I don't like assuming things but we all love it when the big game goes into sudden death overtime. Nobody knows when it's going to end, how late we're going to stay up watching/doing, or how it's going to end. We don't like it however when the hours of work go into overtime.
I don't know much about teaching. In fact I know nothing about teaching but what I do know that those within the teacher sector are that those in it happen to be some of the hardest working people I ever met in my life.
Almost half of my family are teachers. My brother hasn't had a weekend off since September and two of my cousins are teacher/coaches but what I am finding out quickly, as in the case of this past Friday's Good Spirit School Division (GSSD) Showcase Track and Field meet held at the Gallagher Centre, is that I know some of the hardest working teachers around.
When I look at the job requirements of a sports editor, a reporter, photographer, etc., I think of all kinds of long crazy hours and endless running around the city doing interviews, tracking people down and all that jazz.
What I don't think about is that there's a handful of other people that do it too. Doctors, emergency workers, police officers and in Friday's case, the teachers.
When I think of what a typical day in the office is like, which I've never really seen before except for when I was in school, is that you get up in the morning at 6-7 a.m., get yourself ready and get to school on time before all your students do.
I could be wrong of course but that's what my idea of what the morning is like.
Then you go through the rest of the day, teach this teach that, hope to eventually make a difference in some kid's life and whatnot.
A recent assignment of mine was to track down a couple of them for a newspaper contest I plan to enter which says I have to do my best to promote one of them. There's a possibility of some recognition with it too, but much like the people I interview for it, that stuff is secondary if anything.
When I was in high school back home in southern Ontario, everybody stares at the clock for the last 10 minutes of the day until the dismissal bell rings (2:50 p.m), and then it is home free, for students and most of the staff too.
Not everybody is going to agree with that of course. There's numerous extremely dedicated staff members, maybe some student/teachers and some co-op students trying to learn the trade, that stay around until the early hours of the evening to make sure that a bunch of students they coach (who are probably as dedicated to sport as their teachers are) all stay around.
Of the numerous staff members who put as much time into the sport as some of the athletes, GSSD teacher Mark Schendel put it best when he said something along the lines of when you find yourself having a certain degree of fun, it's times like this when it hardly seems like work. That is something you are probably only going to hear from an individual who likes his/her job.In the fall, it's the football team, the cheerleaders, a bunch of volleyball teams, cross country runners and basketball clubs as we enter the winter.
That's an awful lot of both staff and students that stay late, training hard, working hard. The students obviously outnumber the teachers but if we didn't have the teachers there probably wouldn't be any students
The students wouldn't be able to do any of that if it wasn't for their teachers.
When I got back to the Gallagher Centre Friday around 8:30-8:45 p.m., after covering a football camp that was taking place on the other end of the city, I was beat. I looked like I hadn't slept much. It'd be so easy to start whining about it too but then I look around at people here there and everywhere who've been up that morning long before I did; none of them look anywhere near as bad as I did.
Clean up crews were still around at 9 a.m., Saturday morning and just barely had the floor cleaned up for the Kids of Steel program that was scheduled to be there from 9-10 a.m.
The work that goes into it is quite amazing. It's one of those things that no-one person can do by himself or herself. It's put on by the entire GSSD in hopes of providing each of their students with a good dose of physical activity for an entire day. It's said to be a continuation of the system's physical education program and give kids a good chance to have some fun in what seems to be a very relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere (even if their teachers don't get home until the late hours of the night). I am sure that most of them probably don't mind it too much.
In the case of the media, someone was good enough to put together all the results from a day which had started some four-and-a-half hours earlier.
That takes a lot of time too. Medal presentations and everything else that goes with it. It's like it's all in a days' work for the GSSD only all the kids are in the same place rather than spread out amongst their respective schools.
It's kind of cool that they can all do this. The idea has been credited to former GSSD teacher David Baron and the fact that they're able to carry it all out is good.
Everybody's working overtime on a Friday night.
If there's anything you'd like to see covered by Game 7, please forward your suggestions to the Yorkton This Week sportsdesk by phone, fax or email. All ideas are welcome and can be submitted by calling (306) 782-2465.
