Keeping a jaundiced eye on the corporate media.
Mar 24th, 2007 at 8:55 am by PSoTD
Maybe it’s time to take a bit of time to recognize something we appreciate. Such as… recreation programs? Has any recreation program - either government-sponsored or private sector - been a positive life changer for you? It could be sports or hobbies or travel… or something else.
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[...] Original post by PSoTD [...]
The WPA photographers. Changed my life forever.
Okay, it’s not a recreation program, but…
How about the National Parks service? Without them, camping with my family when I was a kid would have been a long and ugly stream of KOA campgrounds, and I would never have cared about Teddy Roosevelt, or geology. Or had such a strong affection for “My Clementine.” Or the smell of woodsmoke.
I know I’m gonna sound like total suburban Dad, but I really appreciate the nonprofit sports programs run for youth in my area, as well as the adult basketball program I participate in… The West Shore area of Harrisburg is lucky to have several youth leagues that are well run, provide lots of opportunities for participation for both kids and adults, and generally promote a love for whatever sport it is and an appreciation for fair play and athletic participation. In other words, at this stage at least, it hasn’t become a factory operation.
I spent many years coaching my kids in Little League, YMCA, and Park district sports and found it rewarding enough that I kept on coaching for several years even after my own kids had moved on to other things.
I know it was a positive experience for me, and from some of my ex-players now in their mid to late 20’s I hear positive memories from them too. I tend to remember the scores and performances more than they do, they just tell me about the fun they had. I guess I kinda pulled it off ok if a guy in his late 40’s can relate to middle schoolers enough for all to have fun.
And the most fun team was a 7th & 8th grade YMCA basketball team in a coed league. I drafted 6 girls and 2 boys and got shaking heads and looks of bewilderment from the other coaches leaving the draft. We spent the season embarrassing the nearly all-boy teams and ended up as league champs. The next year the other coaches started drafting the girls in the first round.
Nice to know I might have had an impact upon improving gender roles and expectations, even if it was only within a local YMCA basketball league, and even if it had more to do with encouraging the talent of the girls on my team than any traditional coaching.
I started running trails with the Tampa Hash House Harriers in 1988 and have since hashed my way around the world. Not for everyone, but intensely addictive for people who enjoy social running.
I got a lot out of Boy Scouts, a love of the outdoors and Backpacking. I backpack often and for long periods of time. Since 2001 I have hiked the entire Appalachain Trail(2200 miles) the entire Pacific Crest Trail (2500 Miles) and have hiked another 700 or so miles here and there. I would be hiking now but some friends are getting married in April but after that, I am on the trail.
Forensics? My daughter is going to state again this year, and I think I’d like to coach next year.
I’m with Terwilliger, coaching has been the best. My favorite team was a U12 girls soccer team a few years back. This was in a far from elite league and we had a grand total of one set play (a short corner if you must know). I told them the kicker would signal the play by raising her hand. Oh, no, they said, that wasn’t a good signal. The signal had to be a little dance, and they invented a dance to signal the play, and to be sure all ground was covered, another dance to signal that the play was not on. That the dances were virtually identical didn’t seem to matter. Whenever we had a corner kick, while the opposing team stood looking befuddled, our kicker would go into a dance. I don’t recall that the play itself ever worked, but we only lost one game all season.
Debate in the public schools. My school had never been a power at the state level but the team I was on changed that. I still have the trophies, but no place to put them.
I’ve been volunteering for the last four years to help out with the local regional FIRST Robotics Competition.
What happens is, over a six-week period, teams of high school kids design and build robots to compete in a game (which is completely redesigned every year, to minimize the advantage of more experienced teams). It’s a lot of fun, and two cool things happen:
1. A big percentage of these kids actually do end up as engineers. This may not sound like much, until you consider how much effort, emotion and money their schools typically put into their other teams; how many high school football players find their way into the NFL?
2. Virtually every last kid participating goes to college. For most of the kids–mostly middle-class with college-educated parents–that’s no big deal. But every year there are a bunch of teams from these crummy schools in these crummy neighborhoods where nobody goes to college. And frankly, they almost never win the big prizes. But you talk to their coaches and they’re like, yeah, the seniors on the team all got accepted somewhere, most of them got scholarships, half of ‘em are in engineering schools (i.e., not a walkover)–and you can see whole lives switching from iffy to full of possibilities.
This program is one of Dean Kamen’s brainchildren. Don’t judge him by the Segway–this is much better.