of the optimism that spring brings with it. It throws us a tow line and drags us out of the snow-filled ditch of winter. It reminds us that God’s rotation of the seasons is a promise we can count on, even if we don’t know when spring will actually arrive.
The week leading up to that first real game or meet or match in August is special, because it is the signal of something more that’s coming.
I get asked a lot to predict what a high school team’s chances are in a specific game or for their season. In my younger years, I would answer those questions honestly. Not anymore.
I respond with this: “It’s impossible to predict what one teenager is going to do on any given day, now you want me to predict what 12, 20 or 65 teenagers will do today or tomorrow or any other day?”
To even try is foolishness.
But that is why the start of the fall sports season is so exciting. It’s hard telling how any of the kids on any of the teams will respond to the situations that arise. They are games played by imperfect human beings.
I remember growing up in Argos, and virtually every year I had to write a “What I did this summer” kind of report.
We see that report play out on the courts, fields and pitches at every school from Maine to Southern California.
It’s good to have fans back at 100-percent…still, be careful.
It’s good to see coaches’ faces again.
It’s good to have cooler temperatures. We will see the leaves begin their transformation from dark green to the colors of fall, and then stand under them as they waft down past your face pointed up to the heavens.
Sure, it’s also a reminder that these signs mean the cold and, uh, frozen precipitation (you know what I mean…I can’t bring myself to type the word) are just down our path.
But for right now, that doesn’t matter.
School is in session, and hope reigns.
After talking with the Warsaw coaches and players, and talking with the people from Leo about the prospects of their seasons and remembering the things I had heard and read from other coaches in football and other sports over the preceding week, I realized I felt like I had been there before but I couldn’t place where. It was like meeting someone and knowing you know them, but not knowing their name or even where you’d met before.
About the time I got to State Road 205, it hit me.
The week before the fall sports season begins, which in the case of our local schools is also the first week of their school calendar, is a week of hope and optimism—and it’s the very same feeling we get in the spring.
Stay with me on this one.
We human beings, generally, crave structure. Some people more than others, and very few of us want it to dominate us 365 days a year. But a lot of us—even most of us—are comfortable living in our groove. And what that groove looks like for you looks very different than what mine or anyone else’s looks like. That’s ok!
The start of the school year for people ages newborn to 65 functions in that groove from the first day of school to the last day of school in May or June. Of course, as kids grow from preschool or elementary to middle school and so on, adjustments are needed.
But the rhythm of it is still the same, and even if it’s not perfect, it’s “us” and we learn to go with it.
From a sports standpoint, all of the sports teams—fall, winter and spring—have been working toward their stated goals. The first day of school is a mile marker on their path to their season or seasons.
And with that comes a level of excitement, and possibly some positive anxiety, about what is to come.
Everyone in the state has the same record, 0-0. No matter who’s back and who graduated and who moved to the next town over, there is a feeling of wonder that can only be matched by what we feel in spring time.
Baseball teams are the living embodiment of the optimism that spring brings with it. It throws us a tow line and drags us out of the snow-filled ditch of winter. It reminds us that God’s rotation of the seasons is a promise we can count on, even if we don’t know when spring will actually arrive.
The week leading up to that first real game or meet or match in August is special, because it is the signal of something more that’s coming.
I get asked a lot to predict what a high school team’s chances are in a specific game or for their season. In my younger years, I would answer those questions honestly. Not anymore.
I respond with this: “It’s impossible to predict what one teenager is going to do on any given day, now you want me to predict what 12, 20 or 65 teenagers will do today or tomorrow or any other day?”
To even try is foolishness.
But that is why the start of the fall sports season is so exciting. It’s hard telling how any of the kids on any of the teams will respond to the situations that arise. They are games played by imperfect human beings.
I remember growing up in Argos, and virtually every year I had to write a “What I did this summer” kind of report.
We see that report play out on the courts, fields and pitches at every school from Maine to Southern California.
It’s good to have fans back at 100-percent…still, be careful.
It’s good to see coaches’ faces again.
It’s good to have cooler temperatures. We will see the leaves begin their transformation from dark green to the colors of fall, and then stand under them as they waft down past your face pointed up to the heavens.
Sure, it’s also a reminder that these signs mean the cold and, uh, frozen precipitation (you know what I mean…I can’t bring myself to type the word) are just down our path.
But for right now, that doesn’t matter.
School is in session, and hope reigns.
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