Today a state championship and a diploma, tomorrow the world

June is always an interesting time for reflection.

There is the obvious relation to spring and new beginnings, but for me it is more than that.

June 1 marked my three year anniversary at the Bigfork Eagle, which is also one day after I moved back from Seattle to Montana after an eight-year hiatus. Each year, this milestone-date creeps up on me.

This year I was talking with my roommate on the night of May 31 when I realized what the next day was. It was then that I, being the closet math nerd that I am, put it together that I had helped publish around 156 issues of the Eagle and had written upwards of 1,000 articles for this paper.

Through my years here I have covered a variety of topics, taken some unique and exciting adventures and watched athletes grow from young mediocre players to mature home-town heros.

Days after I marked my Eagle anniversary, many of those athletes celebrated one of the biggest moments in their lives so far — graduation, which brought more reason for reflection and unsolicited advice.

As I watched Bigfork’s star athletes cross the stage at graduation, I thought about the many games I saw them compete in and all of the times I took their pictures huddled around tournament trophies. There is no doubt that the graduating class of 2011 had an exemplary amount of athletic success and will likely be remembered for that success in this town and around the state for years to come.

However, I am also reminded of a story that a parent of a football player shared with me last fall. After being congratulated for his and his team’s success in winning the Class B state title, the player told his mom that although he was excited and proud of the accomplishment, that this was not going to be his greatest accomplishment of his life and he was not reaching his peak at 17, though he felt like it was being treated as such.

Adults often use lines about how high school is just a small part of life and it doesn’t really matter to console teenagers who are struggling through those tumultuous years. While every teen undoubtedly has days in which they hate high school, and every class has more than a handful who hate it most days, Bigfork’s class of 2011 has a lot to love about their high school experience. However, as one of their classmates so astutely pointed out  — this is not all they will accomplishment, or at least I hope not.

Writers for television shows and movies build characters around the idea of the washed-up former high school or college athletic star. It is funny to watch on these shows, but not so funny if you know these types in real life.

So it is my hope that the Bigfork graduates remember how they became stars and keep using their determination, hard work and goal setting to be more than the person who was great in high school. High school is a jumping off point to greater things, and the class of 2011 has given itself a great shove-off with its academic and athletic achievements.