Courtesy photo

There is a moment coming. It will happen in thousands of homes over the next few weeks.

A backpack will be sitting by the door. Probably newer than it needs to be. Shoes will be picked out the night before. Lunch will be packed. Somebody will be looking for a water bottle that was absolutely sitting on the counter five minutes ago.

Mom will say, "We have to go." Dad will say, "Did you brush your teeth?" And somewhere in the middle of the chaos, a kid will walk out the door and begin another school year.

We will take pictures. We always do. First day of school. Hold the sign. Stand by the tree. Smile.

Maybe Mom gets one picture where everybody is looking at the camera. And then we send them away. That's the part we don't photograph. We watch them walk through those gates carrying a backpack, a lunch and a whole bunch of things we cannot see.

A little excitement. A little fear. Maybe a lot of fear. Will my friends be there? Will I like my teacher? Where am I going to sit? Am I smart enough? Will somebody sit with me at lunch? And for the older kids, there are questions they probably aren't going to tell us about at all.

Then the bell rings. And just like that, your child has joined the most important team he or she will play on this year.

It isn't soccer. It isn't football. It isn't baseball, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, swimming or track. It's the classroom. And maybe we should start talking about it that way. Because we spend an enormous amount of time teaching our children how to be athletes. Show up on time. Listen to your coach. Respect your teammates. Do your job. Practice. Prepare. Don't quit when something gets difficult. If you make a mistake, learn from it. If somebody else makes a mistake, pick them up. Don't blame the referee. Don't embarrass your teammate. Give your best effort even when nobody is watching.

Sound familiar? Because somewhere along the way, we decided those were sports lessons. They aren't. They're life lessons disguised as sports.  And Monday morning, they belong in a classroom.

Your child's teacher is going to coach a team this year. It might have 22 kids on it. It might have 32. And just like every team I have ever been around, those kids are going to arrive with different abilities. One kid will read three grade levels ahead. Another will struggle through a paragraph. One will solve the math problem before the teacher finishes writing it. Another will stare at the page wondering why everyone else seems to understand something that makes absolutely no sense to them.

There will be outgoing kids. Quiet kids. Funny kids. Awkward kids. Kids who have everything. And kids carrying things into that classroom that no 10-year-old should have to carry. That's a team. And your kid has a role on it.

Maybe your child won't be the smartest student in the classroom. That's okay. Maybe they won't get straight A's. That's okay too. Because there is something I want far more for our Cordova kids than a perfect report card. I want them to become the kid who notices.

The kid who sees somebody sitting alone and moves over. The kid who doesn't laugh when another student gives the wrong answer. The kid who says, "Come sit with us." The kid who holds the door. The kid who thanks the cafeteria worker. The kid who looks the custodian in the eye and says good morning. The kid who understands that being a leader has almost nothing to do with being the loudest person in the room. Or my favorite and most impactful (in my opinion). The kid who refuses to step over a piece of trash on campus. It is a measure of humility and greatness. "I refuse to step over a piece of trash that makes my campus look bad."

That's character. And character travels.

We talk constantly in youth sports about developing the complete athlete. But somewhere along the way, we have to remember what we're actually trying to complete. The human being.

Your son isn't going to play shortstop forever. Your daughter won't always wear a soccer jersey. The basketball eventually stops bouncing. The wrestling shoes eventually get put into a box. Even the very best among them will someday play their last game. But the lessons don't have to stop.

That's the deal we've been making with sports all along. We give you our afternoons. We give you our Saturdays. We give you practices and tournaments and scraped knees and long car rides and ridiculous amounts of money spent at snack bars. And in return, sports are supposed to help us raise good humans. Resilient humans. Accountable humans.

Humans who understand that sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you sit on the bench. Sometimes you get the ball with three seconds left. And sometimes your greatest contribution is simply making the person beside you better.

So as school begins, maybe there is another conversation worth having in the car. Not: "What grades are you going to get?" Not: "Are you going to be the best?" Maybe just this: "What kind of teammate are you going to be?"

Because there is a teacher waiting for your child. There is a classroom waiting for your child. And somewhere inside that classroom, there may be another kid who desperately needs your child. Not because your kid can throw a baseball 70 miles per hour. Not because she can score 20 points. Not because he runs the fastest mile. Maybe somebody simply needs them to move their backpack off an empty chair and say: "You can sit here."

Parents, take the first-day picture. Make them hold the sign. Fix their hair. Straighten the backpack. Embarrass them a little. Someday, you'll treasure that picture more than they understand today. Then send them through those gates with one more reminder.

Be prepared. Be coachable.  Work hard. Pick up your teammates. And leave the team better than you found it.

The scoreboard will eventually turn off. The report card will eventually get filed away. But if we did this right, the character they built in both places goes home with them.

And that kid walking through the school gates? That's the athlete we've been trying to build all along.