The Best Weekend of the Fall

This is the best weekend of the PIAA fall sports' season. We have field hockey, football, soccer and volleyball all being contested throughout the state with many hoping to continue their quest of playing for a PIAA Championship.

Last weekend, we hosted a great tennis championship at the Hershey Racquet Club. Our girls' singles and doubles championships last weekend followed our previous week's team championships. The girls' performances were terrific. They played outstanding tennis and we had one of our better tennis championships in years due to the high quality of play. Many thanks for their participation and congratulations on a fabulous achievement.

Also, last weekend, we hosted over 12,000 spectators at the 2012 PIAA Cross Country Championships on the Parkview Course in Hershey, PA. It was a crisp, fall day that had 1368 runners from all areas of the state vie for the Championship in their respective class. The course was in fantastic condition due to the hard work of our friends at Hershey, especially John Tshudy, Aaron Fackler and Rick Weimer.

This year's championships hosted three classifications for the first time in PIAA history and it resulted in having more runners compete for gold than ever before. Even with 1368 runners, our field and course was faster than ever. To illustrate this fact, every runner in three classifications of boys' races ran the course in under 22:00!! That's smoking!

We would like to show "a tip of the cap" to all medal winners and teams for their outstanding performances. Congratulations and well done! A special recognition must go to all the boosters clubs, parents and team moms & dads for great tents, food (especially the chili) and music that they spend hours preparing and building along the first "leg" of the course. The colors, the excitement, their enthusiasm and smell of mouth-watering cuisine wafting through the air makes this a day like no other.

So this weekend get out there, support your teams, watch great competition and know that not everyone is going to win. To those that do, congratulations, on to the next round. To those that don't; congratulations on a great season and being part of the highest profile gifted program in the world - athletics.

In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Amen...