Proud of my boy.....

Kathy and I were both band geeks. I was in the percussion section of my high school band, Kathy played clarinet. I was athletic when I was younger, played basketball, baseball and football a year or two. When I hit high school though, I really got into music. Kathy is an amazing woman, however, athletics is not one of her strong points.

Somehow, these two band geeks got together and had two athletes. Chris has loved baseball since he was a baby. At age 3, he had figured out that you could watch the Cubs play during the day and the Braves played at night. Many times he would watch two full baseball games/day. Sarah is not quite as into athletics, though she loves softball and basketball. I think that she's looking forward to giving volleyball a try as well.

Chris has played baseball since he was 5. T-ball, coach pitch, little league, dixie youth, this past summer he played on his first travel team. When he hit 5th grade, he played football for the first time. He's played football every year since then except for one year when he played on a fall league baseball team.

Chris is very gifted athletically, the only thing that is hampering him right now is his size. He'll be 15 in December, many boys at his age are fully grown. He's got friends his age that are 6 ft tall and 200+ lbs. Chris is 5'7" 135 lb. The one thing he does have is speed. And like they say 'You can't teach speed'.

This year, with him being in the 9th grade, he's on the varsity football team. It's been quite an eye opener. They really do work him hard. I've told him since he was small, there are 3 parts to a person: mind, body, spirit. You have to take care of all three. Varsity football is working on the body part for sure.

Chris hasn't gotten to play much on the varsity squad, though he does get to play quite a bit at the JV games. Friday night, the JV squad got to play most of the game because the opposing team wasn't very good. At the beginning of the year, Chris was focusing on being a receiver. It seems like now, they are focusing on him being a running back.

Anyway, Friday night he got his first touch of the ball in a varsity game. He was a slot back on the right side and he got a handoff running a sweep around the left end. He broke it for a 62 yard touchdown! It was cool. The thing that I love about living here is that people really know the players. They've watched them grow up and are just as proud as the parents are when they do well. When Chris came off of the field, the crowd gave him a second standing ovation. It was really cool.

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On another note, I heard a story from Kathy's sister that was too funny. Her sister has 3 children, the oldest is 5. He wanted to go ride his bike so he asked his dad if he could. "No, son, that requires supervision" was the answer. His comeback in total seriousness was "But dad, I have supervision, I eat my carrots!" Too funny.