Every once in a while, I use this space to express my disappointment or frustration with the happenings of Manitou Springs High School athletics.
Not today.
Today all I see is optimism and I love it. It all started after the state cross-country meet. I was chatting with Cody Kelley after his 12th-place finish. He expressed disappointment in his result.
He expected better. He wanted better.
Most importantly, he knew that simply wanting better wasn’t going to result in getting better. He had to work. Within minutes after our chat, Kelley was geared up for a run. He knows that, to get what he wants, he has to keep working toward that goal.
Kelley is a competitor.
At times it has felt like Manitou has been shy of competitors. But the pendulum might be swinging back the other way.
Case in point: After our weekly pickup basketball session, I ventured into the coaches office and there sat football coach Stu Jeck and baseball coach Brandon DeMatto, plotting out offseason training and conditioning. They’re creating the expectation that, if a student-athlete is not competing in a sport for his school, there is work to be done.
It can’t all come from forced expectations, however. And in some ways, it’s not. I see my friend Tim Rhodes at every home volleyball game I attend and he makes a point of telling me that he was in Vegas or Arizona or some other warm weather spot over the weekend.
He’s there because Andrew Rhodes is playing traveling baseball, which will make him better when the school baseball season gets rolling in August.
On the diamond, Rhodes is a competitor.
Lairden Rogge won’t be involved in the football and baseball strength program, but in his hopes to run track in college he competed for the cross-country team (Rogge is a sprinter, not a distance runner, so he’s out of his comfort zone here) and he’ll be a vital piece to the boys basketball team’s success this winter.
And because of that, he made sure he was playing with the team when it went to the summer camp at Colorado Mesa University.
Rogge is a competitor.
Nate Gentzel won’t have as much time to dive into the strength and conditioning program with his head coaches because he’s a three-sport athlete.
Competitor.
Grace Allen played through a volleyball season on a torn anterior cruciate ligament. She rehabbed it through the course of last year, shined at girls basketball camp at Mesa and has been one of the best players on the floor for the volleyball team.
Allen is a competitor.
I see a great foundation being built within the walls at Manitou. And I see coaches who are invested in building on that foundation.
It’s easy to look at some recent results for teams and not think that things are trending up. But I believe they are. I believe the athletes listed above are setting great examples and that the coaches throughout the high school are establishing the culture needed to achieve the desired results.