It is now their time

I wrote this article several months ago, but had it in draft because I was waiting on photos.  Finally got them posted and finished the article.  

Darcy's school, where she has attended since she was three years old, is a small Montessori school.  Her 8th grade class has fifteen kids in it, the largest graduating class the school has had.  When it comes to sports we play other Montessori based schools and the teams are coed to accommodate the small enrollments.  It is all about learning the sport, teamwork, and sportsmanship, and you make the team no matter your playing ability.  Everyone who wants to play plays.  We play football, soccer, and basketball throughout the year and the main rule is that two girls must be on the playing field at all times.

For some of the schools this has been hard especially in football, but for our school the girls outnumber the boys.  Darcy has only 5 boys in her class and that's only because one just moved here last month from Germany.  Madison's class had only one boy, and back then our problem was getting enough players to participate.  Those girls in those years were more into make-up and social activities then sports.  Madison finally joined basketball her sixth grade year.  That year was one of those "too few kids" years and because that was anticipated because of each school's size the rules stated we could move up kids from the 5th grade as long as they were ten years old.  Enter Darcy.

She was only in her 4th grade year when she was put on the practice squad of the basketball team so that they could practice scrimmaging.  She and two of her male classmates played against the team, but couldn't compete in games because they weren't ten years old yet. 

Basketball Spring 2009 - Darcy 4th grade

The next year, her 5th grade year, she was of legal age and immediately started out playing the first sport of the season; football.  Darcy, the two boys from basketball, and a third 5th grader were brought up to complete the team and they were thrown right in.  She loved it.  She played both defense and offense and was the one who ran out into the huddle with the plays.  Because of this she had to learn the playbook to relay it to the the other players between downs when the coach wasn't allowed on the field.

Football Fall 2009 - Darcy 5th grade

 

Darcy's classmate, one she has known since she was three, was the quarterback.  These four kids were playing against middle school kids on the other side and actually holding their own.  Unfortunately, due to size and strength we weren't winning.  For Darcy that was no big deal at that age, but the boys took it hard.  We kept telling them that one day they would finally be the older, taller kids, but back then it was no consolation.

Football  Fall 2010 - Darcy 6th grade

Basketball Spring 2011 - Darcy 6th grade

These kids moved on to soccer and basketball where they would be crushed sometimes by a score of 40 - 4 in basketball.  Each year we kept giving them the wait speech; one day they would be the winners, that they would grow, that these kids on the other teams would graduate, etc.  But while they heard that they didn't care about it because it wasn't now.

Football 2011 - Darcy 7th grade

Basketball 2012 - Darcy 7th grade

This year is the final year.  Darcy and the other three boys are now 8th graders.  They started the sports season out in the fall of 2012 with football.  When they took the field for the first game they looked around and noticed they were taller then the other team.  They took that first snap and realized they were stronger then the other team.  They ran down the field, scored, and realized they were faster then the other team. 

Football 2012-2013 - Darcy 8th grade

Finally!  Finally they got what we had been saying all of these years.  This was their time.  They went undefeated and won the championship in football.

Mustang Football Champs 2012-2013

Next came soccer.  They towered over the other soccer kids.  They dribbled, passed, and weaved their way through the teams.  We had a secret weapon in one of the girls who also played competitive soccer.  The day she was at another match we lost by one.  Didn't matter in the end.  We made it to the finals and won the championship.

Darcy 2013 soccer - 8th grade

Mustang Soccer Champs 2013

Basketball took place two days after the soccer season ended.  In the beginning there weren't enough kids to even substitute players, but by the second game we had added a few.  The practices were outside in the heat and quite intense.  The pressure was on for the kids to win another championship to finish out the year with a three-peat. 

Darcy 2013 BBall - 8th grade

It wasn't hard.  Where we had once been the laughing stock of the other teams we were now the dominators.  The kids came together passing and shooting like a pro team.  Their defense was great and their picks the best I've seen at that level.  They ended the season with no losses and the championship trophy.

Mustang Basketball Champs 2013

Three championships had never been done before in the history of the school.  Finally all of that "keep working, one day you will be bigger and stronger" talk became a reality.  It was a nice way to end their 8th grade year especially after all of the previous years.