It’s ‘Attwition’ Season!
September 25, 2021 at 4:47 a.m.
It’s ‘Attwition’ Season!
By Chip Davenport-
Spoiler alert: each “wascal” dodges the literal and figurative bullets of attrition from Mr. Fudd’s shotgun, and the hunter gets his comeuppance, but he survives and advances along with Bugs and Daffy to their next animated adventure.
The beginning of the real fall season, not the scholastic sports fall season starting in the last full month of summer, reminds me only a handful of each sport’s protagonist and antagonist (depending on whom you root for I guess) will survive, advance, and hoist state championship hardware.
Fall began this week in an abrupt, blustery, wet manner quickly reminding me of the “season within each scholastic season” already in motion.
It’s attrition season.
Wait, in homage to Mr. Fudd, it’s “attwition” season.
Unlike the win-win… win outcome for Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Elmer Fudd attwition is going to happen… frequently throughout October.
Senior Night festivities, almost all of them in the books up to now, are a bittersweet reminder of the quick passage of each season of high school sports. Football will be the last sport to host a Senior Night in the next two-to-three weeks.
Attrition season is already upon us in the form of the girls’ golf regional match yesterday. We’ll see it continue Oct. 2 when one of seven Unified flag football teams competing at Fisher Field will hoist a sectional trophy. Cross country will begin its attwition the same weekend.
On we go to soccer, where boys’ and girls’ sides using tough September slates to prepare for their second season, survive and advance, one and done, pick your name for it. The October 4 through October 9 bloodletting will leave futbol fans with 48 sides remaining before they return to their regional pitches October 13.
It’s punctuated by volleyball (four survivors) and football (six survivors), whose postseasons finish in early November and Thanksgiving weekend respectively.
When I casually talk to some parents of senior football players about how quickly the season is completed, they understandably don’t want to be reminded.
This is a time for joy among a few athletes, and their fans, friends, and families among the season’s most memorable accomplishments. There is pain that must accompany the joy; the unwanted ending for them too, especially seniors who will never again don a uniform in their respective sports.
It’s fitting, in fall sports specifically, their end coincides with a period of weeks where trees’ leaves die, more quickly than we want, but beautifully, nonetheless.
I still look at a photo Jeff Van Houten took after the 2019 Warsaw Tiger football team’s regional loss to Merrillville, when the seniors pass through a line to say goodbye to coaches and teammates. There is a picture of defensive coordinator Kris Hueber’s big hand placed on top of my son’s helmet in a very paternal manner. It looks like no words were spoken, but the moment told their story.
I gave up asking Parker what was said between the two of them after the third or fourth attempt, long after the season passed. I’m glad it was caught by Van Houten’s masterful photography.
My son liked Coach Hueber’s way of weaving business and history into teaching and coaching, and associating business terms with rewards and continued hard work required to improve from the previous game’s performance.
A Nickelodeon cartoon, “The Fairy Oddparents,” had an episode where the lead character, a ten-year old boy named Timmy Turner, was granted his wish for every day to be Christmas. It was a well-written episode showing how miserable and oppressive this would be, along with the toll it took upon Santa and some of the fates other seasonal icons like leprechauns, and the Easter Bunny – to name a few – would suffer as Christmas steamrolled through the year.
I’ve thought of this cartoon episode to avoid the same perils.
Have I wished for a replay of to the days seeing and hearing my daughter sing in select chorale and perform in plays and musicals? Do I wish I could watch selected tranches of her decade of dance recitals one more time?
Yes.
Much like my experience of parenting a two-sport athlete, I scooted up and down the camel humps, the buildup and aftermath of seasonal performances through the timeline of a child in preforming arts.
“So, cartoons are the basis for Chip’s conventional wisdom,” you say or think to yourself this autumn Saturday. Guilty as charged.
Enjoy the beauty of your athlete’s surviving and advancing as far as they possibly can and be delighted by the possibilities that await them after the sad but necessary end of their season’s run.
After all, It’s attwition season you wascals.
Spoiler alert: each “wascal” dodges the literal and figurative bullets of attrition from Mr. Fudd’s shotgun, and the hunter gets his comeuppance, but he survives and advances along with Bugs and Daffy to their next animated adventure.
The beginning of the real fall season, not the scholastic sports fall season starting in the last full month of summer, reminds me only a handful of each sport’s protagonist and antagonist (depending on whom you root for I guess) will survive, advance, and hoist state championship hardware.
Fall began this week in an abrupt, blustery, wet manner quickly reminding me of the “season within each scholastic season” already in motion.
It’s attrition season.
Wait, in homage to Mr. Fudd, it’s “attwition” season.
Unlike the win-win… win outcome for Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Elmer Fudd attwition is going to happen… frequently throughout October.
Senior Night festivities, almost all of them in the books up to now, are a bittersweet reminder of the quick passage of each season of high school sports. Football will be the last sport to host a Senior Night in the next two-to-three weeks.
Attrition season is already upon us in the form of the girls’ golf regional match yesterday. We’ll see it continue Oct. 2 when one of seven Unified flag football teams competing at Fisher Field will hoist a sectional trophy. Cross country will begin its attwition the same weekend.
On we go to soccer, where boys’ and girls’ sides using tough September slates to prepare for their second season, survive and advance, one and done, pick your name for it. The October 4 through October 9 bloodletting will leave futbol fans with 48 sides remaining before they return to their regional pitches October 13.
It’s punctuated by volleyball (four survivors) and football (six survivors), whose postseasons finish in early November and Thanksgiving weekend respectively.
When I casually talk to some parents of senior football players about how quickly the season is completed, they understandably don’t want to be reminded.
This is a time for joy among a few athletes, and their fans, friends, and families among the season’s most memorable accomplishments. There is pain that must accompany the joy; the unwanted ending for them too, especially seniors who will never again don a uniform in their respective sports.
It’s fitting, in fall sports specifically, their end coincides with a period of weeks where trees’ leaves die, more quickly than we want, but beautifully, nonetheless.
I still look at a photo Jeff Van Houten took after the 2019 Warsaw Tiger football team’s regional loss to Merrillville, when the seniors pass through a line to say goodbye to coaches and teammates. There is a picture of defensive coordinator Kris Hueber’s big hand placed on top of my son’s helmet in a very paternal manner. It looks like no words were spoken, but the moment told their story.
I gave up asking Parker what was said between the two of them after the third or fourth attempt, long after the season passed. I’m glad it was caught by Van Houten’s masterful photography.
My son liked Coach Hueber’s way of weaving business and history into teaching and coaching, and associating business terms with rewards and continued hard work required to improve from the previous game’s performance.
A Nickelodeon cartoon, “The Fairy Oddparents,” had an episode where the lead character, a ten-year old boy named Timmy Turner, was granted his wish for every day to be Christmas. It was a well-written episode showing how miserable and oppressive this would be, along with the toll it took upon Santa and some of the fates other seasonal icons like leprechauns, and the Easter Bunny – to name a few – would suffer as Christmas steamrolled through the year.
I’ve thought of this cartoon episode to avoid the same perils.
Have I wished for a replay of to the days seeing and hearing my daughter sing in select chorale and perform in plays and musicals? Do I wish I could watch selected tranches of her decade of dance recitals one more time?
Yes.
Much like my experience of parenting a two-sport athlete, I scooted up and down the camel humps, the buildup and aftermath of seasonal performances through the timeline of a child in preforming arts.
“So, cartoons are the basis for Chip’s conventional wisdom,” you say or think to yourself this autumn Saturday. Guilty as charged.
Enjoy the beauty of your athlete’s surviving and advancing as far as they possibly can and be delighted by the possibilities that await them after the sad but necessary end of their season’s run.
After all, It’s attwition season you wascals.
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