Sports Day and High Ropes Course

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David versus Goliath, U.S. Hockey versus Russia in 1980, Seabiscuit versus War Admiral, Rocky versus Ivan Drago, the Imperial System versus Metric. None of these underdogs, these dark horses, given no chance to even compete, can hold a candle to the position of Team American Exchange today at Haigerloch School's Sport Day. We, the rag tag group of American's, inexperienced in the obscure sports of Baden Wurttemberg, thousands of miles from home, exhausted from travel and countless activities these past two weeks which were specially designed to create even more of a home field advantage for the hosts. We were vastly outnumbered on this day, 50-1 really. And the odds, much, much longer than that.

We assembled this morning on the steps with the rest of the school for mandatory warm ups. Then, we moved on to our first station, the Standing long jump. The results? A perfect score! We were off to a great start! Through hoop toss, gym bowling, basketball layins and stick ball carry, our athletes performed flawlessly. We elicited looks of awe and wonder from the judges, and other groups began to ask "how are the American's doing"? We were the team to beat. Some thought perhaps we had been training in Russia before we arrived, privy to all of the illicit advantages that their Olympic training program could provide. But that was not the case. It was in fact pure, natural talent and good ol' fashioned American hustle that was carrying us through!

And then we hit the soccer station. The task was simple enough; kick a ball and hit a box 50 feet away. Teams had four minutes to hit the box as many times as they could. Soccer balls were everywhere! Flying high, coming up short, hitting the box from the line two rows over, whizzing by the judges head at warp speed. This was not our forte... But we tried!

On to the run we marched. Five minutes to clock as many laps around a 100 meter track as possible. Our kids rocked it! They worked so incredibly hard, everyone running for the full five, and at a strong pace at that. Other classes looked over in amazement at the class of Prefontaine's gliding like deer around the track.

We moved through the rest of the activities with maximum effort and enthusiasm. They worked hard to represent everyone back home in the State's well. The stilt walk and the "peddle o'" were tricky, but the tree legged race, the javelin and the hoop walk were right in our wheelhouse.

While I cannot divulge the final standings of the competition at this time, I can say that I am extremely proud of the effort, enthusiasm, teamwork and sportsmanship displayed by our students today! They are indeed all stars for sure!

This afternoon we visited a high ropes course near Stuttgart. It was a comfort zone expanding experience for the kids. After significant instruction by the professionals, and a display of competency by the kids, they were off to explore the tree tops! It was really cool to see our kids push through some pretty significant nerves, all of them. If they tell you that it was no big deal, they are not being honest. Every single student pushed through some level of fear today. By the end of it, they were frolicking through the forest canopy like a family of howler monkeys.

After a day like this, sports in the morning and climbing in the afternoon, one would think that they would all collapse with exhaustion when they returned home. However, requests to go swimming echoed through the line on the way back to the bus.

Tomorrow is the last day of school in Haigerloch. That end of the year buzz is in the air. We will attend school with our partners, and then the rest of the day will be free to enjoy with their families. We will meet on Thursday morning to hike to some incredible waterfalls. Friday will be the last family day, and the last day in Germany altogether. We will convene that evening for the farewell dinner

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