The Winners Of the NIB 12 West Division is.... Streator

     This is the day we have been waiting for all year, the confernce golf meet in Yorkville.  We come in trailing Streator by 2 points but with a win today we can make that up and be the conference champions.  Sterling was runner up last year and 3rd the year before, this was our year. 
     We arrived to the course bright and early and started our warmup.  The whole team was feeling good and warming up great.  Our main competition Streator warmed up next to us.  We received our scorecards and were a little dissappointed to find out that we didn't get to play with them.  Our coach gathered us around for one last motivational speech, "Sterling has not won the conference championship in five years. Go get it done."
     Half way through my round I am feeling good and just shot a 39 on the back, with the easier side yet to play.  I struggled to get started on the front with a bogey on the first hole and then on the second another bogey after chunking my ball into the water.  After the second hole I stood there and tried to just refocus.  My anger was getting the best of me and I just tried to relax and tell myself the team needed me to finish strong and keep going.  I thought about how this is my last ever conference meet and just told myself, "Go have fun and finish strong."  I didn't really finish very strong but 80 was not a bad score for the conditions.
    I got in to find out some other scores, Andy- 75 Sawyer- 79 Patrick- 90 Ryan- 93 and Brandon-102. As a team we shot a 324, not our best score.  We had the lead with one team left to post their scores, which was Streator.  We held our breathe as their coach made his way yo turn in his scores.  The total was 319.  We had lost by the small margain of 5 strokes.
     We all just stood there in shock and thought about the shots that we should have made that would have won us the tournament.  We watched as all the awards were handed out concluding with the announcement of, " The champions of the NIB 12 West Division is...... Streator".
     As I stood there in shock as everyone cleared out to go home I was approached by the local sports reporter. He asked, "Nathan how does it feel to fall just 5 strokes short of a conference championship?" I paused for a second before responing with, " We just didn't put 4 scores together today and that is a little dissappointing. We came here to win and we are not leaving happy but, we will come ready for regionals on Tuesday."

The Amazing (Boat) Race

     It is early in the morning on Wednesday September 21st and I am getting ready to go pick up the boat for the race.  We will race our boats across Thomas Park pond for physics.  My group had worked long and hard on this boat and had it all painted up and ready to win.  Our group name is PBnJ, for Patrick, Branden, Nathan, and Jando.  We decided to cover our boat in Happy Birthday decorations to suck up since it was Mrs. Gatz's birthday. 
     Our group lined up our boat and Branden climbed in followed closely behind me.  We lined up, we got the go sign, and got a giant push from Patrick and Jando.  Off we went across the pond.  To be honest my first reaction was, "Oh my God, we are actually floating and going somewhere."  I completely thought we weren't going to go anywhere and that we would just sink down into the cold water and goose poop. We are now about half way across and now the wind is taking us off course so I switch my paddle to my other hand then we started to lose ground.  I switched back and now the other group ahead of us is now stuck in the mud only feet from the edge.  My arm is getting sore and it is scraping against the top of our cardboard walls.  The other group has touched the edge and now we are going for second and get there a short 7 seconds later.
     With our second place finish we were guarunteed an A minus so we were pretty happy, and we ended up getting our picture on the front page of the paper.
 

     In the past week my great grandpa died.  To most kids this is not really the sadest thing in their lives.  For me it was not either until I got to the visitation.  It was the typical vistitaiton where I sat on the couch with my cousins and talked to the very few people I knew when they came by.  I sat there just waiting to go home and eat I was absolutely starving.  I felt really bad for my grandpa for losing his dad, and my great grandma for losing her husband of 73 years.  They married when my great grandpa was 20 and my great grandma was 18.  They lived on the family farm for over 40 years, before selling it to a grandchild. This was a huge loss to my family.
     The saddest point of the night was at the end when my great grandma went up to the casket to say her good byes to my great grandpa.  She spent a few minutes up there quietly saying a few words even though she knew she would get no response.  It made me feel so sad for her.  She is now 91 and is going to be by herself for a while and not really sure who will be there to help her out.
      I feel that after experiencing this that I want to really enjoy my time here with my friends and family because it is only going to last so long.  You never know when a loved one will be taken away from you, and you always want your memories to be positive ones.

Sacrifice

Everyone at some point during their life must sacrifice to gain.  Some choose to do the sacrificing and others choose not to.  I personally am one who chooses to sacrifice because I am very competetive.  During the spring I played golf in the cold and during the summer I played in the heat as sweat ran down my arms and legs just from walking and carrying my clubs.  As I am out on the course with my friends sometimes I wonder why I spend so much time on the course but I remember that I want to be the best I can be and that means I must keep working.  I think to myself "What else could I be doing right now?", but I realize this is what I love to do.  There are many people who do not find something they love and never sacrifice but yet they still wonder why they do not gain anything.  In order to gain you have to spend the time in the gym, on the course, or the field where ever you need to practice you must do it.  I know one day I went and played 18 holes with a friend then we ate lunch at the course then decided to hit range balls followed by another 18.  Time and effort must be put in to achieve anything.  A lot of people I know say practice makes perfect but in my eyes that is not true.  Perfect practice makes perfect.

Hard Work

     In this era of high school sports to be successful it is a year round thing. You must be weight-lifting year round and working on your sport's skills as well.  The worst feeling is when you put in that work and it doesn't pay off. I had played golf almost everyday during the summer in anticipation for my senior year.  But the first day of tryouts it all went downhill.

    I stepped to the first tee on the first day of tryouts with nothing really in my head.  I had been playing good all summer and had nothing to worry about.  I hit my opening tee shot and it was great.  I went to hit my second shot and it was awful.  So many things were running through my head; "What just happened?", "How do I make sure this doesn't happen again?", and "There goes all my hard work".  There was nothing to even describe how i felt at this moment.  The rest of my group looked at me with a look that said, "How did that just happen".  I finished out the round the same way I hit that second shot - awful.  I could not believe this happened to me. I had spent so much time and effort to get ready for my senior year and I was throwing it away.   

     After this ugly performance I knew I had to do something.  I went straight to the driving range to try to fix my swing.  I eventually got it figured out and was ready for the next meet.  

    We all want to be the best at our sport and win tournaments and even be state champions but how many people really want to put the work in.  Everyone know that most kids would rather be hanging out with friends than be at practice but will that get you to be the best you can?  One of my biggest pet peeves is when people don't work hard. No matter what you do to be successful you must work hard.  Whether it be getting good grades or being successful in sports you can always work hard and need to in order to be good.  You can't help how hard the math test is or how good your opponent is but you can control your work effort.