Cadre Today- 1998 Varsity Tennis

Hey there, Cadre. How are we doing today? I hope, I hope, I hope you are great. But if you're not, I know what that feels like for me, and I wish you were feeling better than you are. But I'll remind you, you can still accomplish some pretty great stuff even when you're not feeling great. So do what you need to do, do what you have to do, do what you get to do. At the end of it, maybe you'll be surprised that you'll still be like, oh, yeah, I got some stuff done today. That's a. It's a pretty beautiful thing about the resilience of the human spirit.

Mel Smzobz, nice to see you this morning. On this Wednesday, it is October, y'. All. Boo. Huh? All month long, we're gonna be talking about the idea of harvest, the idea of. Of reaping, you know, what's been. What's been put into the ground, put into your life, put into the world 1% better. Andy Mack, how are y' all doing? I'll tell you, with this complicated shirt I'm wearing, Anila, it's hard for me to see who's coming in to the call. So. So. Good morning. Good morning. You know, I was a high school tennis player, not because I enjoyed sports, but because I felt like I needed to play one in order to be.

To be a man. So tennis was my sport because it allowed me the space to be a part of a team and to do the sport thing, but also enough space for me to figure out how to do it on my own. And I'm really glad that I did because I ended up becoming a high school tennis coach for a very long time. And. And it's a really cool chapter of my life. I love the idea of. Of sport. You know, I say that everything is sport. Here's. Here's how I define sport. You doing something, you considering how you did it, and you going back and doing it again today later in consideration of how you did it last time.

So in other words, I did it this way, huh? I learned this thing. So next time, I'm going to do it this way. That's what sport is. So in tennis, the rules don't really go far beyond that. There's a ball, there's a net, there's a racket. Your goal is to put the ball over the net with the racket more times than your opponent. The great thing about tennis is you don't have to win in order to win, you can not lose. And if your opponent loses, you Win. Lots of rules. You go. It's like, oh, how am I figuring this out?

So back in 1998, I was a varsity tennis player at Champlin Park Senior High School. I still have my paper schedule from 1998 sitting on my desk with the highlights of where we won and the highlights of where we lost and the scores on the side and the margin. I hold onto that piece of paper because it was the beginning of me planting some seeds. So in 1999, we were really good, and our high school normally didn't have really good tennis teams. So that year we were really good. There's eight seniors and two juniors.

I was one of the two juniors and we were top five in state. But we ended up not going to state because the third ranked team in state went to state. We ended up not winning conference because the fourth ranked team in state was also in our conference. So at the end of the season, we ended up not accomplishing any of the things that you're supposed to want to accomplish. Fast forward to 2013. 2013, I'm coaching the Maple Grove boys tennis team. I went to Chanthorn park, another area high school, in 2013.

I'm coaching a really, really good team, and all of a sudden we win conference and we beat the same team that we had lost to in 1998. Felt really cool. And then we're playing in the section finals, getting ready to go to state against the same team we lost to in 1998 at the same neutral site, Irondale High School. And all of a sudden, as I'm coaching my team in 2013, very much like a PG sports movie, all of a sudden these eight guys come walking over the hill and I was like, oh, who are those people?

And they have, like, kids with them and like other people with them. It looks like a bunch of families. And over walking The Hill were eight of my teammates from 1998 who came to the match 15 years later to go ahead and watch to see if this is the year that the Champlin Park Energy finally beats Moundsview in the section finals. These teammates from 15 years ago felt the pull, felt the encouragement to come back and continue the story together, even though they weren't on the same. It wasn't their team, it weren't their families, wasn't their kids, but they still felt connected to the journey that we had started 15 years later.

And funny enough, Mount Zhu hadn't lost the section in all that time. They'd won the section all the time, every year. And finally we got the win. Now, who's the we there. The we there is whoever chooses to say I am a part of this thing that's happening. That was all of them. It was me. It was all these Maple Grove kids. The beautiful thing is now it is what will be 13 years after that coming up this next season. Morning, Emily. And I'm still very, very connected to my players from April Grove and my players from 15 years before that from Channel Park.

It's really fun to see the seeds that we plant and where they bring us forward to. So right now, today, consider those seeds that are planting and the work that you're doing and the relationships that you're forming and what's going to happen in the future. T. North says I still have my original wooden and red headed rackets from high school. Yeah. Those artifacts from our past that still hold power and magic today. What are those for you. And what's being stirred up within them. Y', all, I will see you tomorrow.

But I hope you have a good one because I'm always glad that I'm here. I'm glad that you're here. I know. What I know I care about you. Bye. There.