Summer just a continuation

What are you doing this summer? For many Petaluma families, summer is just a continuation of fall, winter or spring sports. There may be a lot of travel involved, but they will be hard-pressed to work in any family time.

Sports today have become a year-round endeavor.

For virtually every sport there are camps, conditioning, travel teams, passing leagues, summer leagues and more. Every sport is year round. We’re just about to get started on the Little League All-star season and, for the best of teams, it could mean another two months of baseball.

Even players not on All-Star teams or on teams that get knocked out early, there are travel-ball teams that can take them anywhere from Lodi to Arizona and beyond. The same is true for softball travel. And, even if they are not traveling across country, there are tournaments every weekend.

There are rules about how much practice and how organized practice might be for high school athletes, but there are still passing leagues for football players, summer leagues for basketball players and club sports for all.

For the elite players, the club programs are more important for the high school programs in terms of being noticed by college recruiters. This is where the players really have an opportunity to play for themselves. The truth is that club sports are about the individual, while high school sports are more about team.

Then there is summer-long conditioning. That means daily trips to the weight room. These are voluntary, but, coaches know which athletes are diligent about their workouts.

I make no judgment about summer sports. Many athletes are so dedicated they would be lost without their sport during the summer. It is also true that they become better and more skilled players in their chosen sport.

The flip side, of course, is that there is more to life than sports, although I’ve known many athletes, and more than a few parents, who refuse to acknowledge that concept.

I do know it might be a long, hot summer, or maybe a short, foggy summer, but it won’t be a quiet summer.

New scoreboard

On a totally different subject:

When Ellison Field on the Petaluma High school campus is finally refurbished, and I’m beginning to think that will coincide with the widening of the Novato Narrows, a brand new scoreboard will shine the news of Trojan victories.

The scoreboard has been promised by the Redwood Empire Electrical Industry Labor Management Cooperation Committee Trust. What that means is that the Redwood Empire Electrical workers union is giving the school a new scoreboard.

But that only tells part of the story. In the official announcement of the donation, the donor makes it clear that it supports fired Petaluma High athletic director Kathryn Teeter.

In a letter announcing the gift, LMCC secretary Anisa Thomsen writes:

“I am pleased to inform Petaluma High School that the Redwood Empire LMCCV will donate a football scoreboard when the field is ready after the upgrades. Our organization has donated in the past to Petaluma High School. We also donated the basketball scoreboard a few years back.

“It was through the communications with Ms. Kathryn Teeter that the football scoreboard donation was made possible. Like Ms. Teeter the Redwood Empire LMCC believes in investing in the community. And, also like Ms. Teeter, much of what we do is behind the scenes without a lot of headlines, recognition and fanfare.

“However, that does not diminish the importance of what Ms. Teeter accomplishes - quite the opposite. Her motives are purely for the benefit of the school and the students.”

The announcement ends with this zinger:

“We trust that Ms. Teeter will be available to see this project to completion as we will need to be in communications going forward.”

(Contact John Jackson at johnie.jackson@arguscourier.com)