Kenny's Perspectives #13
Well, I hope you all are enjoying your summer here in Dallas. Lord knows it can't be
as bad as last year's!
On Monday June 18, 2012 I got the wonderful opportunity to visit three out of the four Carrollton schools that have a summer training program for their athletes. Needless to say there is a ton of hard work and dedication that is being put into those workouts. It made me reflect on what I did just a mere 28 years ago when I was a high school athlete. I can surely say that the conditioning is much better these days. It’s not that we did not do hard work back in the day but the masses that participate are so much larger than before. That made me realize that if you want to compete on the high school level in an athletics program in this day and age you had better bring your yearlong training regiment with you.
The irony of seeing Newman Smith, Carrollton Creekview and Carrollton Ranchview was that their programs and training workouts are very different but in the end it is all based on hard work and pushing yourself to the highest levels. The inner competition between teammates was wonderful to watch and the encouragement to push each other was outstanding. When I walked away from our last stop, I had such a better appreciation of what it takes to compete and the willingness of all the athletes to participate.
I have to remember that all of these athletes are young adults with summer jobs or summer school classes. They all have to make sacrifices in their lives to be there for their teammates. Getting up to run at 6:00am on a Monday morning during summer vacation does not seem ideal to the average teenager. In fact, I would say not many of us would do that especially if you are in high school. The one thing that became clear to me was that they were all there to work hard not just to put in their time and punch the clock. Everyone from the females to the coaches were all participating at such a level that there wasn’t anyone who even took plays off during the drills. There were even injured players who participated in anything that they could do even when they had a built in excuse to not participate.
In the end, we are not sure how much the hard work will pay off until their seasons begin. However they are all off to a great start this summer in their respective summer training sessions which should make fans of all these schools pretty proud!
Kenny Matthews
Newman Smith '85
Well, I hope you all are enjoying your summer here in Dallas. Lord knows it can't be
as bad as last year's!
On Monday June 18, 2012 I got the wonderful opportunity to visit three out of the four Carrollton schools that have a summer training program for their athletes. Needless to say there is a ton of hard work and dedication that is being put into those workouts. It made me reflect on what I did just a mere 28 years ago when I was a high school athlete. I can surely say that the conditioning is much better these days. It’s not that we did not do hard work back in the day but the masses that participate are so much larger than before. That made me realize that if you want to compete on the high school level in an athletics program in this day and age you had better bring your yearlong training regiment with you.
The irony of seeing Newman Smith, Carrollton Creekview and Carrollton Ranchview was that their programs and training workouts are very different but in the end it is all based on hard work and pushing yourself to the highest levels. The inner competition between teammates was wonderful to watch and the encouragement to push each other was outstanding. When I walked away from our last stop, I had such a better appreciation of what it takes to compete and the willingness of all the athletes to participate.
I have to remember that all of these athletes are young adults with summer jobs or summer school classes. They all have to make sacrifices in their lives to be there for their teammates. Getting up to run at 6:00am on a Monday morning during summer vacation does not seem ideal to the average teenager. In fact, I would say not many of us would do that especially if you are in high school. The one thing that became clear to me was that they were all there to work hard not just to put in their time and punch the clock. Everyone from the females to the coaches were all participating at such a level that there wasn’t anyone who even took plays off during the drills. There were even injured players who participated in anything that they could do even when they had a built in excuse to not participate.
In the end, we are not sure how much the hard work will pay off until their seasons begin. However they are all off to a great start this summer in their respective summer training sessions which should make fans of all these schools pretty proud!
Kenny Matthews
Newman Smith '85
