If you're going to do something...

My least favorite job was when I was a custodian at a paper mill. When I was in college I worked at a paper mill during the summers. My jobs in the mill ranged from driving a front end loader, to weed whacking, to packaging rolls of paper for shipping, to driving a fork truck, to oiling various machines, to... my least favorite... janitor. There were a lot of things about working in the mill that I enjoyed... the people were good to me and fun to work with. The work itself ranged from hard, to fun (driving a front end loader!), to gross... that's where the janitor job comes in. There are places in a paper mill that are... disgusting..and I got to clean them. Not fun. Cleaning toilets that were so gross I don't even want to describe them...spraying down walls...washing away chemicals... taking out trash... being in environments that required me to carry a gas mask... and places that smelled so bad that at times I gagged....cleaning up after people... was a difficult, hard, and humbling experience for me. I didn't like being the janitor when I had to do that. But... as I have always been taught.. if you are going to do something... DO IT WELL...and I did. I remember feeling so dirty after being in a lot of the places...and no matter how many times I washed my hands.. and even though I wore rubber gloves... I still felt gross... But I did a good job. I took pride in what I was doing. I did not cut corners...didn't skip areas...even though the person who trained me hinted that he didn't always do everything every day. I think that my parents ingrained that moral into me... for as long as I can remember. I am glad that they did... Pride... honor... it's important. I am thankful for having had that experience at the mill... of being a custodian... I think it has given me a higher level of respect for other people who hold that job.

So what does scrubbing toilets when I was in college have to do with today? As you know, Saturdays I coach... and today, as a coach, I was disappointed in two of my athletes. These particular athletes are the captains of the girls team...not my decision, by the way. This is the second year that they have been captains...again, not my decision... Both are incredible athletes... with a lot of natural ability. And if they worked hard, that natural ability would lead to what I believe could make them the top athletes in the state for their events. But they don't work. At practice they can be seen sitting down, talking on cell phones... their work ethic is awful. These are girls I coached from the time they were in middle school... so sharing this story doesn't exactly show my success as a coach... but... even in middle school these girls had attitudes of girls who felt entitled. There were times when I set limits for these girls and their parents yelled at me about what amazing athletes there kids were and how dare I not let them do the exact events that they wanted to do...even though the middle school philosophy is that in which everyone gets a chance to do various events... These parents got so upset with me that I did not put their daughters in the relays every week.. telling me that they were going to go to college on track scholarships and how dare I take the experience from them. I didn't back down then... which makes me even more mad about what happened tonight. (I am a newer coach on the team... and do not have as much say as the head coach...but if I did.....) Keep in mind... that even under these captains, our team does well... I would say that the rest of the girls have strong work ethics, drive, and work so hard...every meet... every practice.... tonight's meet... we were competing against two teams who had low numbers and whose athleticism is not as strong as ours. The score of the meet reflected that. As a result.. Captain A and Captain B... didn't have a lot of drama surrounding the meet... our success was not dependent upon their success...victory was not on the line when it came time for the relays...and they didn't push themselves tonight. Captain A has more bad habits than Captain B... Captain A really only associates with Captain B... Captain B associates with more girls on the team and does seem to push herself harder in the events in which she is not competing with captain A... Well tonight.. by the end of the meet... before the relay...we were leading by 75 points or so... and I saw something suspicious... Captain A and Captain B were sitting in the stands and yelled to another girl on the team to come sit with them....Hmmm... two captains I have never seen have a conversation with this girl...who is in the same grade as the captains.... made me raise an eyebrow. But based on my experience of these two I had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen. I intentionally hung near them for a second and their conversation had a blatant pause... confirming my suspicions. So I walked away and watched things unfold... The conversation continued then the two captains came out of the stands and approached the head coach... with sudden illness... at first our head coach ignored them... which did not deter them... Captain A walked away... Captain B squated down next to the head coach... rubbing her forehead and complaining about her sore throat... soon Captain A returns and says, I just threw up in the bathroom... and getting no response from any of the coaches... said it again louder... I just threw up in the bathroom, it was really fun... The head coach simply walked away from them... he did not tell them they had to do the race...didn't tell them they didn't have to... and they did it. They finished... The missing piece of this story was confirmed on the bus on the way back to school.. Captains had gone home with their parents... and I asked the girl they had beckined to them... if they had asked her to throw the relay... she said that they told her to pretend to be so dead that they couldn't do the relay... to tell the head coach that she was too weak to do it. Ahhhhhhhhh! I would have handled that situation so differently.. .if it was completely up to me. I would have given them a choice... if they wanted to do it or not...telling them if they chose to do it they needed to go all out.... and if they were too sick, simultaneously, to do it to make that decision... in which case I would have replaced them in the relay... and the new relay team would stand...for the remainder of the season... including the regional and state meets... regardless of winning. I would also have suspended them from competing in next week's meet... which is against some bigger more competitive schools... so I would take away their audience factor... of course I would require them to be at the meet AND cheer for their teammates... which would of course decide whether or not they would be allowed to compete in future meets. And... I may also have made them apologize to their teammates. After the meet I called the head coach and told him about them trying to coerce a teammate into being sick and weak with them... and while he is also frustrated.. he doesn't want to deal with that drama... translations... those parents. I am not sure if I can let it go. There was a similar situation last year with these captains and I pulled them aside and told them about my disappointment...and told them that they should be ashamed of themselves. I told them that while they were captains by default...( Last year they were captains because there was only one senior on the team and the head coach chose them because of the length of time they had been doing track.) ... that they should take the role seriously and that they needed to pay attention to how their actions impacted the other girls. At the time, I thought it made a difference... they did not cop attitudes with me, which was a first in all the years I have known them... and after that they seemed to make more of an effort.. or at least a better showing of effort. So I think that I need to talk to them again... it may mean premanently burning some bridges with them and their parents, which I do feel have been built since they were in middle school. But I also think that for the rest of the girls on the team...who work so hard... someone needs to stand up to these girls... call them out... and tell them they are wrong.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...other than that incident... the rest of the meet, as well as the boys meet, went well. we had some kids set their personal records for the season and perhaps build some confidence as well. So... I need to look at the silver lining... actually I would say that overall it was a great day... with a bit of a shadow.

Good knee news.... my knees didn't feel too bad after the gym yesterday... Yay!