Just want to brag up my kids. My oldest two William and Whitney are in Tennis and Track respectfully. They both had meets yesterday. We attend a very small school but these two meets were against much bigger schools. We're talking 45 pupils from K-12 in our school verses schools with 300 - 500 kids total in just their high school].
My son William played the #2 kid in State and lost in over time [or what ever its called in Tennis] 8-6. William was ahead the entire game but the kid rallied back and tied the game up. The coach for his team told me that they clocked this kid's serve at 90 mph and that my son William was the only kid he ever saw that could stand straight in front of the serve and return the volley. [or again what ever its called, my tennis lingo isn't up to parr]. Will's opponent was a head game. He came into the match tossing a tantrum because he didn't want to play William. Because of this his serve was off the entire match. William hit 6 Aces in a row against him and after the last Ace that he was unable to return he threw his racquet. William came over to me and said "Well, so....what should I do when that happens?" He had never experienced a kid throw a tantrum during a game before! I told him to go back to the court and smirk at him!
My daughter Whitney had a track meet against Boardman and Hermiston and took 2nd in the High Jump and had a PR in the discus and helped her team place 2nd in the "Fat Man's Relay." Which is a relay comprised of field people only. It was very comical watching some of those really fat kids run their butts on the track!
The high light of the track meet was the Boys 1600 relay. Each kid ran 400 meters. Again this was against two very big schools [there are more students in the Boardman school then people in our town]. The boy that ran the first leg of the race for our kids did a pretty good job and when he handed over the baton we were in 3rd place well with in the mix of things. The boy that ran the 2nd leg was really the weakest link. By the time he handed over the baton we were soundly in last place with a good 125 150 meters to catch up. The kid that ran the 3rd leg was incredible and shorten the distances between last and 3rd by about 50 meters but had a poor hand off to our 4th boy. The 4th boy had a good 200 - 250 meters to make up to the 3rd place runner and at least 300 meters to catch the first place boy when he took off. He took off like a bat out of hell. The Ione crowd was standing around me and we watched in awe as the gap between last and 3rd got smaller and smaller. Finely I said outloud I think we're going to get 3rd. He was still way on the otherside of the track but we started cheering and sure enough he past the 3rd place kid and started catching up with the 2nd place kid. The first place kid still 200 meters ahead by now. Pretty soon I call outloud I think he's going to place 2nd! We were going crazy by this time jumping up and down screaming. Sure enough as he rounded the far corner he past the 2nd place kid and kicked in what looked like his after burners to catch up with the first place kid. It looked impossible for him to even catch up with the first place kid - who was a tall lanky kid from Hermiston. I was really concerned that he would have worn himself out before the end as there was still a good 200 meter race left. But as he swung around the final corner he was about 4 feet behind the first place kid and our kid [Kelley Thompson] broke into a smile. He had a shit eating grin on his face that was just too cool for words. I announced "He's going to win the race!" and sure enough he tossed on the real burners now and just smoked the first place kid. He won the race by a good 2-3 feet! It was the most incredible race I have ever witnessed.