Where the Wild Ones Are

I joined NEHSCA back in September as a leap of faith. Anyone who knows me knows if a friend asks me for help I say yes. It is in my DNA. We always make Conan jokes about what the best life is. But the best life is being there for friends, building community and being a beacon of light in the darkness. That is it my friends. This is not a read through as they say. My reasons for leaping into NEHSCA were numerous. One, they needed my help. Boom that is a no brainer for me. I am like a softer version and less legalese version of Better Call Saul. Two, I honestly love coaching youth sports. I have coached softball, hockey and lacrosse. If I were to be honest lacrosse is my favorite sport. I played as a kid. But coaching is vastly more rewarding.

Coaching isn't just mastery of a certain sport or discipline. The best coaches of a sport are not usually the best players. It is rare for a high level athlete to be a great coach. It can happen. My daughter is currently being coached by one of the best NCAA goalies in recent memory. But that is a rarity. My love of coaching was more about the compete athlete and building a team. The last season I coached we had 5 girls who never played lacrosse. My main goal was just to teach kids to love the game. Not worry about wins or losses but just getting better and being a good teammate. That last season was awesome.

So when I joined NEHSCA as a Board member my first goal was to be really involved. Boots on the ground and all that jazz. I signed up to help out with the Wild Ones. I had some great mentoring early on from some friends. We did a course build out at Secret Squirrel CX. Seeing the NEHSCA kids and coaches raking out a CX course caught my attention. Big time. Then we hosted a night with Jake Wells at Hale. Again, I was so impressed by their attitude and community vibe. Then we had our first team night. Craig and Eric and the coaches were so impressive.

Our first team ride was today. We had about 25 kids and 8 coaches. We had a blast. We rode for about an hour. The kids did fantastic. And the coaches were so awesome. I honestly don't even know how to describe it. When they handed out race plates with all the coaches names and the kids names I was like wow, this is legit.

The future is bright. We have our first race in two months. It is going to be incredible. HUGE thanks to NEHSCA, Eric, Sean and Craig for launching the Wild Ones. Huge shout out to all the kids who are so rad. I am so stoked for this season. See you all out there!