Back to the Basics

Each year in mid-February Florida and Arizona comes alive with one single phrase, “pitchers and catcher report.”  It’s one of those signs that spring is nearly here.  It’s also a time when baseball fans everywhere say, “this is going to be the year.”  Even Cubs fans!

Spring training for major league baseball players has a long and storied history.  In 1894 the Baltimore Orioles, skippered by Ned Hanlon, worked eight hours a day for two months in Macon, Georgia on the basics of the game.  This base of solid fundamentals led the team to three straight National League pennants.  You can imagine what soon followed, every other team in baseball now had a spring training regimen.  These basics and fundamentals early on can determine October championships.  Just ask my Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series.  Our pitchers committed five errors in five games opening the door for the St. Louis Cardinals to be world champions.  I was fortunate (?) to see two of those errors in games one and two in Detroit.  You just know that every team after that 2006 series put into place additional fielding work for their pitchers.

Solid fundamentals and understanding the basics lead to success. 

It’s true on the baseball diamond as well as a school setting.  Often times you hear about the extraordinary at Sumner Academy: a Shakespearian play, a Geographic or Spelling Bee champion, a math team placing high in competitions, outstanding science and social studies fair projects, etc.  What you do not hear about is all the hard work it took to get to that point.  You do not hear about all the countless hours of instruction, drill and practice, and homework it took to get to that point. 

Many of our students will never win a Geographic Bee or place high in a mathematics competition, but they will be prepared for their high school experience regardless of the demands placed upon them.  Thanks to an incredible gift of education their parents have given them, an outstanding faculty and staff, a philosophy that places each child’s unique learning styles first and foremost, and a very low pupil/teacher ratio.  This low ratio allows our faculty to delve deeper into the basics and fundamentals that may be lacking with our students.

Sumner Academy prides itself on the hard work of our students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade and then through high school and college, but most of all, helping to create productive and involved members of our society.  It all starts with the basics.