When I last blogged about track it was the beginning of the season. We had tryouts, training camp, and one practice meet. I was very encouraged about our performance at that practice meet. Well, the season ended up being one of the most rewarding and successful few months of my life. Our team did tremendously well. We only had four meets, but the kids excelled in all of them.
We went to Marshall Academy for our first meet. Marshall Academy has Varsity and Junior Varsity meets at the same time. We were in the JV division, but that also means that the other teams had 9th graders on their squads. We only had 7th and 8th graders. As a matter of fact, we only had 15 total kids. That didn't matter to us. We went out there against established programs and took 1st Place Overall! The most amazing part of our overall win was that we only had two girls! The team was very encouraged about the performance. We went back to Marshall Academy the next week against stiffer competition. We took 1st Place Boys JV for that meet. The kids were collecting individual and team ribbons, cheering for each other at the fences, and even encouraging the coaches at the meets. It was so good to establish that team rapport and coherence early in the season. Moreover, it was great to have two weeks of competitive meets before the biggest meet of the year at Oxford.
We went to the Oxford Relays Invitational for our third meet. There were a lot of good schools there with really good teams. It was all public schools, and there wasn't one weak team out of the eight. When we went to Oxford for the practice meet, we looked a little shabby--no spikes, old uniforms, no warmups. We got off the bus looking like a team this time. It definitely made a difference to go down to a big meet with big schools and look like a real squad. The kids were confident, and we had two first place showings under our belt at that point. Some of the kids who struggled at the earlier meets stepped up at this meet, and we posted some of our best times/distances of the season. We took 3rd Place Boys at the Oxford meet. We weren't happy about 3rd place, but we knew that we only finished behind Oxford and Lafayette--two well-established programs. The Oxford meet was a learning experience, and it gave us the fuel to train as hard as possible for our last meet at Coldwater.
We went to Coldwater with one goal in mind. We wanted to win every event, and guarantee a first place finish. There were some strong schools there, but we knew that we had seen the best already. We did tremendously well at the Coldwater meet, taking 1st Place Overall! We scored 93 total points in that meet. We dominated the individual events, especially the distance and throwing events.
At the awards day, I made sure to remind everyone that we had the best team on campus this year. Our kids worked tremendously hard. I took them through workouts that I did in college, and they stuck with me. With a practice plan in hand everyday, whistle and stopwatch around my neck, and parachute thrown over the shoulder, they knew that we were going to outwork every other middle school in Mississippi. I appreciate my kids. They're a special bunch. I hate that I will not have the opportunity to coach them next year. Whoever has the opportunity to coach them next year will be blessed with the chance to work with some truly exceptional kids. I appreciate what I learned from my athletes, and I hope they appreciated/learned something from me as well. Track season was amazing, and it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.....Never Get Outworked!
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