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The Columbus Youth and Rice Consolidated Youth Track teams opened their seasons at Memorial Stadium in Columbus Saturday, June 6.
The first meet of the year showed coaches where improvements are needed, and Columbus Youth Track head coach Royce Caldwell said he felt his team performed well even with the mistakes.
“I think we performed pretty well. We always have new kids joining every year, so we have some kids that aren’t really used to how summer track league goes,” Caldwell said. “So, I told them to just treat this like a practice meet, make your mistakes now. We did make some mistakes today and there are things to clean up, but I expected that and I still think the kids had fun.”
Fun is always the name of the game when it comes to youth sports. While the spirit of competition is a big factor in sports, what matters most is that young athletes enjoy being on the field, learning new skills and building confidence alongside their teammates.
“I told my group to just get out there and have fun because that’s why we are here, but I also told them to be ready to learn from any mistakes they made today. Each week we are trying to learn something from these meets so we can continue to push ourselves to be better than our last meet,” Caldwell continued.
Runners for Columbus and Rice were smiling from ear to ear following their races, something Caldwell enjoyed seeing in the first meet of the season.
“Our biggest emphasis we gave to not just my kids, but every kid out here today was have fun, and we accomplished that while also having some competitive races,” Caldwell said.
The Columbus and Rice Youth Track teams will be back in action on Saturday, June 13, when they travel to Flatonia looking to shatter some personal records while sporting a smile.
