The first time I attended a high school prom in Rich County, I thought the Rich County people were from another planet.

I was married. My wife Nellie had grown up in Rich County, and said that we had to go to her little brother’s prom.

“Your brother’s prom?” I asked. Like, what?

“Yes, my brother’s prom.”

Weird, I thought. Because in the big city, older brothers and sisters who have graduated simply do not go to high school proms.

But I’m always up for strange new experiences, and so we went.

And I can report that it was indeed strange. In the big city, grandma and grandpa do not attend the prom, nor do mom and dad or little brothers and sisters. And they most assuredly do not sit in the stands and watch the junior class perform a dance.

But that’s what they did in Rich County. And so I sat next to grandma and grandpa who were nigh unto eighty years old and watched an announcer present the junior class. There was a makeshift stage. And the announcer would announce the names of a young woman and a young man. On the stage, the young woman would take the arm of a young man, and then he would escort her out to the center of the floor to the applause of everyone in the gym. The couple would then perform a little action—he might twirl her, or she him, or she might jump in his arms, or he in hers, or she might lift her dress enough to show she was wearing cowboy boots that matched his, or dozens of other little creative things, and then they’d walk to the side to make room for the next couple.

In Rich County, there are only forty or so kids in a class, so it didn’t take long. When the juniors were all announced, the whole junior class, in their tuxes and dresses, spread out and took their places on the floor. A song began to play, and then they performed a dance that had been choreographed specifically for the occasion.

When it finished, the mother or father of each junior went out onto the floor and danced a slow dance with their son or daughter.

They then presented the seniors in the same way, after which the parents of the seniors went out and danced with their sons and daughters.

Only when that dance ended did the lights dim and the “normal” dancing begin. Nellie and I danced a few songs, and then she said it was time for us to get some refreshments and go.

And that’s what we did, leaving the teens to their evening.

I had never before seen anything like it. I laughed and wondered. Those funny hicks, I thought.

I took a job in San Francisco for a few years, then another in Columbus, Ohio. And then, years after that hick prom, Nellie and I moved from the big city to Rich County. That was almost thirteen years ago.

This last Friday I watched as my third daughter was announced and walked down from the makeshift stage. She was escorted by a young man, looking handsome in his tux. I watched him twirl her and another girl (he got to escort two). And when all the seniors had been presented, I got to dance with my girl at the prom.

I cannot tell you how sweet that was to look in her eyes, to see my little girl grown up into this beautiful, strong woman. I thought about how she was soon going to leave us, and tears threatened to spring into this papa’s eyes, but she smiled and said, “Don’t you dare.”

What’s a man to do? I obeyed. And instead of blubbering, we danced.

When we finished, I gave her a hug and a kiss on the forehead and returned to the stands.

I’ve danced six times with my girls at these Rich County proms—once when each was a junior and once when they were seniors. And I love this tradition.

I love that a huge part of the community comes out to the dance. I love that we honor and applaud these great kids. I love watching the juniors in their gorgeous dresses and handsome tuxes perform these beautiful, formal dances that remind me of something you might find in Victorian England, something that seems to have stepped right out of Pride and Prejudice.

Juniors performing dance

Parents dancing with kids

What an excellent evening.

How lucky I am that places like Rich County exist, and that I get to live in one of them.

Cody Lundgren, Jesse Calder, and Louie Stewart led our Lady Rebel basketball team to a 10- 10 record in the regular season and a 2-2 performance at the state tournament that earned our girls second place in our region and sixth at state.

It’s interesting that the wins and losses were split right down the middle, which means it wasn’t a losing season, but it wasn’t a winning season either.

Or was it?

Now, I love it when our kids win. But I’ve never believed that winning should be the ultimate measurement or objective of high school sports. In fact, I will go so far as to say that it’s possible to win every game and become the state champion and utterly fail. Because, for me, high school sports are not about winning games. They are about the lessons that can only be learned by striving for excellence through competition.

Lessons such as learning to:

• Work hard
• Work smart
• Push yourself over a long period to obtain something you desire
• Not give up in the face of adversity
• Not give up even when you’re behind or the odds are against you
• Play on a team, including supporting other team members in their roles, especially during the bad times
• See mistakes and losses as feedback and triggers for learning instead of labels
• Exert control over your future instead of feeling nothing you do makes a difference
• Deal with both success and defeat
• Deal with competitors who haven’t quite yet caught the vision

I could list many more. The opportunities for learning key lessons about winning in life litter the ground in our gyms and on our fields and on our mats.

The question is: did our coaches help our kids seize those opportunities? Did they help them learn what really matters and have a good time doing it?

I’m pleased to report from what I and others observed that the three amigos listed above helped our girls do just that.

They built positive and fun relationships.

They asked the girls to meet high standards of performance and kept the girls busy in practice with useful drills that built skills.

They taught them instead of yelled at them, and they praised them when they did well and when they attempted to do well but weren’t yet able to execute the skills right.

They taught them to play with skill, not with cheap shots, as was displayed by one team at the state tournament that had learned to punch the opposing team’s stomachs when they went up for shots.

They demonstrated, by example, how to deal with losses and mistakes.

Coach Lundgren also worked in a demonstration of how tricky the lines on the court can be for old guys, tripping them and causing them to slide across the floor (grin).

This was a winning season for me. Coaches are really just a certain type of teacher, and I’m sure they have things they want to improve in their curriculum. But this was a fabulous season full of opportunities to learn the things that really matter in life.

And it wasn’t just the Lady Rebels learning these kinds of lessons. For those of you that didn’t go to the tournament, you should know about the Lady Tigers from Tabiona. They’re one of our region opponents. One that we beat both times we met them in the regular season.

In our second game of the tournament, one of our girls, one of our top rebounders, a demon under the basket, broke her hand. She knew it hurt like heck, enough to bring tears to her eyes, but didn’t know she’d broken it, and so she played the last quarter and a half with a broken hand. (Is there a lesson there?) Well, Tabiona was our next game.

Now stop and think about this. We beat Tabiona both times this season. I think we’ve probably beaten them a lot more than they’ve beaten us these last few years. You know what you feel when a team keeps beating you.

So the Lady Tigers found out that one of our starters, one of the players that was supposed to have played them the next day, had broken her hand. And the girls, not their coaches, decided to get her . . . flowers.

Flowers. For a player on their region opponent’s team.

Who does that?

Well, the Lady Tigers do. I talked to their coach, and he said it was all the girls’ idea.

They’re learning things down in Tabiona that go far beyond basketball.

And they’re learning things that go far beyond basketball here, thanks to Lundgren, Calder, and Stuart.

That’s good stuff, baby. That’s excellent stuff.