I was on Legends Football Field's today for the first time because that's where our last track and field meet of the season happened. I coach the hurdles and we run two events; the first race (100 meter hurdles) of the meet, then the second one (the 200 meter hurdles) is towards the end of a meet. So I have a lot of down time between them. I cheer on other athletes at the jumps and on the track but I get restless. During this time yesterday, I saw a group of girls doing cartwheels and round offs and being generally goofy so I decided to join them.
After hobbling to where they were I asked if they wanted to see what I could do. Now, they all know I'm disabled because of my rollator (walker on wheels) but I like to make them laugh. After shouts of encouragement I carefully lowered myself to the new surface which seemed very clean and semi soft. Then I tried to turn a somersault but fell sideways. Still they all cheered and clapped. But the sense of failure made me come up with something I could do. I have rolled with them down hills so I tried the same thing. It took some doing but I got good at rolling fairly fast. That brought more hoorays!
Then I said, "Let's lay head to feet in a line and then all roll sideways s together so we look like a snake!" We did that and then someone suggested a race. This time, we all rolled towards a finish line but I could not finish but that was OK because they all laughed hysterically.
About and hour later I encountered a coach from a neighboring city who told me she had seen our rolling riot and loved it. She said, "And that's why we coach middle school, right?" Continuing, she said that the kids will remember the silliness maybe even longer than the races they ran. My coaching self felt good that my silly actions drew positive comments. And I knew I'd be back next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment