Cougar Kid Lily!

 

Steve has worked for the school for 5 years now and has never had any of his nominated students be chosen as the Cougar Kid.  That is until this last month.  The icing on the cake is that it was our very own Lily who was nominated and won the honor!  Another plus was that Amara was also nominated from her class for the respect award.  What good luck!  

So you're wondering what's the Cougar Kid?  It's the school's respect award winner.  Each of the teachers at Lily's school nominate 2 children from their class who are good examples of respect.  All those nominated children get their names announced over the intercom at school and then 2 of those lucky nominees are randomly drawn out (1 boy and 1 girl) and get to be the "Cougar Kid" at Union High School's game, Varsity basketball in this case.  The Cougar Kid is led out by their teacher to center court and the announcer basically spotlights the winner and congratulates them on showing respect.  Also, the Cougar Kid gets to meet the team and the coach and then leads the team out onto the court at the beginning of the warm-ups before the game and gets to be a part of the warm-up drill by giving the team members a high five as they practice their shots. 

So, Lily won!  How exciting for her!  And she got to be walked to center court by her teacher, her dad.  That was awesome.  So, first she met the team and they surrounded her and gave her some encouragement.

Then she led the team out, holding one of the girl's hands, to center court.  She was stationed near the sideline as the team ran their layup drill.  After each layup attempt, the girl would run and give Lily a high five and then continue.

She stood there and tried to keep a smile on her face, even though she felt a little out-of-place.

She kept scooting closer to the sideline.

Then it was over and she gave me a "real" smile.

Grandma got work off to see Lily in her glory.

Afterward, the coach got Lily and Amara some free concessions to watch the game.

There's Mr. C.!

So, I tried to get video.  My camcorder was ready to go and then the battery died as soon I pushed record.  I scrambled to get my ipod to video record Lily's center court spotlight.  I only caught the last third.  It was noisy and hard to understand the announcer, but basically he told how Lily recently learned to ride a two-wheeler bike, how her favorite subject in school is Art, how her sister is her best friend, how she is an excellent reader and writer, and how she wants to be a ballerina, swimmer, artist, writer, and mom someday.

Congratulations Lily and Mr. C.!