Welcome back to my blog! Throughout my last post, I talked about my memories of Mrs. Roach, my third-grade teacher, from York Avenue Elementary School. Shifting to middle school for this post, I’m going to be focusing on a story from my experience at Penndale Middle School that not only exemplifies how my passion for education has been developed through my experiences there, but also communicates my appreciation. With that said, I’m going to be talking about being on the girls’ track and field team with Coach Brick and Coach Connors.

Looking for ways to get involved, make friends, and enjoy my middle school experience, I remember thinking that joining the girls’ track and field team would be a great idea, so I went to the info session and joined the team. As a seventh grader, I never realized how much of an impact that being a part of the team would have on me later in life. The coaches, Coach Brick and Coach Connors, deserve so much credit for all of the time and effort that they dedicated to the team, from the practices, the meets, and all the things they did in between that went unnoticed.

In seventh and eighth grade, I was a part of the team and a runner, and in ninth, I was a manager. Throughout those three years, I was fortunate enough to meet more people, build more friendships, and get to know Coach Brick and Coach Connors.

One of the best memories that I have from being on the team is from the “loop” that the distance crew would run around Penndale. Coach Connors always led the group of girls, and on one run, she said how we needed a chant to sing together. Soon after that, Coach Connors came to practice one afternoon with tiny white slips of paper that had a chant on it. Here’s how it went:

“Penndale is an awesome place

to compete with friends and keep pace.

We go Beast Mode at every race

cause Penndale won’t leave in disgrace.

So please bring on another repeat

to get me ready for the meet

My best time I will beat,

cause I do not know defeat.”

That chant has stayed with me since the first practice that Coach Connors introduced us to it. When I go on runs alone, I find myself repeating the chant under my breath, because it brings back so many great memories of running with such a great group of girls and being led by two awesome coaches.

In the third line of the chant, it says the words “Beast Mode,” and these words bring another great memory to mind when I recall the three years with the team. Coach Brick was unlike any other coach I’ve had; he genuinely cared about each and every single girl on the team, making everyone feel excited to be there. With that said, at practices and meets, we had a tradition of yelling “Beast Mode” as loud as possible. Describing the experience in words won’t do it justice, so I leave you with a video to end this week’s post: