Is Your Child Looking for a Sport? Consider Swimming or Cross Country, Great Sports for Everyone

I have middle schoolers.  They have tried a number of different sports as they have grown up, but they just don’t enjoy the typical soccer, basketball or baseball.  The sports they have finally found that they enjoy are swimming and cross country.  We have been involved in both for about the last three years and they have been great experiences.

They both participate with their districted high school, Boone County High School, in our case so the fee to play is very reasonable.  We do not do club level, my kids have no desire to compete at that competitive of a level.  They just want to enjoy the sport, competition, teammates and have fun.  The swimming coach, Mr Lance Melching and the cross country coach, Mr Kelly Read are both very nice, sincere individuals.  They always take a positive spin on everything and just overall encourage the kids.  For our first experience with high school, these two have been a great first impression.

Neither sport is expensive.  For cross country, you just need a good pair of shoes.  For swim, we had to invest in a team swim suit, but she will be able to wear it for probably three years.

ANYONE can do either sport.  You don’t have to be the fastest, you don’t have to be the best, you just have to have the gut to push yourself to finish.  Once they finish one race, they know they can do it and keep going, finishing race after race each week.

It is not unusual to not only find teammates cheering for themselves, but for their friends on other teams or for just the person who is struggling to finish.  They can tell the participate is struggling and they want to cheer them on, to show they have support and that people believe in them that they can finish.  Complete strangers cheering for each other, that is beautiful.  Kids showing perseverance and grit to finish a race, that is beautiful.

The real race in each sport is to better oneself.  Sure it is fun to beat another competitor, but when you are beating your own best time.  That is a sense of pride.

From a parent perspective, I have enjoyed seeing my middle schoolers develop relationships and be mentored by the high schoolers.  We attend a middle school where a small portion of our students attend the high school to which we are assigned.  By my kids participating and wearing the uniform of their high school, I have seen them develop a sense of pride in the high school which they are going to attend and not feel quite as much like they are in the minority.  They also are starting to get to know kids from the other middle schools which will be attending our high school.  Building relationships early will help everyone transition to high school easier.

The cross country season is probably half way over, but there is still time to join in on the swim season.  If your middle schooler or high schooler is districted for Boone County, I invite you to join us tonight at the Meet the Coach meeting at 7:15 pm in the Commons at Boone County High School.  It is a great group of kids and we have a lot of fun.  Please consider joining us.  If you can’t make it tonight, feel free to contact Coach Lance at lance.melching@boone.kyschools.us.

If getting to practices is a concern, we have a number of parents willing to carpool, so just contact me and I will send you the information for Pogo, a carpool app for parents which we are using.  I have been pretty impressed with it so far.

#RebelPride #RebelMom #SwimMom #BuildingRelationships #Swimming #CrossCountry #BCHS