emilio ruiz benton

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Introducing: The Super Six

The Super Six: Coach Jill Brown, Tate Danielson, Keane Ferdinand, Tyler Cantrell, Daphne Draper, Carl McCortney, and Emi.

Last semester, Emilio was chosen to be on Ada's academic team: the Super Six. Thursday was their first opportunity to participate in a tournament.

Here's how the event is organized:
Four players from each team sit at a table with buzzers in their hands; two alternates sit with the coach. A game has four quarters. Players can be subbed between quarters. In each quarter, ten questions are asked. The team that buzzes in first with the correct answer gets a bonus question. Each correct answer is worth ten points. Questions may be about math, science, social studies, language arts and popular culture.

Thursday's event at Homer Elementary in Byng (where Emilio first attended Pre-K) started at 4, and Mari took Nina and Pablo to watch. I missed the start because of office hours, but on my way over Mari sent me a text that said, "He's killing it!" That's one of my favorite all-time text messages.

By the time, I arrived, The Super Six had won their first game.
Mari had to leave before the end of the second one.

I got to watch the second and third games--both wins.

Afterwards, I asked Emilio what his favorite answers were. He said the math problem that he got right, and the test booklet got wrong. Our coach, Mrs. Brown, challenged the answer at the end of the quarter and we got the points.

Sunday, December 06, 2015

December soccer?

Friday night, we got a Facebook message asking if Emilio would be willing to participate in coaching clinic on Saturday afternoon, starting at 1:30. He was. And so, from 1:30-4:30 on Saturday, he was one of a half-dozen kids on the field with 18(!) coaches seeking an upgrade in their coaching license to level "E." Of the 18, only a handful were from Ada. Some came from out of state. The supervising coach was from Manchester.

Emilio jumped at the chance to come back for day two from 1:30-5:00, even though it meant missing "NFL Redzone," which he loves watching.

Keeping the participants active was a point of emphasis, but when I came to observe the last hour on both days, Emilio's energy level showed no signs of flagging. On Sunday, he begged to stay later to play in the Boys and Girl club gym.

In addition to getting lots of exercise and valuable instruction, he got to play with some of the coaches, who participated in the drills and were often very talented players. Wish we could do this every weekend!