These choices are never easy
The end is near.
No, not the end of the world, silly, although with gas prices the way they are one might think the end of the world is near.
Actually we're nearing the end of yet another high school sports year and with that come the final accolades of 2007-08.
Today, in addition to our all-area baseball presentation with honorary co-captains Ben Palmer of Westminster Christian and T.J. Swank of Prairie Ridge leading the way, we also present our Female Athlete of the Year in Erica Maisto of Burlington Central.
Next week, we'll present the all-area softball team as well as our Male Athlete of the Year. Sorry, no hints. You'll have to check out next week's final Sports Extra of the school year to find out who they are.
Choosing all-area teams is a process we've been at for many years and one we're comfortable with. No one ever agrees - nor do we expect them to - with all our choices and every year we labor over those last few picks to make sure we're selecting the most worthy athletes we can. Inevitably, people will feel we left someone off the team that was deserving, or someone will question why a certain player was chosen over someone else.
We've developed pretty thick skin when it comes to defending our all-area choices. We spend a lot of time on making the choices and by the time you see those choices in print, we're satisfied we've done our very best with our choices.
Athletes of the year are a little different story. To us, these are the two most significant honors we bestow on a young athlete because they encompass the whole school year and not just one season.
They also have different criteria. While all-area selections are based largely on statistics, and the selection of the all-area teams' honorary captains are done with that word - captain - in mind above and beyond the stat sheets, athletes of the year, to us anyway, take into account much much more.
To us, an athlete of the year is a person who, of course, has excelled athletically. But above and beyond that, the athlete of the year must be someone who has achieved academic success, someone who has shown the ability to balance academics, athletics and other extracurricular activities successfully, and someone who has shown impeccable character throughout his or her high school career.
In short, we choose the young man and young lady we would most want our own kids to be like.
That said, it is probably the most painstaking process we go through every year, simply because we feel it's the highest honor we award.
Today's Female Athlete of the Year choice - Erica Maisto of Burlington Central -- has proven not only this year but throughout her high school career, to possess each of the characteristics we look for in our athlete of the year. It's a choice that didn't come easy or without a great deal of thought to other worthy candidates, just as you will see next week with our Male Athlete of the Year selection.
No all-area team and no athlete of the year selections are exact science by any means. There's no point system and there are no written guidelines that exclude anyone or place anyone higher than anyone else on the list.
I've always maintained that any young man or young lady who chooses to participate in high school athletics is worthy of recognition. That's our business - reporting the high school sports news of the area and recognizing athletes. We've been doing it for a while now and we're pretty satisfied with the decisions we make.
In the end, it's about recognizing special people who have made significant contributions to their school.
And in that spirit, we congratulate every boy and girl throughout the Fox Valley area for doing their part in making out little corner of the world so very special.