When you unfold the pages of the musty-smelling Scarsdale Inquirer, you are greeted by many Edgemont athletes. I am technically an Edgemont athlete as well, but considering our school’s athletic performance, identifying myself as such is occasionally embarrassing.
At the end of every season, every athlete prepares for the most important event of the season: The Sports Awards. This is not only a big night for athletes but for their parents as well. To the parents reading this article: no matter how unathletic your child is 100% getting an award. So don’t fret -- even though you passed on bad genes, your offspring still wins a prize no matter what.
Since everyone is so interested in the records of these sports teams at the ranked #32 best school for athletics in Westchester County according to Niche.com, here is how the fall played out:
Boys Cross-Country: 0-6
Girls Cross-Country: 0-6
Field Hockey: 1-13-1
Football: 4-4
Boys Soccer: 8-8-2
Girls Soccer: 2-11-4
Girls Swim: 1-8
Girls Tennis: 8-5-1
Volleyball: 11-10
Don’t worry though -- it’s not as bad as it seems! Edgemont still had a majority of teams make it to playoffs… except field hockey. As a player on the field hockey team this past season, I can assure you the team was talented in many areas, like disappointing the coaches, having no fans, missing the ball, not scoring, and, yes, giving away too many awards.
These awards included one most improved player award, two awards for MVP, and two for Coaches award. It is the most valuable PLAYER and coaches AWARD, which believe it or not, are both singular. Field hockey was not the only team to run into this issue. Many other teams gave away multiple versions of awards that were intended for only one person.
With regard to outfits, let's give a hand to the football team for always dressing dapperly for sports awards. But next time, let's try to make sure everyone knows to show up on time. This team may not have skills in timeliness, but they have enough skill to have four All-League recipients along with one MVP, one Most Improved, and one Coaches Award. The football team also had enough skill to injure themselves more times than are necessary every game. Here’s to Stan, our athletic trainer, Teresa, for her patience with these injury-prone guys.
Next, let’s talk about cross country. Every year, every senior gives a speech. While this seems like a nice end to their cross country careers, it is somewhat unnecessary. They all say the same thing while trying to entertain the room (or, in the case of the Sports Awards, their seven-person team). Even football was more organized than this team, which showed up late with only a quarter of the team.
The best thing about Sports Awards is the speeches that give off the same energy as bar mitzvah speeches. For those of you who haven’t attended a bar mitzvah, let me describe what this analogy means. Basically, everyone says the exact same thing with some minor changes. Someone at a bat mitzvah would say, “Wow, you look amazing in your dress and did great at your service!” The next person who gives a speech says a variation of the person's speech before them.
"Although this season didn’t always go our way, we all worked so hard and I am going to miss spending everyday with you guys, I can’t wait to see how the team does next year.”
Every speech at the Sports Awards went something like this: “Although this season didn’t always go our way, we all worked so hard and I am going to miss spending everyday with you guys, I can’t wait to see how the team does next year.” Then they threw in an inside joke that received a dry laugh in response. The next person’s speech would be an exact paraphrase of the one before. As a note to the organizers of Sports Awards, I recommend that these speeches be submitted to Turnitin before the event.
Though the attention could have been centered around the high-achieving athletes, distractions throughout the night made this close to impossible. It was hard to hear the speeches over the field hockey team’s incessant chatter and the constant ruckus of the football team stomping down the bleachers to go to the bathroom. In addition, the microphone malfunctioned. That being said, Edgemont athletes are used to people not paying attention during their games, so one more event didn’t matter.
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