Trophy

Friday was one of my longest days this year. Friday and July 18th. Both days related to Yerwood and required huge amounts of effort on little sleep. Friday was so worth it. Having created a movie for the Basketball camp at the Yerwood Center in the early hours of the morning, I still had to do a half day at work. Hoping to just spend a short time after lunch checking the connections for the overhead projector/laptop did not turn out the way I planned. Instead, we had to run around town finding cables to hook up my Mac to the projector. Once resolved, Vanessa dropped me off and I organised the seating on the stage behind the gymnasium.

A screen was placed at one end of the stage behind closed curtains to keep this whole movie screening a surprise from the kids. A podium was then dragged over center-aligned with the screen and I hooked up the Mac, the LaCie drive holding this 9GB movie and the overhead projector

Chairs were put out on either side of the 'runway' of hardware, and I was almost set. My last task was to create a Word document on which would be instructions to install Quicktime, a 'table of contents' for the video and a track listing of the songs I used in the movie. Once completed I had to copy it onto 38 flash drives. Very quietly I might add, because some of the kids were sitting on the stage on the other side of the curtain and I didn't want them peeking. A surprise is a surprise after all.

The afternoon went so quickly that I didn't have the chance to feel sleep deprived. Well, just once, around 5.30 my eyes felt like lead.

6pm came, the whistle blew and I could hear Vanessa asking the kids to gather round, just like she did every Friday for the last four weeks. I walked down the steps leading from the stage to the gym, camcorder in hand, and proceeded to follow the throng. The kids made an arch and sat down, whilst the parents flanked the gym.

Vanessa gave out the awards to the kids. She then wanted to give out two special awards: one to her high school coach for all he had given her and one more award. This was for someone behind the scenes who had been filming and photographing the training sessions and who had been working tirelessly night and day. As soon as Vanessa started to talk, butterflies hit my stomach like dive bombers. I had told her I didn't want her to mention me on the last day. But, no, she knew better.

And she actually did.

When Vanessa called me out and her sister-in-law took over the camcorder, I was very proud to walk the perimeter where the kids were seated and approach Vanessa to receive this award. On film, Vanessa awarded me this basketball, signed by all the kids. It is a wonderful memory to recall and to playback, literally.

I thanked everyone and Vanessa and I both revealed that the kids were about to see a movie and that they should climb up on stage once we opened the curtains. Vanessa and I swished open the curtains to reveal the mini theatre scene. The kids scrambled to find chairs and the parents remained in the gym looking up at their seated kids, curious and happy.

I turned off the lights and pressed play.

The music started, a buzz enveloping the air. The kids laughed at places I knew well. They really had a blast as I selected various parts of this 50-minute video and condensed the screening to just 20 minutes.

Once the lights went up I told the kids that we had another surprise, that the full movie, plus photos plus an MP3 of Vanessa talking about dreams were all on a flash drive for each player. The idea was that once the camp feels long gone in their minds, they can always go back to it, see their friends in photos and hear their coach's voice reminding them to never stop dreaming.

As each child left, they held out their hand and I placed these little coloured flash drives in the palm of their hands.

Within 15 minutes the kids had left and a soccer session was starting in the gym. Just like that. Gone.

But never forgotten.

I also realised I was like one of the player in the camp. Brian was a small stalky guy who was often last in the sprint exercises but never gave up. I'm his equivalent in Blipfoto: I may not get my photos onto blipfoto on the day I take them, but I always post them in the end. It just takes a little more time than most other people :-).


Awards
Toughness: Caitlin, Alexia
Best sportsmanship: Shamond
Most improved - Fabiola, Kevin
Best defensive player: Shamond
Leadership: Jeffrey
Little champion award: Alanna
Other awards to Shamond and Isaiah