As of Wednesday morning, we are now officially out of spring and into summer. In my world, summer is the start of fun times with my children as they move up one more rung on the grade level ladder. Hard to really conceive, but my son, Elijah, enters the sixth grade at Perry Browne Elementary School in the fall, and he was a wee infant of two months when I began my career at The Evening Sun, and with so many close friends and tremendous athletes moving on in their lives, I find myself in a state of reflecting on the years gone by as a sportswriter and editor for our local daily newspaper.
Among the athletes, Sara Chrystie, headed to Oneonta State to continue her athletic and academic career in September, has had perhaps the longest-running relationship with our sports section dating back to her third grade year. While her older brother Mike– by five years – was breaking records and setting new standards on the gridiron and track, Sara’s coming was touted. She did not disappoint becoming her school’s all-time leading goal scorer in field hockey, and the school’s all-time scoring leader for basketball.
Above all else, Sara is a down-to-earth young woman who was always ready with a smile, and never comported herself badly in any competition. I never saw her give an official a second glance for a seemingly bad call, never saw a glimmer of a complaint, and never saw her show any disrespect for a coach, teammate or opponent. She was, in every sense of the word, a standout. A standout athlete and a standout individual, I can only surmise this, but she’ll make her mark in some way at O-State.
Looking down the line at each of the schools, there are bunches of senior athletes who impressed me with their athleticism and accomplishments. At B-G, Dave Nelson comes to mind; in Greene, Kurt Spear and Christine McCabe, at G-MU, Chris Delmar and Joel Christian, at Norwich, almost too many to mention, but the senior varsity girls’ basketball players along with the senior boys’ basketball players, all of whom are true leaders on the field and in the classroom, come to mind; at Otselic Valley, Jessica Wood, in Oxford, there was Chrystie and Josh Davis; at Sherburne-Earlville, Adriane Marcellus and Ashlee Lathrop; and at Unadilla Valley, Zach Thomsen.
I have most definitely left names off my short list, and I apologize for any oversights, but please know, I am most proud to cover any and all athletes within Chenango County’s confines, and my job is to simply serve as a vessel to promote kids’ accomplishments.
