The great thing about being a student-athlete in Cook County is that there are plenty of opportunities to participate in athletics. There are not any tryouts and no one has to worry about “making the cut.” Every athlete that comes out for a sport can make the team if he or she sticks with it.
For a small town, Cook County has a lot of athletic programs to choose from: cross country running, football, volleyball, tennis, basketball, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, baseball, softball, track, and others. Students have the great opportunity to become two and three sport athletes.
Even if an athlete isn’t a starter, there are still great opportunities to play as a bench player or at the junior varsity level. Everyone usually gets a chance to play at one level or another. As students get older, the competition becomes more and more difficult, but in our small town, athletes can still be a part of something greater than themselves.
Growing up in Grand Marais, I played football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and then ran track in the spring (we didn’t have baseball yet). I loved it. In the summer, my friends and I were always tossing a ball around or playing ball at the courthouse.
Even though I was an allconference athlete in football, I wonder how much better I could have been if I would have had to push myself just to make the team? Would I have lifted weights more in the weight room or ran more in the off-season? I probably would have. While I worked hard and was very active, how much harder could
I have worked? Did I ever reach my full potential? Probably not.
The very same thing that benefits student-athletes in Cook County can also be a detriment if these young athletes and their parents allow it to. Often times a young athlete who excels gets a lot of praise and accolades and rightfully so. We love to see our youth in town succeed. However, if these student-athletes get too full of themselves, they will never reach their full athletic potential.
This is a really fine line to balance between praising great performances and filling a young person with more praise than they really need. Even though I was a starter in football and basketball at Cook County, there were probably plenty of teams in larger areas where I never would have even seen the field or made the cut.
In Grand Marais we often see our great athletes become “big fish in a small pond.” It is like that in small towns all across America. When they go out for college athletics, they find out quickly just how good everyone else is.
Sometimes we lose sight of this when we think our children should be the stars of their teams or should “start.” Not everyone is always meant to be the “star” but that shouldn’t change our view of our kids. Thatis why I love team sports so much. Everyone on the team is a part of something greater than themselves. While each athlete plays a part, the sum of the parts is always greater than the individual.
As my children get older, I want to support them in whatever they decide to do. If they choose to be active in athletics, I want them to work hard to reach their potential. If their potential is nothing more than being part of the team, that is fine. If their potential is greater than that, then I want them to push themselves to the limit. If they end up excelling and being the “star,” my goal will be to help them reach their full potential. That may require me to remind them that they are just another “big fish in a small pond” and that there is still plenty of work to do if they want to reach their full potential.
Mitch Dorr, a Cook County High
School Class of 1993 graduate,
is now a social studies teacher
and coach at his former alma
mater. Mitch coaches Vikings
football and boys’ basketball.
Coach Dorr’s comments do not
necessarily reflect the opinion of
the ISD 166 school board or
administration.
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