Gratifying

It's always a pleasure to see a young person who has participated in your program honored in the outside world for their performance. In this case, one young lady who was interested in volleyball -- in fact, one who suggested we have volleyball as part of our summer sports program -- just received the "Best Freshman Volleyball Player" award from her high school.

We think that's great, and we're making sure that she gets plenty of recognition for her achievements at church. And, why not? She's in the photo above.

Good info on concussions

A really good resource on concussions in young people's sports from the Center for Disease Control. Recommended!

Keep it fun....

Here is a really good reminder that a church sports program should not be like taking your medicine, or eating your vegetables, no matter how good physical activity is for you.

Recommended: http://tiny.cc/J9yAK

Concussion aftereffects

If you're involved with sports in any capacity, there's no doubt that by now you have seen the preliminary information about the evident correlation between having played professional football or having boxed and dementia. Bottom line seems to be that "punch drunk boxers" were only the tip of the iceberg -- that repeated concussions in any sport can lead to early dementia.

Pro football, pretty much a sacred cow in the US, has been the thin entering wedge regarding the possibility that having the concussion delivered by a fist is necessary for dementia to result -- in other words, we're learning that -- DUUUH -- concussions are bad to have!

Here's a link to what could easily be an outlier -- but possibly not -- who had the telltale markers of trauma-induced dementia but neither boxed nor played pro football (he had played college football). http://tiny.cc/EKsf9 Outlier or not, it's worth reading.

Implications for church sports programs involve the clear necessity to ask seriously if it is appropriate for a church to sponsor or offer programs in sports that appear to involve a high risk of trauma-related dementia. Obviously, boxing and football fall in this category. Both may represent ways "out of the ghetto" and may have roles in reclaiming lives. But there may be better choices, ones that do not entail what appears to correlate the inherent risk of dementia with success.

Recreation Sunday

We really like this idea from the Church of the Holy Communion in Memphis, TN.

Here's the announcement from their weekly newsletter, the eCommunicator, with some details:

"Dress casual this Sunday for...
Recreation Sunday! All Holy Communion flag football and soccer players and coaches are encouraged to attend the 9:00 a.m. service this Sunday. We will recognize the coaches and players in our recreation program for their dedication and enthusiasm here at Holy Communion. All players and coaches are encouraged to wear their jerseys for this casual Sunday."

Of course, the fact that they have a recreation program to begin with is something we're pretty impressed with anyway!

ACLs, again

Here's a very worthwhile survey of developments in ACL injury, particularly in adolescent girls.

If you're involved in youth sports at all, whether church-based or not, this is something you need to stay up to date on.

Using Facebook Pages

Here in New England, one frequently finds that people are willing enough to participate in church activities, but are embarrassed to belong to a church (or at least to acknowledge that they belong to one).

Facebook -- and we assume that any house of worship of any denomination has a Facebook presence by now -- has recently made available to small organizations (and even to small businesses) their "Pages" capability, of which one can be a "Fan".

This is distinct from their "Group" capability, which one can "join" (and which perhaps makes church Facebook groups less than overwhelmingly popular where we come from (see paragraph #1).

We're still grappling with exactly how to use Facebook Pages, but we think that it holds some promise for connecting with the easily embarrassed, and thus is worth a fair amount of effort in implementing.

Here's our current effort, just three days old, but with some "fans" who would not be caught dead "joining" a church group.

Trinity Lime Rock Sports on Facebook

What do you think?

You CAN do this....

Yes, you CAN do this!

A regulation volleyball court is 60 feet long, and 30 feet across. You need 10 feet on either side for the guy ropes for the net. You need four feet on each end for serving space.

Look around your church.

Is the church hall 70 feet long and more than 30 feet wide?

Is there a parking lot that big?

Maybe a front lawn, or a back yard (as in our parish, where the people that went before were smart enough to realize that stewardship of open space is a pretty important kind of stewardship)?

We paid under $200 for the volleyball net (including poles, guy ropes, and the pre-marked rope to outline the court. We got the ball for points from a Citibank promotion.

Anyway, it should not surprise you to know that the volleyball court is a people-magnet. Even more than soccer was when we started the Sunday School playing soccer in the summer when Sunday School classes are on vacation.

We also rounded up the captain of our local high school's volleyball team. She doesn't go to our church, but she was delighted to be involved with getting younger kids involved with volleyball and teaching them skills -- and possibly keeping an eye out for potential players for her team amongst our kids who will be entering high school in the fall.

We also found that dads seem to like volleyball a whole lot. Even the ones who mainly don't show up on Sunday mornings!

More pics are on our website, and on our Facebook page (your church DOES have one of them by now, don't you?)

New summer, new sports

I apologize for not posting this blog in a while. It's not lack of interest on my part, it's the feeling that once again I am trying to make it up as I go along.

The end of last summer, interest in soccer plummeted. It was as though we were back in year 1 of the four year run that summer soccer had at Trinity Lime Rock. There were at least two Sundays when we were back to the levels of that summer: a couple of kids, one parent, and me, looking at each other, wondering what was wrong and where everybody was.

Anyway, once the summer was over, I asked the kids in the Sunday School (not that there are all that many of them; this is New England, after all) what they thought about soccer, summer sports, etc.

The girls (ages 10 - 14) were initially diplomatic to a fault. Oh, yes, of course they just love soccer, and the summer soccer program, but something had come up that kept them from attending. (like for four straight weeks?!)

Then, when I asked them if they would rather have a different sport, the whole mood changed. YES! Not much question about what had happened. They had voted with their feet.

It took about five minutes before the older girls had settled on volleyball as their sport of choice. That, we can do -- and we will do in August.

The younger boys (small parishes do tend to have these bifurcated age/gender groupings, and you do have to cope with them) initially wanted cars -- like motorized vehicles -- but when they learned that this was not in the cards, fairly quickly they settled on some sport involving a bat and a ball. Maybe tee-ball, maybe something more advanced -- we'll see.

This year, due to a whole rash of major parish activities in June, we're starting the program the first Sunday morning in July -- the middle of July 4 weekend.

Let's see how it goes. In the next few posts, I want to talk about how to organize alternative recreations to be prepared for whoever might happen to show up.