SPORTS TALK
with Michael Betteridge
We Are Blessed
Last month, we were tracking the progress of our Catoctin Cougars sports teams, who were a disappointing 8-23 a month ago. Let’s see how we finished the fall season.
Our Cougars football team finished the regular season 2-7. That’s a regression from last year’s 3-6 record. They ranked 22nd in Maryland in 2019. Since then, we have ranked an average of 129th every year, over four years. We were clobbered by Boonsboro in the first round of the playoffs this year, a team we almost beat back in September.
Boys soccer finished the season with a seven-game losing streak and a 3-8-1 record. Girls soccer finished the season 0-11-1. Volleyball finished 2-11. Cross Country finished in 8th place in the 1A West in a field of 10 teams. Catoctin Field Hockey was 3-8. I think I’ve made my point!
That means that Catoctin finished the fall sports season 10-34-2. I’ll let the record speak for itself.
As a Redskins fan for 72 years (I still can’t bring myself to say Commanders), through the 24 Dan Snyder years, I had to make a choice. I could choose dismay or optimism. I chose optimism. I believe things are cyclical and, someday, balance would be restored.
So, where do I find reasons to be optimistic for my Catoctin Cougars? Our Cougars Junior Varsity team walloped Boonsboro 56-20 in their last game. Many of you remember that fumble recovery/scoop by lineman Jacob MacIlvaine against Fort Hill in 2019. Jacob was the offensive coordinator for JV this season. JV looked good this year. They are the Cougars future. Also, our own Cougars football players, Ethan Robeson and Deacon MacIlvaine, have been selected to play in the BTC (Baltimore Touchdown Club) All-Star Classic in mid-December. That’s one of the reasons I can be certain that balance will be restored to Sabillasville Road. The other is in my choice to be thankful.
I thank God for my community and local sports. We are so blessed! We have the best kids, the best parents, and the best coaches.
We find ourselves in December, right after Thanksgiving, a time when we remember how much we have and how thankful we are for all of it. I feel like things have become more and more negative these past years. I feel like we have forgotten how really blessed we are as Americans. I think every American should be required to travel to a developing country every decade. We need to see firsthand how the rest of the world lives. Over 700 million people—ten percent of the world—live on less than $2.15 per day. Seventy-one percent live on $10.00 per day. How much money did you spend yesterday?
I have been blessed to travel a great deal in my work. I lived in southern Belize (British Honduras) for a year in a small town, named Dangriga. The English name for the town was Stann Creek. I lived among the locals as one of them. All the houses were thatched huts with dirt floors. The more expensive houses were three-room wood houses, built on stilts with a corrugated metal roof. These houses were built after Hurricane Hattie, a category 4 Hurricane that roared ashore in southern Belize at 2 a.m. in 1961. There was a 30-foot storm surge, and many locals that I spoke to remember waking up floating in the Caribbean in their beds. The storm surge roared in without warning in the middle of the night while they were asleep, picked them up, and dragged them out to sea. Seventy-five percent of the population fled to the mountains and the rest perished.
My next-door neighbors lived in a two-room dirt floor hut with 2 adults and 10 children. There were no jobs and no one had any money. They survived by harvesting coconuts, which they sold in the marketplace to buy rice and beans to serve with the fish they caught in the Dangriga bight (bay). Add some local fruit and, occasionally, a few vegetables, and it is the perfect high-protein, low-fat diet. Unemployment was 95 percent and emigration was impossible. The government would not grant anyone of working age a visa to travel abroad for education or work. They were afraid they would never come back. No one starved in Dangriga. Fresh fruit and vegetables abounded. Fish were plentiful. The biggest challenge was boredom. Without work, men had nothing to do all day but hang out. Alcoholism was rampant, and the average lifespan for a Belizean male was 64. Women outnumbered men 4 to 1. The women worked from sunup to sundown just to prepare the meals and wash the family’s clothes. Without modern appliances, cooking and cleaning took hours and hours. Most Belizeans never went beyond tenth grade. The fees were too high. The books cost too much to go to high school, and entrance exams were difficult. Thirty percent of the country cannot read.
Soccer was very popular, but soccer balls were a luxury that no young person or their families could afford. Usually, they would fashion a ball from linen and scraps of plastic, and they would use that for their soccer matches.
They were the simplest, happiest people I have ever known. They didn’t know they were poor. Poor was normal.
I remember when I arrived. I planned on staying for quite some time, so I cashed my traveler’s checks and opened a bank account in town at the Royal Bank of Canada. I was puzzled by the way they treated me. I was given iced tea, taken to an air-conditioned waiting room, and provided first-class service. Later, a local told me that my measly little 12,000 Belizean dollars made me the second largest depositor in that Bank. While preparing for the trip, I figured 6,000 American dollars wasn’t a lot of money for me to survive for a year in a foreign country. That amount of money wouldn’t go very far in the U.S., but I was told it would be enough for Belize. The average annual salary was ten times that amount here in America. The exchange ratio in Belize was 2 to 1, so my $6,000 immediately doubled when I crossed their border. I couldn’t spend it if I tried. Here, in my Maryland home, I was a working stiff, middle-class American. In Belize, I was rich, entitled, and elite. It was a lesson I’ll never forget.
Why do I share this with you? I want you to understand how blessed you are in Thurmont and beyond. I want to remind you how thankful you should be that the good Lord has put you in this time and this place. It is my prayer that you understand that high school sports are fun, but they are just games. The key ingredient to thankfulness is selflessness. You cannot appreciate what you have until you have “walked in another’s shoes.” The ability to put other’s needs ahead of your own is the very definition of team. Putting your teammate’s success above yours is a lesson we try to teach young people. Sports are merely vehicles to teach that principle. They teach personal growth. That is the Catoctin way.
Life is serious. Let’s take care of each other. Reach out to your neighbor. Get involved. Give back. Make a difference. Love thy neighbor. And, most importantly, be thankful that you live in the most free, prosperous, innovative, and generous country in the history of the world.
It’s the beginning of the “most wonderful time of the year.”
