PEA RIDGE — Although Pea Ridge sports teams do not officially begin practice for the 2012-2013 sports seasons until July, lots of local athletes are already logging many hours of preparation in anticipation of the new school year.
Football players have been putting in time in offseason conditioning and all that entails, as well as competing in 7 on 7 football competition. The final 7 on 7 games will be this coming Monday night in Gravette.
While I haven’t had the chance to attend the other games, I do hear they are doing well as they bested Springdale High School in one of the earlier matchups.There are 65 candidates hoping to be on this year’s roster, with over half of them regularly attending off-season workouts.
This year’s gridiron ’Hawks have the most experienced team that I have seen in my 14 years in the school district. Along with the experience, the Blackhawks have talented players in key positions. The 2012 schedule couldn’t be better as a run up to earning a high seed into the 2012 state playoffs. The parts are all there for a memorable campaign.
The girls’ cross country team members have been preparing to make a run at a possible state championship this season. They were a surprise runner-up finisher at the 2011 state championships, with only a single point separating them from a No. 1 finish. With the defending state champion De-Queen squad moving up to 5A this year, it looks like the top two teams on paper will be the Lady ’Hawks and the girls from Heber Springs.
Of course, paper doesn’t win championships and the 2012 winner will be the team that works the hardest to get there.
Though still in the building mode, Pea Ridge varsity volleyballers hope to make a serious run at success this year. With several now veteran juniors in the mix with a host of sophomores fresh from a highly successful junior high season, the Lady ’Hawks have a legitimate shot at making the playoffs and making a decent run. In only their third year of having a varsity program, the locals made great strides last year.
Next month, on the Friday evening preceding the start of the football schedule, athletes and fans will gather for the annual Pride Night at Blackhawk Stadium. It could be describedas Pride and Recognition Night just as easily, as all athletes, including cheerleaders, will be honored and encouraged before embarking on their various venues to bring honor and pride to both themselves and also to their community.
Pride can be a two-edged sword as I have seen in my many years as an athlete, coach and observer. The pride to be sought is the pride successful teams have, the pride that puts team ahead of self. We hope each and every player has the best year he or she can have, but not to the exclusion of the major goals of the organization. I have coached and observed athletes who were happy if they were the leading scorer, or had the best stats, and were not particularly saddened if their team lost so long as the playerin question looked good.
Those students’ life trajectories rarely take them to a good place.
The “good” kind of pride is gained by athletes knowing that they did everything possible to be as good as he/she could be. The right kind of pride seeks to help teammates play better, and proper pride will prevent said athletes from doing or saying things that shine a negative light on their team or community. School teams from small towns can color what folks from other places think about their community, be it good or bad.
Everyone likes recognition when they do well, and recognition is a major factor in continued improvement in whatever humans endeavor to do. No matter how young or how old, having ones’ name in the newspaper for reasons of achievement is always a great motivator.
It is incumbent on us as a community, whether as a school or town, to recognize and encourage our students for the efforts they makein whatever activity they choose to do. It is not just coincidental that most of the leaders of our country in any venue you can name, came from small schools. It is also not just coincidental that most of folks locked away in our nations’ prisons attended large or city schools.
Forty years ago, when federal law Title IX began, only a scant small percentage of our nation’s business, economic or educational leaders were women. Today, about half the folks earning higher degrees are females with a large and growing percentage of women taking leadership roles in about every area. This fall, over 40 women are vying for election to state offices. That is a huge leap from not that long ago.
For the uninitiated, Title IX meant that girls had to have the same opportunities for athletics and similar activities as did boys in the public schools. Athletics, properly administered, helps those participating develop character, leadership, physical fitness and aknowledge of the need for and importance of team work. These are all traits of a successful person no matter what the career the individual may embark on post schooling.
Unheralded ’Hawks Heralded
With Dayton Winn the only back from the 4A-1 Conference to be named a pre-season All-State player, there were four other Blackhawks to receive mention in Hooten’s 2012 Arkansas Football guide.
In an article heralding several “unheralded” players, quarterback Austin Easterling, lineman Blake Roughton, and linebackers Braxton Caudill and Dalton Morgan were all mentioned.Counting Winn, the ’Hawks have five players mentioned for pre-season honors, the most of any team in the district. Ozark had four players mentioned in the list with Prairie Grove coming up with three.
Using this as a yardstick for measuring, maybe this will portend the final order of finish for the season looming ahead.
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Editor’s note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 8 on 07/18/2012