On the Side | Brad Hicks

Middle school sports heroes come and go. There was a guy in my class who, in seventh grade, was pretty much all-everything. He was taller, faster, jumped higher, and competed harder than anyone else. By the time we were seniors in high school, he was pretty much the same height, jumped the same amount, ran the same speed, and most everyone had caught up and some even passed him up in the skills category. Even though seventh- and eighth-grade stars can fade, middle school athletics is important. It’s a training ground for fundamentals, a place to develop expertise, a laboratory for learning how to be a good teammate, and perhaps most important, the place to practice perseverance.

That seventh grade basketball team on which my friend starred had 40 guys. I was probably about number 35 – seated down toward the end of the bench, all 4-foot-nothing of me. I could shoot, but anyone who put a hand in the air could block it. I could dribble, but the coach wanted passing. There I sat. By the time my senior year rolled along, there were just five guys from my class on the team, and I was the only regular starter on a unit filled with talented underclassmen. It taught me that it’s not so much how you start, but it’s how you finish. When I coached middle school baseball and set up a youth basketball program for the kids who weren’t picked for traveling teams, that’s one of the messages I shared.

My older son showed interest in sports when he was younger, but he was 4-foot-nothing, unselected for the basketball traveling team, and a B-teamer in eighth grade. His junior year, he was the varsity sixth man, and his senior year, he was the starting point guard, all 5-foot-7 of him. Other kids from the kids’ ball program had similar outcomes.

Bernie Saggau, former director of the Iowa High School Athletic Association, at an event I was attending years ago, told how he tried to convince Jim Doran to quit the Buena Vista football team because he was too this or too that and was getting killed in practice. Jim Doran transferred to Iowa State, was an All-American, and played 11 seasons in the NFL.

It’s not about the start. It’s about the finish.

Brad Hicks is the former publisher of the Express. He can be reached at news@redoakexpress.com.