With the World Cup excitement and our USA team playing much better than they have in past years, a lot of people have become new soccer fans. I confess I’m more of a soccer fan than I’ve ever been.

I never played the sport except for a few times in gym class, and my own daughters chose tennis, cross country, swimming, track and softball as their sports in summers and during the school year. Lots of their friends played soccer, but I never saw too many games. Anyway, it’s always good to get excited about a new sport.

When kids are young and developing skills and interests, it’s also great to see them try all sports, and different positions in those sports.

I enjoy seeing the end of the year sports awards that go to local high school athletes. The students who earned this acclaim played in several sports throughout their high school years. At smaller schools like Brandywine, most of our kids play more than one sport. Many play three a year, and occasionally you see some fit four sports into their schedules. Some students may also choose to specialize in one sport year-round and not go out for other teams.

There should be room for both kinds of approaches without us as adults casting judgment on a student’s choices. We should enjoy seeing students play and have fun and succeed in as many sports as they’d like to try. We should all respect the choices and decisions they make.

I’m glad to be in a community and school district where people enjoy all sports and support their teams.

Meanwhile, I want to learn as much as I can about soccer and cheer for our USA team.

 

John Jarpe is the superintendent of Brandywine Community Schools. He can be reached at (269) 684- 7150.