Banquet a success ... but
Our 11th annual AmerCable/News-Times Scholar Athlete Awards Banquet went fairly well on Thursday. Actually, the event went okay. The speaker, Robert Upshaw of the FCA, was very good.
Every athlete showed up except for Junction City's Devin Ball and Justin Cook and they were both competing in the 2A State Track Meet that night.
That would be my only disappointment - the timing of the banquet. Due to some scheduling conflicts, we had to move the date up a week. We had to name Players of the Year in sports before their seasons had even concluded. Even worse, we had to select our top five in each sport and send out invitations about three weeks before that.
When you have to predict who is going to do what and stand by that prediction whether it comes true or not, it's a very unsettling feeling.
It bit us in the butt on a couple of occasions. El Dorado sprinter Caltavious Brown would end up winning 6A in both the 100 and 200. We didn't predict that because he was always second to Texarkana's Fred Rose during the season. When Rose got suspended from his team, suddenly Brown went from runner-up in every meet to the very best in the state.
Whoops, didn't see that coming.
Also, El Dorado's Irene Jadic won the 3,200 and 1,600 at the state meet. That would've been difficult to predict since she never ran the 3,200 during the season. She ran it for the first time in the 6A-South meet and it was clearly her best event. Unfortunately, the invitations to the banquet had already been sent out.
Whoops, again.
We invited both to the banquet and recognized them. It was the least we could do. Both of the kids were gracious and understanding. It still makes us feel bad because they should've been on the same stage, sharing the same spotlight with the other top athletes.
Baseball and softball were also in the same category. I'm sure there were a couple kids in those sports who might've been included if we had been given the opportunity to watch those seasons play out.
I sincerely hope we can move our banquet back to after the athletic seasons are over. It's very difficult as the month of May is jam packed with, not only state softball, baseball and soccer tournaments and track meets, but with graduations, proms and things like that.
We thought about pushing it back to June but a lot of the seniors will be on trips, then. I don't know what else we can do. We want to keep doing the banquet, though. But, if we can't include the student-athletes who deserve to be there, what's the point?
The original plan was to honor young people who excel. If we have to apologize every year for leaving somebody out, maybe it's not working. You know what I mean?
Every athlete showed up except for Junction City's Devin Ball and Justin Cook and they were both competing in the 2A State Track Meet that night.
That would be my only disappointment - the timing of the banquet. Due to some scheduling conflicts, we had to move the date up a week. We had to name Players of the Year in sports before their seasons had even concluded. Even worse, we had to select our top five in each sport and send out invitations about three weeks before that.
When you have to predict who is going to do what and stand by that prediction whether it comes true or not, it's a very unsettling feeling.
It bit us in the butt on a couple of occasions. El Dorado sprinter Caltavious Brown would end up winning 6A in both the 100 and 200. We didn't predict that because he was always second to Texarkana's Fred Rose during the season. When Rose got suspended from his team, suddenly Brown went from runner-up in every meet to the very best in the state.
Whoops, didn't see that coming.
Also, El Dorado's Irene Jadic won the 3,200 and 1,600 at the state meet. That would've been difficult to predict since she never ran the 3,200 during the season. She ran it for the first time in the 6A-South meet and it was clearly her best event. Unfortunately, the invitations to the banquet had already been sent out.
Whoops, again.
We invited both to the banquet and recognized them. It was the least we could do. Both of the kids were gracious and understanding. It still makes us feel bad because they should've been on the same stage, sharing the same spotlight with the other top athletes.
Baseball and softball were also in the same category. I'm sure there were a couple kids in those sports who might've been included if we had been given the opportunity to watch those seasons play out.
I sincerely hope we can move our banquet back to after the athletic seasons are over. It's very difficult as the month of May is jam packed with, not only state softball, baseball and soccer tournaments and track meets, but with graduations, proms and things like that.
We thought about pushing it back to June but a lot of the seniors will be on trips, then. I don't know what else we can do. We want to keep doing the banquet, though. But, if we can't include the student-athletes who deserve to be there, what's the point?
The original plan was to honor young people who excel. If we have to apologize every year for leaving somebody out, maybe it's not working. You know what I mean?
posted by Tony at
11:35 AM
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