David Friedli

By the Dashboard Lights

05/03/07

And The Winner Is…

               It is the first week of May, and the waistline of my pants fits a little bit more snuggly than usual.

               My backside feels flatter and wider than normal from hours sitting on folding chairs on gym floors.

               The palms of my hands have a bit of tenderness to them, having been struck together hundreds of times.

               Pot luck buffets, usually a welcome sight, have lost their appeal. What once was a variety of foods has, because of familiarity, become more typical fare:  casseroles, potatoes and ham, pasta salad and fried chicken.

               Welcome to the fourth season of the school year:  the awards dinner season.

               After nearly thirty years in the education business, I am a seasoned letterman of the awards banquet. The food is phenomenal, year-in and year-out, whether the sports teams have ended with a winning record or not.

               The variety is equally impressive and there always seems to be more than enough.

               If for the food alone, these events would be satisfying.  The dinner preceding the awards presentations is both a reward and an enticement. The food says welcome. It also says thank you.

               And once appreciative from being fed well, sitting through a couple of hours of awards isn’t impossible. I’d rather have the opportunity to be reclining in a Lazy-Boy, having utilized the buffet-line stacking technique on my plastic plate like a champion.

               It occurs to me if the organizers placed the desserts at the beginning of the pot luck line, I could simply un-layer my food to the logical conclusion of a piece of strawberry pie, two brownies and a chocolate-chip cookie.

               Instead, I deftly eat around the top layer, digging green bean casserole and lasagna from the bottom of the plate.

               By the time I’ve licked the chocolate frosting off my fingers, coaches are deep into awards.

               Awards for lettermen.  Awards for all-conference. State participation and newspaper all-star teams.

               But after sitting through decades of awards banquets, I’m most intrigued by the awards presented for most improved, character or sportsmanship.

               In sports, as in any competitive venture, the talented get their due. The swiftest win the races. The strongest take their events. They are the offensive and defensive stars, the all-stater’s, the champions. The smartest have the highest GPAs. The most musical are…the most musical.

               Within the teams there are those who aren’t the fastest, aren’t the strongest, and don’t have the best ability.  But they do have a competitiveness that drives them past a place the most talented don’t often experience.

               The average athlete, the average student, and the average musician participates not because he knows his chances of being the best are great, but because he loves the game. Call it sportsmanship. Call it character. Call it loyalty. Call it teamwork.

               These are the real winners.  And as soon as I deal with these sticky fingers, I’ll give my loudest applause for them.

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