Equine Academy at Lexington Catholic

Just saw this linked from the US Pony Clubs' Facebook page.  It appears that Lexington Catholic -- presumably a parochial school in Lexington, KY -- has decided to capitalize on their co-location with the Kentucky Horse Park and a variety of other equine facilities by offering a high school equestrian program, called, appropriately, the Equine Academy at Lexington Catholic.  

It sounds like a great idea to me.   Knowing the Lexington KY area a little bit, it almost seems like such an obvious opportunity for real synergy that a program like this should have been in place forever! 

So here's the question:  are there any other church-affiliated high schools that could benefit from a link-up with a preeminent sports facility that happens to be local?  Possibly one in your area? 

Trade-offs

Early last December, our parish got a call from help from the social worker in a nearby community.  There was, she told us, a fairly large (for our rural area) number of kids who would basically be receiving nothing, or at least nothing much, for Christmas.  Their parents were broke, the safety net was tattered, and at any rate, safety nets don't provide things like Christmas presents.

The parish, of course, responded, because we're pretty good about that sort of thing.  The word went out one Sunday, and the next we had the ingathering of gifts, which appear in the photo.  There was nothing very grand there -- a good part of the collection was clothes (which I thought the safety net was supposed to take care of?), and the soccer ball for a nine year old boy that I was tasked with rounding up was one of the more frivolous gifts requested.

The point here is not to pat ourselves on the back for doing this.  I like to think that any church if called on would do as much or more.  The point, really, came up for me the following month  in a conversation with the president of the local youth soccer league.

The club, it seemed, had received a couple of requests for scholarships from parents of kids who wanted to play and who couldn't come up with the $100 fee.  This club is a very small, very hand to mouth operation, almost entirely volunteer operation, and that $100 fee goes largely for insurance, and what's left over goes to pay a trainer (that's what you call a soccer coach in the UK) who works with the kids, improves their skills, tactics, game sense, and espirit de corps.  For this, the kid gets to practice about 15 or 20 times, gets to play around 10 games all over the western end of the state, and (hopefully) gets some help learning about teamwork, sportsmanship, hard work, fair play, and soccer skills.  Furthermore, once you're on a soccer pitch it doesn't make any difference whether your mom drives a brand new Mercedes or a beat-up Chevy that's older than you are.

That's quite a bit for $100. 

Thinking more about it, I remembered some kids who were new in our parish around the same time I was new.  Although I didn't know it at the time (I found out a couple of years later), they had benefited from scholarships in the same soccer club, and two of them as a result had gotten scholarships at boarding schools.  I had been at the time a little dubious/anxious about their home life, and I think that getting them into boarding school may possibly have been life-changing for both of them.

Although a contribution for soccer scholarships wasn't budgeted, we were able to scrape up on short notice enough to fund one kid with some left over for another, or to pay for a uniform.  The club president -- who, by the way, had let me know previously that she was pretty skeptical about organized religion in all forms -- was very appreciative. 

Then I thought about the Christmas presents we had collected in December and wondered just how life-changing any of them had the possibility of  being. Although it's a lot more fun for the parishioners to go Christmas shopping for kids than to write checks for something as intangible as a soccer scholarship, I concluded that, all else being equal, the possible benefits of the soccer scholarships were greater than the Christmas presents. 

And you know that the safety net doesn't even pretend to cover soccer scholarships.

I prefer to think this isn't needed on a church/sports blog, but....

Here's a good piece about positive coaching from the New York Times. It's very easy to slip into a less constructive coaching style, regardless of the milieu you're coaching (or parenting) in.....

Needy.

Every couple of years, around this time, our local newspaper prints letters to the editor from local clergy bemoaning the fact that kids don't attend Sunday morning programs. Usually they blame organized sports programs that meet on Sunday mornings. This week it happened again. My reaction on reading the letters was "That's incredibly needy. It's downright embarrassing, in fact."

The letters both succeeded in sounding like an actor or musician who was complaining because not enough people bought tickets to their show, or a businessperson who was complaining that insufficient customers came to their place of business. They were evocative of a tenth grade girl bemoaning the fact that no one had come to their party.

First, some practical advice: you do NOT increase the attractiveness of your product by complaining in the media that people prefer other products (e.g. youth hockey) to yours. When you do so, you make even your loyal customers wonder exactly what is so wrong with your product that you need to make such a public protestation.

Interesting: in re-reading both letters for what must be the 10th time, I noticed that only one of them was actively engaged in bashing youth sports and the volunteers who run them for taking "their" Sunday morning time slot. The other letter simply pointed out that church belonged in people's lives, and mentioned Sunday morning worship as one of the many things that churches do. (No issue at all with that point of view, by the way -- but the bad karma from the blast at youth sports in one letter carried over to the other letter, even for someone like me who pays a whole lot of attention to this sort of thing).

Hopefully it's unnecessary to mention that usually when youth sports leagues meet on Sunday mornings it's because it's the only time that a facility and needed volunteers can be available. Clergy: it's not about you.

Here's a radical suggestion: Do NOT fight Sunday morning sports leagues. Praise and publicize the kids in your church who participate and laud their accomplishments right in church. If you know that the team is playing a championship game while you're holding a service, pray out loud for the kids, for the team, for the opposition, and for those who help with youth sports. (After all, they're not in church, so they need your prayers, don't they?)

Two reasons: (1) it was the pharisees who were hung up on formal adherence to religious practice in the temple, not Jesus. (2) you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Worth circulating to kids in your sports program

Kids, regardless of where they live, frequently get on horses. Some are fortunate, live in rural areas, have adequate resources to be able to afford horses or are able to work and get the use of horses in that way. Others get on horses only on rare occasions -- pony rides, dude ranch visits, happenstance opportunities -- including church youth group trips.

We've talked about safety in sports before, but this video, of Courtney King Dye, the upper level Dressage rider, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while warming up for a competition, makes the important point that you should NEVER get on an equine without a properly fitted helmet, regardless of how low-risk things may seem to be at the time.

If you're not conversant with horse lore, Dressage is generally considered the safest horse sport around. The horses are extremely well trained, they do not jump, and all riding takes place in a ring. Courtney King Dye WAS riding at the highest levels of the sport. She was anything but an amateur; she WAS a highly skilled professional. Grit your teeth and look at her now.

It's painful to watch and listen to this video, but I urge you to do so, and to encourage the kids to watch it as well.

Why what Trinity Wall Street is doing is important

Since I started this blog a few years ago a number of people (not a big number, but big enough to think about) have made comments like this to me: (this is a composite of several questions)

"We would love to have sports in our church, but we're tucked into the middle of a city block, and the only open area around us is the alley where the super takes the trash out. We do have a church hall, but it isn't very big, and somebody put a huge crystal chandelier right in the middle of the room about 15 years ago, and we don't dare move it, and even if we did, all the windows are Tiffany glass, so we can't play inside either. Furthermore, the whole congregation is 70+ years old."

When I mention Trinity Wall Street, I'm referring, of course, to their recent announcement that they will be sponsoring two Little League teams, and encourage their congregation to attend games and cheer the kids on.

And, while the average age of their congregation isn't 70+, they are surrounded by skyscrapers and there's no place to play outside, except for the (historic) graveyard. In other words, they can't really play outside.

What they do have is sufficient money to sponsor two Little League teams (who will be playing on athletic fields built as part of the deal when real estate developers put up some housing on Hudson River landfill.

Let's assume that your parish can't underwrite two Little League teams. But what you can do is donate enough to a local soccer or baseball or basketball or other youth sports organization for one needy kid to play for one season. In our area, to do this for a needy travel soccer kid, it's about $100. In more affluent areas, it's probably twice or three times that. Ask the volunteers who run the leagues or the teams. You may find you get a really warm welcome.

Bravo, Trinity Wall Street

This just in.
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Trinity Wall Street has gotten on the bandwagon, and we are glad for it. Not one but TWO little league teams!!

Congratulations!! The kids and their parents will thank you for this.