Sophomore Andrea Keklak entered the 2009 All-State meet as the top seed in a stacked 800 race. Keklak had defeated almost all of the top 800 runners the previous week in the Division 1 meet, which for the second year in a row provided virtually all of the top seeds.
When the gun went off the runners went out hard and Keklak was tripped up, causing a restart to the race. These early falls can have a couple of different kinds of affects on athletes. Sometimes it can benefit an athlete if they can keep their composure, as it spikes the adrenaline. For others it can offer a ready excuse, and excuses are dangerous when it starts to hurt later later in the race. Its easier to let go when there is a safety net to catch you, "I could have gone faster but [fill in the excuse]...".
Nobody would have blamed Andrea if she not run well, or at all, for this was no ordinary fall. As she fell she was inadvertantly kicked under the chin by the heel of another runner and suffered a mild concussion. However after being checked out by the meet trainers, she toed the line again. In the second lap she escaped from being boxed in, rounded the last curve, and took the lead in the homestretch before being caught by another impressive sophomore, Margo Gillis of Newton North, in the final meters, ending up in second. It was a gutty race.
But she wasn't done yet. The adrenaline could have carried her through the first race, but I'm sure her head was hurting quite a bit after she cooled down. Again she could have begged off, but she insisted to the trainer and her coach that she could still run, so she went out and anchored the LS 4x800 to their second consecutive All-State 4x800 title, holding off Newton South in the final straightaway.
The performance reminded me of a story I had heard about her in the stands a few months ago. I don't know how much it has been embellished (in fact I might embellish it myself for good measure), but its a good story regardless.
When Andrea was in middle school, the Keklaks were leaving some family event somewhere when Andrea and her little brother decided to race across the parking lot back to their family van. Her little brother, being two years younger, got a head start. Off they raced. The little brother, being a smart young lad, slowed in the final couple of steps to avoid crashing into the van. Not Andrea though - she ran full bore into the side of the van, bounced off, and slammed back onto the pavement, knocking herself cold and earning her first concussion while running.
She won of course.
It just goes to show how important the mental aspect is to this sport. Talent is useless if you can't take the pain. Running is hard work. It hurts. I'm sure all sports can argue how much effort and hard work go into their endeavors, but distance running is unencumbered by other distractions like putting the ball in the goal, or catching a pass. It is only about the effort. It is summed up by one of my favorite T-shirt slogans: "my sport is your sport's punishment".
When my daughter Emily was in sixth grade, she started running in a couple of youth meets. In her first outdoor 400 she won the race, finishing in 67 seconds. I had no idea whether that was fast or not back then, but it seemd pretty good to me. The next month she entered the New England Junior Olympics and her time from the earlier meet got her into the top section. It was our first experience with these meets, so we got there a little before the meet started, not realizing how long these JO youth meets take (the answer is "foooreeeverrrr"). There was a bigger crowd than I expected, especially given that the weather was much like it has been this June: 60 degrees and drizzling. Unfazed, Emily and I watched heats and heats of different events for a range of age groups. Little did I realize that Emily did not eat lunch, saying later that she was too nervous. When her event finally rolled around at 3 pm she had not eaten since 7:30 that morning. She also could hardly contain herself she was so excited.
The gun went off and Emily went out like she was shot from a cannon. She passed the first 200 in under 30 seconds and by the time she entered the home straightaway she was easily 30 meters ahead of the field. She started to tie up at that point, but with the lead she had she could jog in and win it.
And jog in she did. About 20 meters from the end she really started to bonk. And then she lost her balance and fell. The crowd was really getting into it now as the rest of the pack was quickly descending upon her. I remember one club coach she had never met was right next to the track yelling encouragement to her "Get up, you're almost there! Get up!". Emily immediately started to her feet again, but staggered a second time. However this time she stayed up, and wobbled across the finish line somewhere in the middle of other runners.
After the race, she felt sick and began vomiting. I remember stroking her hair as she lay on the bench next to the garbage can with her eyes closed, and thinking "well, she'll never want to run track again after this experience - I wonder what other sports she might like". Not only was she in physical discomfort, but had fallen in front of a large crowd - something that most sixth graders would magnify into some unbearable embarrasement.
But on the way home she was able to keep a bagel down and started to perk up. She sat up and looked over the back seat and said, "when's the next practice?".
And then I knew I had a runner.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Winning a State Championship
The 2009 Massachusetts All-State meet is two days away. Winning a state championship is a special feeling in any sport, and to commemorate the event I thought I'd reprint an article about the 2006 meet, in which LS won their first ever state track championship.
Magic
June 5, 2006
Freshman Sophia Romeri stood in the night air with the hopes of Lincoln-Sudbury's girls track team on her shoulders. The bulk of the crowd that had attended the All-State track meet had long since left, leaving the pole vaulters and their spectators, as well and L-S and Bromfield High School supporters and athletes, to witness the dramatic finish to the meet’s competition. For L-S to win, they needed at least a second place in the pole vault, and five girls had already cleared 10 feet, with Sophia down to her last jump at that height.
There was a touch of magic in the air all day long for the Lincoln-Sudbury girl's track team. The team was a long shot to win the team competition, as they were only able to qualify six athletes from the Class A meet: senior captain Fiona Romeri, four sophomores, and a freshman. The preliminary projections had them at 15th out of over 150 schools that had at least one athlete that had qualified. They had a chance, but everything had to go perfectly for the team to win. They needed a little magic.
Sophomore Emily Mepham set the tone as the first athlete from L-S to compete. The top eight finishers in an event score points on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale. As the eighth seed, Emily was projected to earn a single point. Instead she chose the biggest meet of the year to run a 2:17 personal record, holding off a Bromfield competitor for third place and a huge six points for the team. With those six points the hint of magic first tinged the air.
L-S next caught a break in the 400 as the top seed, Aranxta King of Medford, scratched from the event in order to concentrate on the triple jump and protect a balky hamstring. Sophomore Dana Jameison capitalized on this change and moved up from the fifth seed in the race and finished in fourth, earning the team another five points, increasing the team total to eleven.
And there it would stay until the end of the meet, as the only other events in which L-S was entered were the last two events of the day: the 4 by 400 relay and the pole vault. L-S watched and waited as DCL rivals Newton South and Acton Boxboro ran up points, as did Bridgewater-Rayhnam and Bromfield.
Bromfield placed second in the 4x800 relay to finish up their scoring for the day with 28 points, and a two point lead over the indoor state track champion Acton-Boxboro. L-S watched the next relay anxiously as Acton-Boxoboro toed the line, for A-B had the second seeded 4x100 team and was looking to put the meet out of reach. Magic struck again, however this time it was a dark magic. A-B’s Jill Crowley tragically pulled a hamstring during the race and A-B finished out of the running, dashing their title hopes and ending a brilliant afternoon for the A-B team.
Bromfield next had to worry about the 4x400 relay, as it featured the top seed Bridgewater-Rayhnam, and a win by B-R would have put them in first place by a point. Bromfield was unaware of the true danger, for L-S was nowhere on the leader board at that time. L-S had to make up 17 points in just two events to overtake Bromfield, and maybe more to defeat Bridgewater-Rayhnam. It was a tall order. The 4x400 relay team was seeded fifth, quite an accomplishment for a group of sophomores, but still a far cry from what was necessary for the title.
For the third time in the meet, the L-S girls exceeded expectations, and this time in a big way. Molly Binder had to give L-S a strong first leg for them to be in contention, and she delivered. Emily Mepham took the second leg and, in a surprise move by B-R, was running against B-R’s best runner, Mary Zolga, the third place finisher in the open 400. Emily handed the baton off solidly in second place, to Olivia Reed who held onto the strong second position, but by this time B-R had opened a gap between first and second. B-R, however, had already used its best runner in an earlier leg, while L-S had their strongest 400 runner, Dana Jameison, on the anchor.
Coming down the homestretch Jameison was quickly closing the gap, but she also had to contend with the open 400 first place finisher from Stoneham, Christine Izzicupo, who was by that time right on her shoulder in third place. In a heroic surge Dana held off the Stoneham runner and caught the B-R runner at the tape in the closest race of the day, winning by 4/100’s of a second over B-R, with Stoneham six tenths behind in third. Bridgewater-Rayhnam had to settle for
second, coming up one point short in their effort to overtake Bromfield. Four sophomores had won the state 4x400 relay title.
L-S now had 21 points, and needed 8 points in the pole vault to claim the title. The pole vault had been a strength of L-S all year, but the All-State meet was crowded with athletes who had jumped as high as the Romeri sisters, with personal bests at ten feet and over. Fiona Romeri, the senior who was the Class A pole vault champion and hero of Class A meet for L-S, had bowed out early at nine feet six inches.
So L-S’s hopes rested with Fiona’s freshman sister Sophia. With five competitors already over at ten feet and Sophia down to her last jump, those hopes were dwindling along with the evening light. The stadium lights had turned on, and a hush fell over the remaining crowd. The LS students held hands on the sideline as Sophia approached the bar – and cleared it to raucous applause.
This, however still left her in sixth place on the basis of having more misses at the last height cleared. Sophia, as the lowest remaining seed, led off at ten feet six inches. After all competitors missed their first attempts, Sophia nailed her second attempt and the L-S contingent burst into cheers. The remaining five competitors still had two chances to clear the height, and one by one they missed. And missed again.
There was a stunned pause as enormity of what had occurred sunk in, and then the night was punctuated by a cry of “Sophia!”, and the L-S crowd rushed to mob the freshman, and hoist her onto their shoulders. In a surreal setting, L-S celebrated late at night in a nearly empty stadium, receiving the State Championship trophy from the officials, reluctant to leave and have the moment vanish.
Lincoln-Sudbury had won the state title, with all of the points being scored by four sophomores and a freshman.
Magic.
Magic
June 5, 2006
Freshman Sophia Romeri stood in the night air with the hopes of Lincoln-Sudbury's girls track team on her shoulders. The bulk of the crowd that had attended the All-State track meet had long since left, leaving the pole vaulters and their spectators, as well and L-S and Bromfield High School supporters and athletes, to witness the dramatic finish to the meet’s competition. For L-S to win, they needed at least a second place in the pole vault, and five girls had already cleared 10 feet, with Sophia down to her last jump at that height.
There was a touch of magic in the air all day long for the Lincoln-Sudbury girl's track team. The team was a long shot to win the team competition, as they were only able to qualify six athletes from the Class A meet: senior captain Fiona Romeri, four sophomores, and a freshman. The preliminary projections had them at 15th out of over 150 schools that had at least one athlete that had qualified. They had a chance, but everything had to go perfectly for the team to win. They needed a little magic.
Sophomore Emily Mepham set the tone as the first athlete from L-S to compete. The top eight finishers in an event score points on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scale. As the eighth seed, Emily was projected to earn a single point. Instead she chose the biggest meet of the year to run a 2:17 personal record, holding off a Bromfield competitor for third place and a huge six points for the team. With those six points the hint of magic first tinged the air.
L-S next caught a break in the 400 as the top seed, Aranxta King of Medford, scratched from the event in order to concentrate on the triple jump and protect a balky hamstring. Sophomore Dana Jameison capitalized on this change and moved up from the fifth seed in the race and finished in fourth, earning the team another five points, increasing the team total to eleven.
And there it would stay until the end of the meet, as the only other events in which L-S was entered were the last two events of the day: the 4 by 400 relay and the pole vault. L-S watched and waited as DCL rivals Newton South and Acton Boxboro ran up points, as did Bridgewater-Rayhnam and Bromfield.
Bromfield placed second in the 4x800 relay to finish up their scoring for the day with 28 points, and a two point lead over the indoor state track champion Acton-Boxboro. L-S watched the next relay anxiously as Acton-Boxoboro toed the line, for A-B had the second seeded 4x100 team and was looking to put the meet out of reach. Magic struck again, however this time it was a dark magic. A-B’s Jill Crowley tragically pulled a hamstring during the race and A-B finished out of the running, dashing their title hopes and ending a brilliant afternoon for the A-B team.
Bromfield next had to worry about the 4x400 relay, as it featured the top seed Bridgewater-Rayhnam, and a win by B-R would have put them in first place by a point. Bromfield was unaware of the true danger, for L-S was nowhere on the leader board at that time. L-S had to make up 17 points in just two events to overtake Bromfield, and maybe more to defeat Bridgewater-Rayhnam. It was a tall order. The 4x400 relay team was seeded fifth, quite an accomplishment for a group of sophomores, but still a far cry from what was necessary for the title.
For the third time in the meet, the L-S girls exceeded expectations, and this time in a big way. Molly Binder had to give L-S a strong first leg for them to be in contention, and she delivered. Emily Mepham took the second leg and, in a surprise move by B-R, was running against B-R’s best runner, Mary Zolga, the third place finisher in the open 400. Emily handed the baton off solidly in second place, to Olivia Reed who held onto the strong second position, but by this time B-R had opened a gap between first and second. B-R, however, had already used its best runner in an earlier leg, while L-S had their strongest 400 runner, Dana Jameison, on the anchor.
Coming down the homestretch Jameison was quickly closing the gap, but she also had to contend with the open 400 first place finisher from Stoneham, Christine Izzicupo, who was by that time right on her shoulder in third place. In a heroic surge Dana held off the Stoneham runner and caught the B-R runner at the tape in the closest race of the day, winning by 4/100’s of a second over B-R, with Stoneham six tenths behind in third. Bridgewater-Rayhnam had to settle for
second, coming up one point short in their effort to overtake Bromfield. Four sophomores had won the state 4x400 relay title.
L-S now had 21 points, and needed 8 points in the pole vault to claim the title. The pole vault had been a strength of L-S all year, but the All-State meet was crowded with athletes who had jumped as high as the Romeri sisters, with personal bests at ten feet and over. Fiona Romeri, the senior who was the Class A pole vault champion and hero of Class A meet for L-S, had bowed out early at nine feet six inches.
So L-S’s hopes rested with Fiona’s freshman sister Sophia. With five competitors already over at ten feet and Sophia down to her last jump, those hopes were dwindling along with the evening light. The stadium lights had turned on, and a hush fell over the remaining crowd. The LS students held hands on the sideline as Sophia approached the bar – and cleared it to raucous applause.
This, however still left her in sixth place on the basis of having more misses at the last height cleared. Sophia, as the lowest remaining seed, led off at ten feet six inches. After all competitors missed their first attempts, Sophia nailed her second attempt and the L-S contingent burst into cheers. The remaining five competitors still had two chances to clear the height, and one by one they missed. And missed again.
There was a stunned pause as enormity of what had occurred sunk in, and then the night was punctuated by a cry of “Sophia!”, and the L-S crowd rushed to mob the freshman, and hoist her onto their shoulders. In a surreal setting, L-S celebrated late at night in a nearly empty stadium, receiving the State Championship trophy from the officials, reluctant to leave and have the moment vanish.
Lincoln-Sudbury had won the state title, with all of the points being scored by four sophomores and a freshman.
Magic.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
In contrast to the athletes I am attempting to cover, this has to be one of the slowest blogs ever, so I'm going to try and pick up the pace.
This past weekend was the Route 228 Freshman Sophomore meet. It normally has around twenty something teams competing, however this year the meet had over thirty teams competing. My guess is that some teams traded participation in the MSTCA large school meet for the Route 228 meet due to the distance involved in getting to Dennis-Yarmouth for the MSTCA meet.
I've always like the F/S meets because they give a glimpse of the future, especially for the boys as fewer Freshman and Sophomores can make a splash at the state level at a younger age. For the girls you may catch a preview of someone ready to make an impact right away.
LS in particular, and the Dual County League in general, showed a lot of promise at this year's meet. The team was led by Clay Russell, who took second in the 800 and then joined with teammates Dan Mepham, Yaras Loban, and Anderson Koenig for second place in an exciting 4x400 relay to cap off the meet. The boys team placed second in the 4x400 without anchor Jon Westling, who kept his 52.4 PR at home with him and his extracted wisdom teeth. Koenig, just a freshman, also placed sixth in the 400.
The girl's team continues to crank out the athletes. The team finished third in the overall scoring with 30.16 points and the DCL had four of the top seven teams at the meet including the meet winner Newton South with 36 points.
The girls accomplished their high placement without Andrea Keklak, she of the 5:03 mile and 95 foot javelin throw. Its a good bet that her presence would have netted a first in either the mile or two mile, and a placement in the javelin, which would have put the team well out in front in the team competition. LS was also without indoor star Madison Acton, one of the team's best long jumpers and 200 meter runners, who I believe has opted for lacrosse in the Spring.
There was still plenty of ammunition left however. Lauren Ready in the triple jump and the 4x4 team of Georges, Rudder, Ready, and Crowe had the highest finishes of the day, each taking second place. Marika Crowe took third in the 800 with a time that might have won in most years, followed by Emily Rudder in sixth place as LS continued its tradition of strength in the middle distances. Other placements were Caleigh Georges a close fifth in the 200, where she was less than a half second out of second place, Elizabeth Houle a fourth in the discus, and Leah Potter a tie for fourth in the High Jump.
As good as the showings were for LS and the other DCL teams, perhaps the most dominant performance ever occurred at the large school F/S meet in 2006. In that meet, against athletes from 30 other teams, LS won 7 of the 17 events, six of those in meet records, and had Binder not been outleaned at the finish in the 400 by .06 seconds, they would have won 8 events and had 7 meet records. They scored an astonishing 99 points in the meet!
The meet turned out to be prescient, as the team went on to win the State Relay meet, the D1 meet, and their first ever State Championship in Track and Field. In the all-state meet, all of the points were scored by four Sophomores and a Freshman.
The 2006 MSTCA Freshman/Sophomore meet points:
200 - Dana Jamieson - 1st in a meet record
400 - Molly Binder - 2nd (by .06)
800 - Emily Mepham - 1st in a meet record
mile - Jen Gossels - 2nd
mile - Rachel Potter - 6th
two mile - Hannah Ziobrowski - 2nd
two mile - Liz Albanese - 3rd
two mile - Barbara MacNeil - 6th
100 hurdles - Sophia Romeri - 1st
long jump - Dana Jamieson - 1st in a meet record
high jump - Sophia Romeri - 1st in a meet record
4x100 - 6th
4x400 - 1st in a meet record
4x800 - 1st in a meet record
This past weekend was the Route 228 Freshman Sophomore meet. It normally has around twenty something teams competing, however this year the meet had over thirty teams competing. My guess is that some teams traded participation in the MSTCA large school meet for the Route 228 meet due to the distance involved in getting to Dennis-Yarmouth for the MSTCA meet.
I've always like the F/S meets because they give a glimpse of the future, especially for the boys as fewer Freshman and Sophomores can make a splash at the state level at a younger age. For the girls you may catch a preview of someone ready to make an impact right away.
LS in particular, and the Dual County League in general, showed a lot of promise at this year's meet. The team was led by Clay Russell, who took second in the 800 and then joined with teammates Dan Mepham, Yaras Loban, and Anderson Koenig for second place in an exciting 4x400 relay to cap off the meet. The boys team placed second in the 4x400 without anchor Jon Westling, who kept his 52.4 PR at home with him and his extracted wisdom teeth. Koenig, just a freshman, also placed sixth in the 400.
The girl's team continues to crank out the athletes. The team finished third in the overall scoring with 30.16 points and the DCL had four of the top seven teams at the meet including the meet winner Newton South with 36 points.
The girls accomplished their high placement without Andrea Keklak, she of the 5:03 mile and 95 foot javelin throw. Its a good bet that her presence would have netted a first in either the mile or two mile, and a placement in the javelin, which would have put the team well out in front in the team competition. LS was also without indoor star Madison Acton, one of the team's best long jumpers and 200 meter runners, who I believe has opted for lacrosse in the Spring.
There was still plenty of ammunition left however. Lauren Ready in the triple jump and the 4x4 team of Georges, Rudder, Ready, and Crowe had the highest finishes of the day, each taking second place. Marika Crowe took third in the 800 with a time that might have won in most years, followed by Emily Rudder in sixth place as LS continued its tradition of strength in the middle distances. Other placements were Caleigh Georges a close fifth in the 200, where she was less than a half second out of second place, Elizabeth Houle a fourth in the discus, and Leah Potter a tie for fourth in the High Jump.
As good as the showings were for LS and the other DCL teams, perhaps the most dominant performance ever occurred at the large school F/S meet in 2006. In that meet, against athletes from 30 other teams, LS won 7 of the 17 events, six of those in meet records, and had Binder not been outleaned at the finish in the 400 by .06 seconds, they would have won 8 events and had 7 meet records. They scored an astonishing 99 points in the meet!
The meet turned out to be prescient, as the team went on to win the State Relay meet, the D1 meet, and their first ever State Championship in Track and Field. In the all-state meet, all of the points were scored by four Sophomores and a Freshman.
The 2006 MSTCA Freshman/Sophomore meet points:
200 - Dana Jamieson - 1st in a meet record
400 - Molly Binder - 2nd (by .06)
800 - Emily Mepham - 1st in a meet record
mile - Jen Gossels - 2nd
mile - Rachel Potter - 6th
two mile - Hannah Ziobrowski - 2nd
two mile - Liz Albanese - 3rd
two mile - Barbara MacNeil - 6th
100 hurdles - Sophia Romeri - 1st
long jump - Dana Jamieson - 1st in a meet record
high jump - Sophia Romeri - 1st in a meet record
4x100 - 6th
4x400 - 1st in a meet record
4x800 - 1st in a meet record
Monday, January 19, 2009
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
I thought this would be a relevant inaugural post for this blog on this inauguration day. The pursuit of happiness - those constitution writers really knew how to turn a phrase. I remember somewhere in the mid-40's, when the signs of aging start to take hold and one starts to become reflective, and that phrase, the pursuit of happiness, started to take on more meaning. What does life really boil down to? The pursuit of happiness.
What does this have to do with LS running? Let me start the long-winded process of tying this into this blog's theme. As a parent, it is hard to be happy if your children are not happy. Kids are all different so there is no single magic formula for making kids happy, but you have to make your best guesses. It also has to make them happy for life not just an afternoon, so leaving it up to a ten year old is probably not going to work (picture lots of video games and not much schoolwork, and donuts instead of vegetables).
People are happier if they are healthy, so something that promotes health would be a good ingredient for the happiness formula. Exercise promotes physical health. From what I have read, studies have shown that exercise also promotes emotional health and can reduce depression. One way for kids to get exercise is to participate in a team sport, and getting exercise as a byproduct of having fun is easier than getting exercise for exercise's sake. Except for cases where parents have gone off of the deep end (topic of another blog) team sports can be a lot of fun.
I have also read that teenagers who participate in team sports are bullied less and have less social issues. Yet another article showed a correlation between higher grades and participation in sports, and I would theorize that those that are more succesful in school will lead to more success later on in life, and its easier to be happy when relatively succesful than when not. So there you have it - participation is sports is a positive influence on physical health, emotional health, social acceptance, and success in school. It also helps to keep them out of trouble, at least they have less time to get into trouble. This is the line of logic I feed my kids, when in truth it may just make me happy to watch them.
At any rate, the rule in our house is that you have to do some sport - its their choice but they have to do something - ballet, basketball, swimming, whatever.
Which finally leads to Emily, my oldest. My favorite sport growing up was basketball, and when she was in sixth grade, for her winter activity, I wanted to sign her up for the local youth basketball league. Lot's of her friends were doing it. However, she wanted none of it, but she still had to pick a sport. It was the year after the Sydney Olympics and she had dreams of running in her head and asked to run in track meets during the winter. Having no clue about youth indoor track it took me a while to find the Liberty Athletic club, which is the oldest all women's track club in the United States, boasting former youth members such as Join Benoit Samuelson and Lynn Jennings, and they had a youth program. It was low key, just one practice a week, which was perfect for starting out.
And that was the genesis of one of the main pieces of the golden age of Lincoln-Sudbury girls track - Emily - who along with Dana Jamieson, Molly Binder, and several others led the program to four team state titles.
See, I told you we'd get there.
What does this have to do with LS running? Let me start the long-winded process of tying this into this blog's theme. As a parent, it is hard to be happy if your children are not happy. Kids are all different so there is no single magic formula for making kids happy, but you have to make your best guesses. It also has to make them happy for life not just an afternoon, so leaving it up to a ten year old is probably not going to work (picture lots of video games and not much schoolwork, and donuts instead of vegetables).
People are happier if they are healthy, so something that promotes health would be a good ingredient for the happiness formula. Exercise promotes physical health. From what I have read, studies have shown that exercise also promotes emotional health and can reduce depression. One way for kids to get exercise is to participate in a team sport, and getting exercise as a byproduct of having fun is easier than getting exercise for exercise's sake. Except for cases where parents have gone off of the deep end (topic of another blog) team sports can be a lot of fun.
I have also read that teenagers who participate in team sports are bullied less and have less social issues. Yet another article showed a correlation between higher grades and participation in sports, and I would theorize that those that are more succesful in school will lead to more success later on in life, and its easier to be happy when relatively succesful than when not. So there you have it - participation is sports is a positive influence on physical health, emotional health, social acceptance, and success in school. It also helps to keep them out of trouble, at least they have less time to get into trouble. This is the line of logic I feed my kids, when in truth it may just make me happy to watch them.
At any rate, the rule in our house is that you have to do some sport - its their choice but they have to do something - ballet, basketball, swimming, whatever.
Which finally leads to Emily, my oldest. My favorite sport growing up was basketball, and when she was in sixth grade, for her winter activity, I wanted to sign her up for the local youth basketball league. Lot's of her friends were doing it. However, she wanted none of it, but she still had to pick a sport. It was the year after the Sydney Olympics and she had dreams of running in her head and asked to run in track meets during the winter. Having no clue about youth indoor track it took me a while to find the Liberty Athletic club, which is the oldest all women's track club in the United States, boasting former youth members such as Join Benoit Samuelson and Lynn Jennings, and they had a youth program. It was low key, just one practice a week, which was perfect for starting out.
And that was the genesis of one of the main pieces of the golden age of Lincoln-Sudbury girls track - Emily - who along with Dana Jamieson, Molly Binder, and several others led the program to four team state titles.
See, I told you we'd get there.
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