No More Sidelines - 2013

Friday, January 31, the Girls’ Varsity Basketball team partnered with a group called No More Sidelines and experienced a night that was arguably one of the most special of the season.. Coming off a tough loss the night before, it was refreshing to take a step back and look at all we’ve been blessed with. This night taught us a lot about counting our blessings.

No More Sidelines is an organization that helps get kids with special needs learn how to play sports and get involved. NMS is dedicated to integrating children with special needs into the community and giving them opportunities where the kids can have fun. NMS not only helps the kids feel a sense of belonging but also the parents know that they’re not alone.        

The kids started arriving around 6:30 and were not shy of grabbing a ball and shooting around. We all got to different hoops and started getting to know them. After a few minutes of shooting around, Coach Brad had us work on passing. We worked on that until they got the hang of it and then announced it was time to scrimmage.        

Scrimmaging is definitely their favorite part. We split them up into four teams and sent some of the varsity girls with each team to be “coaches”. It’s really neat to see the kids get so excited to be playing in a real game.   They had the biggest grins on their faces at all times. Even simple things like catching a ball or making a basket had the kids cheering like they had won the super bowl. How often do we, who are blessed with so much, stop to really think and thank God for what he’s given us? These kids teach us all a valuable lesson about humility and gratefulness.

Along with their generally cheerful spirit, the No More Sidelines participants were over-the-top encouraging to each other. While it was interesting and somewhat different to play a game of basketball where a player got to shoot until they made the basket, it was very neat to hear both teams erupt in cheering as soon as the basket was made. There were more high fives and pats on the back then most high school teams see in a whole season!  How different would this world be if we all adopted this kind of attitude?

The attitude that no matter what difficulties we face, instead of retreating into self-pity we make the choice to look outside ourselves and bless people with whatever we have to give. Some people may say that we blessed the kids we played with on Friday; but I think everyone who was there would agree that they blessed us in more ways than we could have ever believed was possible.

- Hayley Mohr and Natalie Kapanka, Seniors