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From: figmo@lll-crg.ARpA (Lynn Gold)
Newsgroups: net.social,net.women
Subject: Re: Team Sports, an observation
Message-ID: <5987@lll-crg.ARpA>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 01:39:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: lll-crg.5987
Posted: Mon Sep 15 01:39:29 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Sep-86 09:23:42 EDT
References: <1127@mit-trillian.MIT.EDU> <3357@umcp-cs.UUCP> <2253@gitpyr.UUCP>
Reply-To: figmo@lll-crg.UUCP (Lynn Gold)
Organization: The Kitchen of Panda Programming, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 41
Xref: watmath net.social:1398 net.women:12826

I was luckier than Kenneth.

I was a lousy athlete up to high school -- NON-athlete is a more
accurate representation.  When I transferred to a small, private
school for high school, there was a much stronger push for EVERYONE to
get involved with athletics because when your school is THAT small,
you NEED warm bodies just to fill up a team.  Surprisingly, though,
our school fielded some damn good teams.  Since the headmaster had 5
or 6 daughters who were all outstanding athletees, there was a strong
girls' sports program.

Any other coach would have discouraged me, but Floss Brudon, the main
girls' gym teacher and coach, encouraged anyone who wanted to to go
out for sports.  There was a policy against cutting anyone from any
team just because they weren't a great athlete.  Another policy
throughout the school's sports program was that "How Well You Played
The Game" was emphasized over winning.  If we played our best but were
still defeated, we were praised for playing our best.  If we won
mostly because we were sloppy but the other team was sloppier, we were
criticized for playing a sloppy game.  Another policy was that
everyone who showed up to play got to play -- even if it was only for
five minutes because the game was tight.

Because of the encouragement I received in the area of sports, I made
visible improvements in my physical fitness.  For example, when I
entered the school, my time on the 50-yard dash was 13 seconds; by my
junior year, it was down to 9 seconds.  While this was slow compared
to most of my teammates (who timed in from 6-8 seconds), I noticed the
improvement, as did everyone around me.

--Lynn

P.S.--Wrt quality, our girls' lacrosse team was #2 in NJ my senior year!
-- 
UUCP: ...lll-crg!figmo
ARPA: Lynn%PANDA@SUMEX-AIM

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