Hard Work vs. Talent

Came across this article on a friend's FB news feed:

Montana High Schools Ranked by Enrollment Numbers

If you click on it and scroll down, you can take a look at a well-organized chart of enrollment numbers for all Montana high schools, organized by class. Here's a few thoughts that come to mind after glancing at the chart.

North Star, where I work, is in Class C. Class C is the largest of all four classes of Montana schools/sports, but is comprised of the smallest schools. This tells the astute reader that Montana has A LOT of small towns.

For sports, many of the small schools listed in the Class C column co-opt for one or all of the athletic seasons. Our sports offerings are much fewer than a school in AA, as well. At North Star, we have only Football/Volleyball in the fall, Basketball in winter, and Track and Field in the spring. Some Class C schools also have Cheerleading, Golf, Wrestling and Tennis, but often only if they're one of the larger Class C schools or Co-Opted teams.

Some schools, again, such as North Star, are actually an agglomeration of several small towns together in one school. Another example on the list would be Chester-Joplin-Inverness, or Powder River.

Ames, IA, where I grew up, had enrollment of around 1600 students when I graduated in 2002.  If Ames High were in Montana, it would be Class AA. When I graduated, Ames was class AAAA, but in Iowa the class system is a little different. If I remember correctly, from smallest to largest, it went A, AA, AAA, AAAA. In Montana it's, C, B, A, AA.

Something else worth noting is that there is some overlap in enrollment numbers between the different classes. Chinook, a Class C school with 145 students could very easily be in Class B. Butte Central is Class A, but only has 136 enrolled students. That makes them even smaller than Chinook, so one could argue they should jump all the way down to Class C. My understanding is that there is some governing body that initially decides or recommends to different schools whether or not they should change classes, but that a school board or superintendent perhaps could appeal that recommendation and remain where they are.

If you're the school who is the top dog on the pile for your class, you're likely the most despised adversary in your district or conference, especially when competing against schools much smaller than you. In my high school days, that school was West Des Moines Valley. They were a common enemy among foes.

Something that one of my fellow Track coaches says often when we're all talking about competing against bigger schools, is, "They still gotta compete." They still have to show up and work just as hard as we do. Even if we feel like we're perennially the underdogs, facing teams that are larger, or drawing from a larger talent pool, good work ethic makes a difference. A phrase I like is "Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn't Work Hard."

So anyway. Those are just a few thoughts to ponder. The plaque above is a reward I gave myself for sticking with running so well this year. I think it'll be a great way to chronicle races over time and show off my hardwear- ha! Ok, so two of those medals are from the IceBreaker 5K in Great Falls, where every finisher wins a medal. The middle medal is from Dawson's Run, in Joplin, MT, which I did this year for the second time and actually was the first-place female finisher. Even though it was a small race, I'm still proud of that medal.

Really, I'm proud of all my races because of the hard work and dedication I have put in to training and staying in shape. Each finish memorializes that. Hopefully, an athlete from Ames competing against Valley (or whoever today's Valley is), or a kid from North Star going up against Chinook feels like their hard work is memorialized in battle, too. And hopefully, sometimes that hard work will pay off and beat the talent pool they're facing.

Go Cyclones, Go Knights!