It’s been a
while since I’ve been here – it’s been a busy year and I was blessed to get my
Saturday Star platform back, so I had a space to rant and rave in – to whatever
audience is left, now that newspapers have seemingly become surplus to most
peoples’ requirement.
But - sorry
for those of you who were tricked into clicking on the link - I’m back, and for
my two cents worth, I’ve got a thing or two I want to say to those who bleed
blood in the colours of the schools they went to/work at/have their kids at, or
combinations of those.
You have to
stop taking praise for others as a criticism of yourself, and you have to start
accepting that there are other schools around, that the kids there have talent
too, that they have good coaches too; that they work as hard as you do and,
yes, that sometimes they are better than you.
I’m of the
Baby Boomer generation so this new media has been tough for me to master, and
the one thing I still don’t have handle on is Twitter. I often forget that it’s
really true that you won’t change anything by getting into arguments with
faceless strangers who only have 140 characters to make their point. And the
increase to 280 seems to have made it worse not better - though it’s too early
to say.
So I can
kick myself for getting riled by replies to a Tweet I fired off on Friday
night, although in my defence my critics weren’t faceless strangers, they were
people I know, associated with a very good school: one that deserves, and gets,
a lot of praise from me and others whose acclamation means a lot more than my
low level opinions.
And that
particular school was infinitely far from my mind when I tweeted that I was at
the cricket dinner of St Stithians College and that I regarded them as the top
cricket school in the land.
Quick as a
flash, there was a reply from a very senior person in their community, with the
results of the February fixture between the two schools attached, showing that,
first team game aside, his school had by far the better of the results that
day.
Fair play.
I was guilty of a mistake that I often criticise others for: I confused the
result of the first team game with the overall performance of the school on the
day. We shouldn’t do that, but we all do anyway.
When I, and
everyone else, celebrated the success of the school in question’s 1st
rugby team this year we weren’t looking at historical context – this was by far
their most successful season in many years - neither were we necessarily
looking at the overall balance of results in individual fixtures.
They would
have come out on top of most of those, I’m sure, although given the quality of
their opposition, I know there were probably one or two days where they were on
the losing end, across the board.
No, in my
opinion, that was the top rugby school in these parts, one of the best in the
land, and all I had to base that opinion on were the results of the first team
games that were trumpeted each week, quite a few of which I attended, and was
captivated by their excellence.
So, when I
say Saints is the top cricket school in the land, it has to do with the fact
that their 1st team has lost just three games in three and a half
seasons – out of close to 80 – that they swept the board in local competitions;
that they dominate the under-19 provincial selections, that they have won the
national knockout competition two years in row, and that they have two players
in the SA under-19 team that will be in action later in the month.
I wasn’t
referring to, neither did I know about, the performance of their lower teams in
a fixture back in February – although I do know now, thanks to the kindness of
the gentleman who attached those results to his tweet.
I never
attended a school that achieved the heights that those I report on do. Neither
did I, in my teaching days, work at any schools who could match them. But I’ve
been doing his for a while now and I can confirm that there are good players
and coaches at more than just one school.
So, if
someone says something nice about another team, or player, don’t take it as a
criticism of yourself. Try instead to widen your vision. Give credit where it’s
due and remember that arrogance is not a good thing to display while the young
people you are educating are watching.
Enjoy the
break. I’ll speak to you from the Khaya Majola Week, at St Stithians in
December, where four of their players will be in action for Gauteng.
