CHAMPS!

This week wasn't conducive to running and was actually suppose to be race weekend for the Sanders Saunter 25k trail race.  We were eagerly awaiting the brackets to see when we would play football and of course we found out our first game was at the same time that the race itself started.  I am not missing any of my kid's games this year for races, so I ate my entry fee and spent all weekend at a field in Lawrence not running, but cheering on my kiddo.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Let's start at the beginning of a very full week of craziness!   First we had Halloween on a Monday (God bless all teachers for this).  We participated in a trunk or treat at Andrew's school and then walked around our town and got candy door to door old school,  and then handed out candy for a few hours from our porch.   I was so happy to see so many trick or treaters actually going door to door as trunk or treats events are super popular now.    

Andrew had a few costume changes.  He went to school as a dinosaur (Blue from Jurassic Park) and then changed into his Michael Meyers get up from last year to hand out candy.  Why does this costume creep me out so much?

I did get one run in with boom boom (3)  and one run with my girls (almost 3) before my mom got into town.  She came over from Tennessee to watch Andrew play in the tourny and then go with us to the banquet for his race club.  My girls have their practice 5K coming up next week and while some are still pretty nervous, most are already running 3 miles in our practices!!!!!  I can't wait to see how they do Tuesday for their practice 5K because I know most of them are going to rock it, and a few will be in for a rude awakening, but it is what it is.  It's not like we haven't warned them that not giving their all in practice will bite them in the butt on practice and race day.  Some people just have to find out for themselves and can't be told.    

The rest of the week was about football.  We had the last two practices for the season and mom got to watch.  We had a beautiful sunset.  

We also had the second play off for the Wamego High school red raiders and it was a cold and rainy one for sure!  After kind of a sluggish start, the offense got going and we ended up winning, but hoping the next game goes a little better.

I knew going into tournament that Andrew might not play that much.  I also knew that we might get our asses handed to us.  We are not a club or elite team.  We aren't bad mind you and undefeated in our league, BUT we only had 2 teams that really challenged us all year AND we don't travel every weekend to play out of town teams in big tournaments.  

We had a guarantee of two games at least, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.   Like I said, it's not that I doubt our kid's abilities, I just had no expectations of how it would go.  Our first game was a good one, very evenly matched.  Andrew got to play one offensive series and that was it, but again, I get it, it's his second year playing and he is still learning a ton.  I don't want my kid's mistake causing us to lose any game since he is still so much in learning mode.  

The picture above is him and his wrestling partner double teaming a kid for a block.  Again, I think my kid is much better suited for offense overall, but I get them wanting him on the defensive line because of his size.

Winning meant we came back for a second game in the afternoon.  We played a team called War Chief Dynasty and I was super worried that this would be a blow out.  They came on the field chanting and waving flags, and making all kinds of noise.  As soon as the game started it was MASS chaos with multiple coaches on the field, screaming about every play, accusing us of cheating, and screaming bloody murder at their kids.  Even the kids themselves were screaming obscenities at each other when they screwed up.  I have never in life seen kids and adults act the way this team acted.  Well, I will be honest, it kind of reminded me of the race track for all the wrong reasons, but I digress.  Their kids played dirty, constantly trash talking our kids, calling our kids the N word, and punching and kicking our kids when they were down. At one point a kid was on top of one of our best players and he was slamming his head into the ground repeatedly for no reason.  It was very hard to watch and I will admit my PTSD put me in survival mode.  At times I wanted to puke and several of our kids came out crying and didn't want to go back in.   As a parent it was incredibly hard to watch.  We ended up winning and they didn't even shake our hands at the end.  Sigh.  It's just a kid's sport people.  We had multiple parents go talk to the tournament directors, we called the cops, and two of their coaches were ejected while their entire sideline continued to taunt us.    I honestly feel bad for their kids the most because you know this isn't the first time they have acted this way or done this.  I have never seen a coach accuse us of cheating that much in my life.  We all walked away very upset, very scared that retaliation was going to happen, and not wanting to come back the next day when the tournament was clearly not doing anything about this horrible behavior that they themselves witnessed in person.  

Sunday dawned with a later start time and an old foe.  We were playing Manhattan for the championship and that was the ONLY team that beat us all year, luckily not in league play.  I noticed that several of the BIG kids weren't present which makes me wonder if they were not 5th graders and that they played kids down to beat us in the regular season.  Again, I digress, random ramblings.  It was a close game but we ended up on victorious and champions!   The below photo is Andrew's principal celebrating with her boys!

Final scores: Wamego 12 Elevate 0

                     Wamego 12 War Chief Dynasty 6

                      Wamego 14-Manhattan 6

So proud of these kids for an amazing season of hard work, improvement, and grit.  They were both mentally and physically tough all season and it was beautiful to watch so many kids develop and reach a level they didn't know they had.  Andrew has had an amazing year, filled with ups and downs, but so much growth.  I even heard him say this weekend that he was going to miss football so much.  He won't have much time to rest as wrestling and wrestling conditioning starts soon thank goodness!

I am still very sad to see yet another sport where parents act so horribly and walk away without any remorse.  Adults truly are ruining kid's sports and it makes me sad that we can't seem to find any event where we don't see it.  But I don't want to end on a bad note.  We truly are proud of our kids for keeping their head's held high, not dropping to any low levels or playing dirty, and for coming back even stronger.

We also barely made it to our racing banquet.  We walked in just as awards were starting so Andrew got to get his trophies still in his football pants.  We stuffed our faces with yummy BBQ, got trophies, talked for a few minutes with our friends, and headed out.  I had had enough drama and tension for the day and I just needed to be away from all people and decompress.  The board did an amazing job of decorating, getting prizes donated for door prizes, and finding a space within our budget.  I truly think we could make it bigger and better next year but we are going to need to at least double our budget to get what our club members want.  I could go on and on but I am going to stop and wrap up and think about all of the positives this week instead.  Andrew finished the year 7th in points in Sr Honda and 5th in points in Sr Animal.  

Have a great week y'all!