Every year my climbing team, Team Texas, hosts an annual banquet in the fall to celebrate the athletes and their accomplishments from the past year. It is a fancy event that is held at the Dallas Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine. Everyone gets dressed up in nice clothes and has fun relaxing and socializing with each other.
Coming off my best climbing season ever, I was excited to attend the banquet this year. After arriving, I had a good time catching up with my teammates. Given that I live in Austin and most of my team lives four hours north in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I always enjoy spending time learning more about my teammates, hearing their climbing stories, and meeting the new climbers who have recently joined.
The formal ceremony begins with a celebration of the senior climbers who are graduating from the team. They give emotional speeches about how much climbing has impacted their lives and play videos about their experiences on the team. There are some tears shed and a lot of amazing memories shared. Some of the seniors have been climbing for ten or more years. They made me realize that I only have four more years left as a youth climber and that I should try to enjoy that time as much as possible.
After the seniors finish their speeches, each age category of climbers is brought up on stage. The coach who works with each climber the most gives a quick speech about what that climber has accomplished in the last twelve months. I went up on stage when the Male Youth B group was called.
Merritt Ernsberger, who is the head speed climbing coach for Team Texas, told the audience about my breakout year in speed climbing. Coach Merritt worked intensely with me in June and July to prepare me for Nationals. He is a tremendous speed coach and instilled me with a lot of confidence about my climbing abilities. At the end of the Merritt’s talk about me, he announced that I was selected by all of the coaches to receive the “Team Texas Most Improved Male Athlete of the Year” award. I was stunned as I did not expect to win any awards at the banquet. Only three awards per gender are given out, and there are probably over 60 boys on my team. Team Texas is the #1 climbing team in the nation with many strong climbers in all of the age categories so it is an honor to receive such recognition.
I was ecstatic that the coaches recognized all of my hard work and tremendous effort that I had put into speed climbing over the past year. Going from 15th place at Youth Nationals in 2018 to 5th place in 2019 was a big improvement. My focused training paid off. The long workouts and pain were worth it. The award has given me additional motivation to work harder this coming year. It is the most memorable award that I have received.