The Mapua table tennis team held an open try-out last Sunday, May 24 at 9:00 A.M. beside the school’s canteen. This is my fifth and last time to hold such event as the captain of the team. It’s tiring but it’s equally fun.
I expected around thirty (30) to fifty (50) participants as it was the usual number during the past years, this time though, we had a mere ten (10) players. I don’t know why the numbers are down, but almost all of them have good skills to show. I guess it’s quality over quantity this time.
Our school offers four (4) playing athletic scholarships to the table tennis team but we’re usually six (6) on the team so that makes us split the four (4) available scholarship among us. When I was moved to the non-playing athletic scholarship this 4th quarter and my teammate opted to study instead to play for his fifth and final playing year, our team freed up two playing scholarship slots. It means, that from the ten (10) participants, there is an almost guarantee that two (2) of them will be recruited and will receive an athletic scholarship.
Reading along this lines, my mind asks me why does the recently re-established Mapua Volleyball Team faithfully practice even without getting any athletic scholarship. Is it because they want to be exempted in the military training and physical education courses? Or they just wish they can play?
I don’t know.
A student’s life inside the walls of Mapua is not a walk in the park, it needs dedication, perseverance, hard work and time. Without getting any benefits outside playing the sport you love, I don’t see any reason they should focus on it. But what gives, I commend them.
Some play to win. Some play for glory. But one thing I’d like to think and I truly believe is that that they, like any other student athlete’s, do it for the love of the game.
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