Yesterday was the first day of high school for my not so little freshman. What, you say? I thought we were just talking about summer?! How can it be the first day of school already?
Well, because it was the first day of Freshman football summer weights yesterday. SportsBoy has four days to participate in this rite of passage before he takes off for last 6 week summer vacation to Sweden. Standing in line to check in yesterday, I noticed that the high school campus looked, to me, like a campus in full swing, not one just taking off for summer vacation. There was a large group of kids off in one area finishing up a baseball camp. Another group of small kids were participating in a “Young Falcons” flag football camp. Kids and parents were pretty much everywhere I looked! Summertime? Bah!
As we are standing in line, the varsity football coach walks up and cracks a big grin and says loudly “Are these the new baby chicks?! Yeah! All RIGHT! I love it! Love me some baby chicks!!”
Of course, my mind immediately pulled up a picture like this:
That’s about right. Fledgling falcons. Big enough to stand on their own. Walk around a bit. Adult feathers starting to peek through. But not *quite* big enough yet to fly out of the nest for good. In other words – teenagers!
And then he went right along and treated them like baby chicks. They didn’t do any lifting yesterday. Instead, he talked to them about the program and the school. He introduced them to the coaches. Then he took them on a full tour of the campus. Every building. Pointing out the classrooms where his coaches teach since all of them are also fully credentialed teachers and have their own class loads to handle. He showed them most likely where Freshman classrooms would be. By the time he was done those kids – even those who may never have stepped on the campus before – now have a giant head start on all the other kids entering as Freshman who are not playing football. They can already picture what their first day of school will look like. Talk about a giant leap of confidence!
With coaches and teachers like that, I know that in 4 very fast years those baby chicks will be ready to fly:
How perfect is it that his school’s mascot is my most favorite bird eh?
Trees & Flowers & Birds! 
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