Sports Day

Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence – George FWill

Friday last was Sports Day at QC and in true QC fashion; it was a day chock-full with activities, competitive bantering and tensions running high. It was also my last ever Sports Day as a student of Queen’s College. Must all good things come to an end? The weeks leading up to Sports Day were beyond hectic: we usually put a lot of preparation into being absolutely ready for Sports Day.
But having “march practice” daily at lunch time, sometimes we’d ask ourselves, “Isn’t that a little too extreme?” Then you realise all these things we do, all these seemingly inconsequential minutiae, are probably what make all the difference in who we are and who we become.
Things like making it to march practice every single lunch time, builds discipline. it also builds a sense of teamwork and camaraderie.
So what if we skip a few lunches? Getting riled up over other houses beating yours, cheering on your athletes, it all builds a sense of belonging that well, not many other activities can give you. You think beyond your own selfish boundaries.
And sports build discipline, something that most students desperately need. You’ll always see that the students who take their responsibilities to their houses seriously and perform their roles to the best of their abilities, their dedication usually spills over to their academics and to all the other areas of their lives. And the kids who laze around tend to be pretty lazy in everything else as well.
So Sports Day has come and gone and after a rigorous few weeks of standard trials and heats, everyone’s home nursing their wounds, resting those feet and dealing with sunburn. Sadly, we don’t have an extra ‘rest day’ to recuperate and are expected back to school on Monday. But gradually we’ll get sucked back into the world of textbooks and chalkboards.
And sports and athletics will recede to the back burner to simmer till next year. And that’s a bit sad really, because we begin the school year with sports and then pretty much forget about it for the rest of the year as we vegetate in the library getting fat and lazy.
As our more athletically inclined peers advance though school, and as the work load grows exponentially especially, as they enter fifth form, they’re expected to do as much, as many subjects as the more academically-oriented students. And since sports is kind of ‘gotten out of the way’ at the beginning of the year, academics completely eclipse it for the rest of the year.
And that’s not really fair, because athletics are as important as academics. As we pointed out athletics was made a part of the public school system on which Queen’s was patterned precisely to mould our character.
Life is more about working for the group than for one’s selfish gain. Guyana would be a better place if we focus on teambuilding through sports throughout the year in our schools. In the meantime I’m so proud of E House… Go Pilgrim House!!!