When the day started I had a great deal of respect for Head Coach Shawn Montgomery. Let’s make a joke from that – I respect Shawn Montgomery so much, the audience responds with how much ?
So much that I was willing to miss a Varsity Softball game.
Now we will expand on that – one would have to turn the Calender back for years to find the last time that I wasn’t a part of a Rick Nester Varsity Softball game ( Home or Away).
The Press Box at Cavalier Park is the only place in Carroll County that I’m not looking over my shoulder, wondering if I am in somebody’s way.
The partnership that Coach and I have formed is a pretty strong one. It’s based on mutual respect and trust and its doing nothing but getting stronger.
What was important enough to keep me from missing one of our games? Let’s get back to Shawn Montgomery to answer that question.
Montgomery and I have been working on things for a while now and roughly 4 or 5 months ago Coach asked if I would be willing to help him out with a track meet in the Spring. I appreciated how hard he worked with the Cross Country teams so I happily said if I could, I would.
Fast forward to today as it was time for the first of the two home meets. I had an idea 💡 of what Coach needed but in reality it was anything but that.
For 3+ hours I did everything that Coach asked of me as the evening went on I realized how hard Montgomery was working just to keep the meet moving forward. I went in visioning one thing but learning all the other things and there were plenty of other things.
We had a number of Student Athletes that performed and did a tremendous job wearing our Colors
Number one thing I took away from the evening was just how much effort it takes to host a Track 👣 and Field Meet.
Number Two thing – just how Impressive Stacy Whitaker is. Before today the two of us had never had an actual conversation and it was a absolute joy to share a wooden box with her for a few hours. The number of times that our paths cross – Girls Basketball 🏀, Girls Volleyball 🏐, Our Softball Concession Stand and now the Track 👣 and Field Press Box.
I know that she has been teaching at Carroll County High School 🏫 for 26 years and has been Coach Marc Motley’s go to person for 17 seasons. As my thought process does, I realized that I was hanging out with a REAL LIFE OneofUs.Care person!!!
Reading off the list of places where our path cross you should notice what each of them have in common – they are places that she volunteered her time. For years, if not decades, the very definition of what we try to encourage people to do
When given the opportunity to offer up another name of someone else that deserves to be applauded 👏 she mentions Susan Rose 🌹.
So if you’re out there and have a story about Mrs. Rose please send it to us so we can have another person to shower 🚿 with pleasantries.
The only regret for me was Stacy didn’t mention to me until after the last time he delivered race results to me that one of the runners was the youngest of Shannon Dalton’s children. I missed out on a chance to say to him, do you know that your Mother is a real life Super Hero ?
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I think that I managed to sneak in a photo 📷 of what I believe to be the JROTC practicing in the distance.
You probably noticed by now that I haven’t posted any official results yet. That will happen once we have them from Coach. At the end of a 15+ hour day, Montgomery finally gets to drive home and catch his breath.
One of those photos 📷 shows Coach in the middle of a 100 Yard Dash to take care of the next event.
God Bless the Middle School 🏫 team as the were busy all day being the errand runners 🏃♂️ for the event.
Thank You to all of the Adults that were helping with the timing end of things!
Asking me to miss a Rick Nester coached game is a BIG ASK but know this, if I entered the day thinking about the amount of respect I had for Montgomery……
When I finally crawled back out to the Cows 🐄 here in Laurel Fork my wife asked me would I help him out again ? I used the age old line, everyday of the week and twice on Sunday !!
Fingers crossed that the next time it won’t be on a Softball night.
Thank You to Kevin Burress and Coach Nester for the 22 text updates 🙏 about how our Ladies were doing!
Quality Time with Russell Smoot and Ben Tickle as well.
A.S.P.N on The Hill 