She Knows

Last night, my daughter amazed me.  She showed me what an absolutely awesome young woman she is growing to be.  She showed maturity I didn't realize she had. 

Sara has been working so hard at volleyball.  Each year she has played she has grown so much as an athlete and her drive to keep improving is strong.  Her confidence in herself is growing as well as her insight to see what’s truly important.  I've watched her team lose every match in a tournament and then listened to her tell me that she was okay with it because she felt like her team played their best and supported each even when they were losing.  

She recently tried out for a higher level team.  She wanted to make this team so badly.  She did very well at tryouts.  She played her best and stayed positive and confident.  There were probably 10 players competing for the same position.  She took the Coach’s call in her room.  She came out smiling and said, “She said no” and she followed up with  “But she said I’ve really improved a lot in the short few weeks I've been training with her and to keep working.”  Wow!  I was ready for the “stay in my room and sob quietly into my pillow” reaction, heck I wanted to do that myself for her.  But instead I got a mature, see the big picture response.  She knew there were only so many spots.  She knew although she did her best and she was good, others were better.  She knows that she’s getting better every time she touches that ball and she WILL get to her goals and dreams with lots of effort and hard work.  And she knows she’s not going to give up.  

The Power of Positive

Sara’s last volleyball tournament was this past weekend.  It was the Regional Finals and they were playing awesome!  They’ve had a up and down kind of season.  Lose big, win, big, lose big win big, etc.  This was their last tournament and I know they wanted to go out with a bang!  They played hard and worked so well together.  They kept each other’s spirits up and they hung in there and won 1^st place!  I can’t tell you how proud we are of the whole team!!!

The Final Match was kind of difficult.  The referees had been pretty strict all day and had overruled the line judges on out of bounds calls many times.  In the final, this continued many times in our team’s favor.  The other team’s coach got very upset, arguing with the ref and even throwing her papers down.  The parents in the stands got into it too yelling at their girls things like, “watch out, you’re playing everyone today!”  It was all very negative.  The opposing team got frustrated and rattled, their level of play dropped and they lost.  

In the end, their coach told her team that the referees gave us the game.  At the awards ceremony, they received their medals first and all of our team and parents clapped and praised them.  But when Sara’s team got their awards, only a couple of their players and parents clapped.  And this behavior was duly noted by Sara and her teammates.

Now, the truth be told, these two teams were VERY well matched.  They had played each other earlier in the day with Sara’s team winning but in three fairly close sets.  So either team could have won the Final.  I have to wonder what the outcome would have been if the coach had handled the situation differently.  With a positive attitude and encouragement to move on and continue to play their best would they have persevered and won the final match?  I guess we’ll never know.  I pray one day they get to see what a positive attitude can bring them.  

He shoots.......he SCORES!!!!!!!!

Scott is an avid hockey fan. He loves to watch hockey with Daddy on TV and go to the games of our local NHL team. He’s been ice skating since last August and we think he’s pretty good. He’s also been taking hockey lessons since about the same time. He just started playing for real in the spring league. His hockey level is “mini-mite”—4 to 6 year olds. Most of the boys on the team played during the regular season which ran from October through March so they have experience and are quite good. Playing a real game is very different than passing the puck back and forth during practice. He doesn’t really understand the concepts of offense and defense. But he does what the coach tells him and he’s learning.

So Saturday’s game, I watched him drive the puck towards the goal several times only to lose control of it and miss the prize. Then it happened. The puck was loose behind the goal. Scott skated around behind the goal and hooked it around and in. It was beautiful!!!!! I was celebrating in the stands!! Daddy was celebrating on the bench!! Scott was celebrating on the ice!!! He was so proud of himself (as were we!)!!!

Talk about a boost of confidence!! He really threw himself into the game then—aggressively pursuing the puck and trying for another goal. But that would be the only one…….for THAT game!! Coach came to the locker room and presented him with the puck from his very first goal. Dad wrote his name and the date on it for him and it’s going into his treasure drawer.

I can’t wait to see where that sense of accomplishment and confidence takes him next game.