Sports!

Sports

Tonight we went to the MIS Athletes Recognition night for high school sports.  It began with each team in its own classroom with the coach speaking about the team and a short video presentation.  We had three varsity athletes so that was a little tricky.  Rachel went to Stefanie’s room, I went to AJ’s and Steve went to Dominic’s.  Afterwards there were team presentation in the auditorium.  Everyone does not get a trophy here.  One coach’s award and one most valuable player award per team.  However, we were surprised because one DelRosso did bring home a trophy tonight!!!

All four kids played a sport this fall. We had decided before school started that this would be a great way to meet more friends and be active at school even if that meant not knowing anyone when they went to try-outs. Lots of opportunities to embrace inner courage here. 

And as an aside, I can relate a little. I almost didn’t go to the first MIS Mom’s tennis day because I was afraid. What if I’m not good enough?  What if I don’t know anyone? What if I suck? What if everyone else plays all the time? And then I thought, my kids all tried out and are playing a sport, how am I going to explain to them that I wimped out on going to play tennis? So I went, had a great time and now have friends I play with every week!

Sports are a bit different here.  In general the international school community is not as competitive as the American system.  Most kids don’t play sports year round on travel teams so the level of play is just different.  A bonus for us here is that they are all at one school which means one place to pick up kids after practice and one recognition night.  Logistics are easier.  

Dominic decided to give rugby a try, something different after many years of soccer.  He liked some of the kids playing and we had heard great things about the program.  Not only did he make the team but he started all season and has really learned quite a bit about the game.  Thankfully he plays on the wing which means he isn’t always in the middle of the ruck, but it is still really hard to watch him get tackled.  No pads in rugby.

AJ had to make a choice between volleyball and soccer since both are played in the fall here.  He chose volleyball which he really grew to love this past spring at Charter.  He also made the varsity team and had a great season.  He’s already looking forward to next year and what he will be able to do as a setter.  

Stefanie also played volleyball.  While middle school volleyball is played in the spring, high school girls is played in the fall.  The school’s website said if you were 13 you could play high school sports so we, incorrectly it turned out, assumed lots of kids played from the middle school.  Since volleyball is Stef’s only sport we had her try out.  She was the only 8th grader, and she made the varsity team.  This was a big deal and she did great all season.  Stefanie is also our family’s winner of a trophy - she received the Coach’s Award.

Rachel chose to stick with soccer, her sport of choice.  She played on her grade’s middle school team and had a great season.  While she has most recently been a defensive player she did start switching to offense and played quite well.  She was asked to play with the 8th grade team for their end of the year tournament in Frankfurt.  This was a fun opportunity for her since 6th grade students don’t usually travel overnight.  

A highlight of playing in the international community is that the competition is other international schools.  Dominic went to Zurich and Zuoz in Switzerland, AJ visited Frankfurt and Warsaw, Stefanie went to Zurich and Vienna and Rachel made a trip to Frankfurt.  The kids usually play a Friday game, spend the night with a family from the school and then play a Saturday game and come home.  At the end of the season there are tournaments that last three or four days.  

We also house students when teams visit our school.  So far it has gone really well.  We had lovely girls from Austria and some fun British boys from the Zurich school.  The British boys played monopoly with our kids, it was fun to watch and we enjoyed the internationalness of our American kids playing Monopoly with British boys who live in Switzerland at our house in Germany.

Four kids in four sports does make for a busy fall, but it’s just like what we did at home which provided great familiarity. We are glad they played, and they are glad they played.