on cloud nine

I started this post on Saturday but didn't finish it. I almost deleted it, but, even though you may not understand, I still had to share!

Those of you who are unfamiliar with high school competitive speech might not quite get this, but . . .

MY OID TEAM CAME IN FIRST AT CNFL TODAY!!!!!!

OK, so now I'll explain! We go to seven Saturday speech meets during the speech season. The two largest meets are CNFL 1 & 2. (CNFL stands for Central Nebraska Forensics League. This name often confuses kids on my team because in Nebraska, we call it "speech" not "forensics," so many of them only think of forensics as that CSI stuff.) Anyway, the CNFL meets have literally hundreds of kids competing, so it's really hard to place, especially if you're varsity.

About halfway through the day, I learned that my OID (Oral Interpretation of Drama--think a short one-act play without props and where touching isn't allowed) had placed first in the second round. I was excited, but not overly so. In such a big meet, anything can happen, so I expected that they'd place--it's such a big meet that they medal to fifteen places instead of the usual six--but I was thinking somewhere around tenth.

So, of course, at awards time they handed out all the other medals before OID. My kids were so antsy! Then they finally called the OID medalists up to the stage, and my team was called. Teams from Minden, Fillmore Central, North Platte, and Loup City--speech powerhouses--were also on stage. As the meet director called out the places, each time I expected her to say, "Nebraska Christian." Each time, she said something else! Then it got down to four teams, and she said, "We have a three-way tie for second place." Surely this is it, I thought. But we weren't the first name called. Or the second. Or the third! Then it finally registered on the team's faces . . . they were CNFL OID champions! We all stood up and screamed--and I think there may have been a few tears, too.

It was definitely one of the most exciting and rewarding moments in my coaching career!