Chip Shots: No More Pellets

Fall sports are at varied stages of their postseason run, trophy games. 

Girls’ golfers reached their state title two-day match two weeks ago. 

Times-Union area soccer sides had all turned in their kits last Monday morning, but not before sides from Warsaw (boys, girls Class 3A), Manchester (girls 1A), and Lakeland Christian Academy (boys, 1A) reached their respective sectional title matches.

Soccer sides around the state surviving the postseason grind woke up this morning to compete in their regional finals matches. After this past week’s regional semifinals, soccer, along with volleyball and cross country where Saturday will be the only day of the week with any action hereafter.

Volleyball and cross-country teams (and/or individuals for the latter) are competing today with the goal of putting on gear for one more Monday.

Football will continue its traditional punctuation of fall scholastic sports season the Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving. The journey to Lucas Oil Stadium requires five wins for IHSAA football Classes 1A-4A (and two teams from Classes 5A-6A).

Each week 50% of the teams competing on the gridiron this coming Friday must turn in their equipment Monday, October 26. Since football teams comprise by far the greatest number of athletes dressing among the aforementioned sports, the weekly attrition affects a greater population of student athletes than the other sports.

Regardless of being a lone golfer or cross-country runner who must make his or her exit in the initial sectional rounds, this hits all of these kids in each sport hard, especially the seniors.

Soccer and American football athletes come to mind for me when I think about pellets. 

I’m talking about the field turf pellets parents and athletes who must clean their bathrooms and breezeways found throughout preseason, regular season, and postseason practices and contests.

I was privileged and honored to receive (and – of course – ACCEPT) the honor of speaking at the Warsaw Tiger football game day inspiration Friday morning, October 2. This was the morning senior gridders were beginning to wrap their heads around their Senior Night contest versus Plymouth.

Head Coach Bart Curtis invited football dads, grandfathers, adult male significant others, and even some mothers and grandmothers. He encouraged me to talk about being a Warsaw Tiger football dad.

There were varied directions my talk moved but I said the word “pellets” three times and asked my gracious audience to keep this word in mind while I bounced around discussing other experiences as a football dad.

I looked up at the clock at the clock at the Warsaw High School Performing Arts Center (PAC) realizing I had two minutes before a 7:47 a.m. hard stop that Friday morning.

I told them the season ends quickly for almost every team, and how that 2019 team advanced to the regionals, so there were more Mondays they returned to the locker room than any previous Tiger squad.

And the pellets were there needing to be swept from the bathroom floors and tub/shower services where – in each of our homes - our kids cleaned up after practice.

Until they didn’t.

I explained, with a very brief lump in my throat, that as a senior dad, one early evening I went into the bathroom where my son usually shed his pellets only to find…

…no pellets.

No pellets.

Soccer families with a senior athlete in the Times-Union readership area already experienced this sudden, heart-sinking observation during this most recent completed week.

Senior football families, whether it will be the school week starting Monday October 26 or the week after Thanksgiving, know in your hearts this entire readership area is chock-full of family members who’ve already – or will sooner or later over the next five weeks – have this feeling hit home, and hit hard.

I’ve had no dog in the fight for seven calendar years. I still miss seeing him play, especially when I’m reading the Senior Night scripts of more than 40 marching band members, and football players each fall season.

I’d relive Friday Night Lights and Saturday morning JV games when my son played without reservation, but the downside of continued trips down Memory Lane also clouds the forward-looking mindset I maintain in almost all other aspects of my life.

You folks who know what I felt without dogs in the fight over the years, look and think forward when you see a senior parent in soccer or football who will never have to clean up another turf pellet in their home. Give that parent a hearty squeeze.

I’m announcing for numerous institutions these days along with my football Tigers and rooting for my Ohio State Buckeyes football squads each season, but I’ll never  - thanks to the wonderful memories my son, his teammates, and all you senior athletes through the ensuing years have given me… US… on Fisher Field – NEVER love any other sport/brand more than I love Warsaw Tiger football.

I carry that feeling years after it already occurred to me there will be no more pellets in my home.