To be on a team like that is also to be a part of an incredibly supportive and talented community.

It not only taught me physical strength but emotional strength and the importance teamwork as well. Track, at N.P.H.S., was honestly one of the best things to ever happen to me and I wish I would have joined soon in high school. As it turned out, not choosing to run high school track and field earlier in my high school year was a big mistake. I ran track in middle school and figured why not try it out in high school as well. I played soccer for a solid thirteen years and never made it off of the junior varsity team. Sometimes life can be disappointing, though. Soccer quickly became my favorite past time, and actually lasted with me up through my sophomore year of high school. I thoroughly enjoyed the thrill of putting on the shin pads, the jersey, lacing up my soccer cleats and playing out with all my friend on the field. My favorite childhood athletic activity was soccer. As the only fourth grader who was 5’9’’, the gymnast life was also not the right fit for me. I even tried out gymnastics for a few years. I wasn’t terribly coordinated, patient, or quiet, so golf was also not the sport for me. I tried ballet, but little three-year-old me got bored too quickly and decided to terminate that route, (kudos to my friends who stuck with dance because it really is a beautiful thing). I started out my athletic career trying out multiple different options. How could I be happy and cheery holding the remnants of one who was once a fully functional child but had his normal life taken away by a bulletin board? I was not excited about that. The Flat Stanley cartoon paper things that we carried around with us were just a cruel reminder to me of Stanley's downfall. I knew though, that I didn’t have the strength that he possessed to live a flattened life. My own Flat Stanley lived a happy life, despite his condition. I still participated because I’m no quitter, but I pitied Stanley. Now you may be thinking, “does this mean you didn’t participate in the Flat Stanley festivities in class?”Ībsolutely not. Also, how did Flat Stanley not fly away like a piece of paper every time a gust of wind came? How did he eat if his intenstines were squished? How did he breathe when his family shipped him to their vacation in an envelope to avoid paying for a plane ticket? Did he break any bones in the flattening process? These are the questions I had for my man Stanley.

Print your own flat stanley