Kids from the Indy Air Bears, Proform Airborne, The Comet Skippers, Raincity Ropes, and Kangaroo Kids, among other teams, shouted “You got this!” or “Yeah!” or “Push it!” Parents clapped and hollered from the bleachers—and may or may not have played a lot of bananagrams. Judges nursed thumbs sore from clicking clickers for hours.
Jump roping is an amazing sport. I’m totally a convert, willing to proselytize: you can do it alone in your garage or with a team of ten in front of a full stadium at halftime. You can do it for $5 a year, the cost of a rope. You can do at age 5 or 75. You can do it as a fat, frumpy granny or an elite world-champion athlete. You can do it to meditate in a zone or as a complicated dance routine with cowboy hats and riding pants.
This is not to say that I personally do it. I can’t jump for 30-seconds straight. But these athletes are incredible! And Finn is the best!
Okay, that’s totally a lie. He’s the best in our family and that’s the truth; but more than that, he’s one of four members of the second-best team in the country for Single Rope Speed Relay and Double Dutch Pairs Freestyle. That’s by official ranking in the 2024 National championships in Salt Lake City. That’s pretty cool.
Finn’s favorite moments of the past week included three highlights. One was seeing his friend and team member Alex overtake more established athletes to claim the gold medal for triple unders (the rope does three rotations each time the feet leave the floor); I think he did 204 triple jumps without stopping. The second was the team dinner over Olive Garden pasta and breadsticks in the lobby of the Fairfield Inn-Herriman. After dinner, everyone received a paper-plate award with artistically designed marker drawings for a specific strength: most likely to write this up in a Snapchat story, most likely to have a sugar high, most likely to live off of endorsements and sponsorships, and so forth. Finn received a plate reading, most likely to learn a trick after seeing it just once. I think he will treasure it more even than the many medals and two plaques he earned. And the social, a Hawaiian-themed party on the football field next to the inside venue for all the athletes, was a huge hit. Riley was seen running across the field on his toothpick legs carrying Finn in a fireman’s carry across the shoulders; and Finn particularly loved getting dunked. Boys are weird.
He had decided that being on the team is too much to do during the school year because getting to practice each of three days a week entails a full one-hour drive in rush hour traffic on the beltway and 270. He doesn’t get home until 7.30 pm, just in time for dinner, chores and bed, but not homework. In addition, he misses out on track and cross country with friends and Coach Smythe and possibly making the basketball team again.
But we will have to see if he reconsiders this decision after this glowing week. His teammates and coaches would be thrilled.
My favorite moments from the week were seeing Finn’s individual freestyle go so well that the national champion, Conner of the bleached hair and sleeveless shirts, gave Finn a high-five; and seeing Finn fully own the camouflage swim trunks, flowered Hawaiian shirt and funky blue beach hat, gift of Uncle Brooks, which he tipped onto his head with a flourish. A signature move to complement his jump combos.
Of course, there was also the handstand. Mason, 19, son of Coach Nicole and a super athlete, had flipped over and walked a couple steps on his hands. Coach Nicole saw Finn watching and said, “Finn, try it.” Never one too shy away from a request, flipped himself onto a perfectly balanced handstand and proceeded to dip into a push up and back up again. It took a lot of balance and strength. Coach Nicole laughed and told her son he just got showed up.
Just for the record, Finn got up before breakfast to swim laps in the pool. I sat on the side with coffee and a sunrise view, not to be mistaken as an athlete. One other memorable aspect of the trip was the pick-up truck. The rental car rep apparently took one look at me and said, “This lady needs to drive a monster truck.” So that was fun.
@theterrace 