"Why are you nervous?" I ask. Dumb question. Conference final, big match, ninth grader. What am I thinking? Of course she’s nervous.

Sometimes these kids show so much confidence and poise in athletic competitions that we forget that they are really just kids. Even the big ones. Sometimes especially the big ones.

The tests of a young athlete’s mettle on the field, court or track are clear and public. Finding the right balance between the good kind of pressure that produces positive outcomes and the unhealthy kind that undermines performance is key.

It is a metaphor for parenting and teaching in general. How much should we push, demand, expect from our young charges and how much should we encourage, invite, nurture.

MPA athletics have been on a steady rise dating back to the first team fielded in that first year of 1982-1983. Trips to state competitions are becoming more commonplace. And yet, the core principles driving MPA sports programs have not changed over the years. It starts with giving kids opportunities to play and to experience success in a variety of sports – to be able to come out with others regardless of prior experience.

Recently, I learned of a young man who came out for one of our less high-profile sports. He had had no experience in this sport and, in fact, was reported to look lost in the early stages of practices. At any large school where the talent is deep and try-outs lead to cuts, this young man would have found himself with free afternoons in short order. At MPA, he worked at it and discovered a hidden talent for the sport, going on to be a leader.

Will success spoil Rock Hunter? Will the brass ring of more trips to state lead us to compromise our MPA principles? Can we remember that these are really just kids and that they are living their own dreams, not ours?

Few things were so singularly satisfying and joyful in my youth as hitting a baseball. At age three, my father tried to put the bat on my right side, but it wasn’t right. I hit left and threw right. Hitting left. Yanking a low inside pitch down the right field line was paradise.

Except for a few years in my thirties playing fast-pitch softball, it has been only a dream, something I think about when sleep comes a little too slowly.

Unless I am on the sideline of an MPA sporting contest. Then my body remembers, however faintly. I stand on the sidelines and lean ever so slightly with every serve in tennis or feel my knees buckle with the leap of the soccer goalie.

But it is their game now. Our children play these games so joyfully and with such comraderie. And as long as we can really let them play their game, we’ll snatch some brass rings and still keep our principles intact.

State competition, big match, ninth grader - GO PANTHERS!