As I write this, our star golfers – Molly and Brooke and Lucas and Nicholas and then some – are probably choosing between a 3 and a 5 iron on #2. The baseball people are looking at scouting reports, wondering whether to pitch a lefty or a righty and do you stick with the breaking stuff on their cleanup hitter?
Girls' tennis and soccer and boys' track are walking easily except for those exam thingies – their state champ trophies sitting safely on the shelves. Medals clang around their necks, a ring sizer was passed around just this last Friday where all those eager fingers found their fit, wrote it on a sheet of paper, and quickly turned it in to the athletic director.
When you throw in all that's already happened, regardless of upcoming bogies and birdies, doubles in the gap and stealing baserunners, and add the graduation and all attached, not to mention the above state exams, being exhausted is perhaps the norm. I myself fell asleep on Saturday night and set the alarm for Monday.
Because I needed to.
Still, I spoke with Andrew Payne a couple days ago, and even though this conversation was about two basketball stars, it's still relevant to what's going on right now. At the time, it was King Caleb Wilson and Hailee Swain – both Mr. and Mrs. Basketball and both McDonald's All Americans from the SAME SCHOOL! OUR SCHOOL!
From Andrew: "This will never happen again." Not that it matters, but I agreed.
Still, it's 14 or so months later and my alarm has had to sound at odd hours because girls' soccer came through and then, 12 hours later girls tennis did, too and then, six hours later boys' track followed suit. Usually, this time of year is rather slow – a calm set in after most if not all of the finish lines have been crossed, second serves hopefully found the boxes, and corner kicks have seen their share of scoring hopefuls trying to tie the goalkeeper's neck in a Windsor knot.
Now, it's an Encore Ask if you will, as if to say – yes this has been great. And it may never happen again. But… it's not over yet.
I close saying that our area champ golfers and our region champ baseball players have already put an exclamation point on all this no matter where the ball lies – so to speak – or whether or not our hitters find the gaps.
After all, usually a school year may consist of one state title, maybe two on a banner year. And now, speaking of banners, athletic department's credit card is getting a hernia ordering such things, the ring manufacturer's phone number is on speed dial, but with the period not yet placed – the final numbers may not yet be final.
I close saying that I got here before Holy Innocents' became a known entity – it was a small place, formerly a K-8 where people did their time and ran off to other local schools. From 1992 when they put that big bear in the gym and invited the media out. To when boys' soccer won the first team state title and a skinny girl named Jenna Downey captured the first individual one in cross country.
I remember thinking how cool this was, and how maybe, just maybe, it'd be fun to hang the hat here, and just follow the arc of being a Golden Bear. And now, as I write this, my only thought is that how would I ever in my right mind want to be anywhere else.
Go Bears.
