Rice Lake Athletic Training - Article Review
Joe Rogalla This article that we read was about being a bench player and the positive and negatives about being in that position. Matt Peiken, the staff writer who wrote this article, interviewed different players in the Saint Paul area about what it was like “riding the pine” during their sports games. The first girl was Amy Iago, a senior volleyball player at a Park High School in Cottage Grove. She has only played in one match this season and it wasn’t for very long. Her motivation to stay on the team was by remember the good memories she made when she was in the game and how good that made her feel. The second person was Bob De La Forest, a senior football quarterback at Woodbury. People have told him that he should just quit the team, but he knows that is not the right thing to do. He knows at practice he can make the team better by challenging their defense. He’d much rather have that great feeling of being a part of that family on the sidelines than be with his school friends in the stands. The last player, Josh Tschida, is a 17 year old cross-country runner from Stillwater. In every other sport he wasn’t good enough, but in cross-country, he just liked being out there running and it’s just you without anyone pressuring you to do something. I think that these are great stories to hear about. These student-athletes have overcome many obstacles, and in some cases, keeping going even though others told them to quit. Being able to stick with it like they did is a pretty amazing thing I think. I’m not sure I could’ve done the same thing. Finding that motivation to come back to practice every day even though they wouldn’t play in the games would be hard, but these athletes found that motivation and fought through the hurt to find the positive side of the situation. I believe that these stories apply to any high school sports team out there, but some more than others. Here at Rice Lake, and for the teams that I have heavily observed, there has not been a lot of bench-warmers. I bet there are teams at are school that have many players that don’t play often, but the players still stay on the team. I know some people that have quit their sport because they think that they aren’t good enough, but other than being like Josh Tschida, they do not find another sport to be a part of.