Kyle Parmley
As someone who covers plenty of high school sports throughout the year, I get the great opportunity to see many, many teams be crowned champions.
Area champions, regional champions, state champions. There are so many trophies handed out during the course of all the seasons.
For example, if you go to the Super 7 high school football state championships, you’ll see eight state titles awarded over a three-day period.
I can easily see how you become numb to that, if you work a large number of championship events. You see the same movie unfold over and over. Team A wins and rushes the field in a bundle of elation and claims a trophy for its efforts. Rinse, repeat.
I’m often frustrated at how the teams that win these championship events are stifled in the immediate aftermath of victory. After a very brief explosion of joy, players and coaches are shuffled back to their places so that the mundane and repetitive awards ceremony can commence.
For the high school athletic teams in this state, they are told that reaching these championship events is the pinnacle of their seasons. But too often, they are only allowed to celebrate for a single moment and then moved out of the way for the next title game.
What gets lost so often is the context each team carries at the end of a season. The teams fortunate enough to win a state championship have logged countless hours, days and months with each other, achieving triumphs and persevering through struggles along the way. They didn’t just show up at the end ready to win it all.
These coaches and athletes have dedicated their lives for a portion of time to ensure that their particular team has a chance at glory.
While those of us who are fortunate enough to cover these events regularly can always come back next year, many of the players and coaches get one shot at claiming a state title. The least we can do is allow them to bask in the moment of reaching the mountaintop of their sport.
It’ll be OK if the next game starts a few minutes later than planned. The teams deserve at least a minute or two to soak up a championship moment.
Let them enjoy it!
Kyle Parmley is the sports editor at Starnes Media.
