Camp Green Lane Blog Post July 8th

, July 8, 2024

The energy in camp has shifted.

We felt it last night during dinner when Olympics broke and the four teams, representing the four food groups—and their captains—were announced. Fruits will be captained by Halle Weitzman and Jacob Israel, Veggies have Lauren Kelly and Jesse Goldstein, Ellie Betesh and Trevor Auerbach are leading Dairy and Cisco Vega and Julia Powers are captains of the Meats team. Olympics, the annual four-way all-camp competition, will be held later this week.

This morning, we hosted Arrowhead Day Camp for intercamp games. We form teams at certain age levels to compete against other camps at times during the summer. Today, we hosted a morning of basketball, soccer, volleyball and softball games against Arrowhead. All throughout camp, Green Lane teams faced Arrowhead teams on what turned out to be an unforgettable morning because of a sustained display of sportsmanship and friendship that evolved organically and spontaneously.

Softball and soccer games come and go all summer, but today something special happened when our CGL family came together to support one another and compete side-by-side with their camp brothers and sisters. It doesn’t even matter what the scores of the games were because it was truly magnificent to see Green Lane campers play with emotion, grit and incredible sportsmanship.

Today went so much deeper than the scores.

I can’t imagine what the Arrowhead kids thought when they saw and heard the cheers from the CGL side. When they saw the signs. When they heard the frying pan banging with a spoon. When they heard the chants from the sidelines in support of the “Acorns,” the teams from Green Lane.

It all came to a crescendo on Softball 2 at the end of the 14-and-under boys’ softball game. As games concluded on adjacent fields, all the Green Lane teams headed for Softball 2, our main softball diamond. They lined the fences from first base all the way around to third. They sat under trees in the outfield, crammed the bleachers on both sides of the field. It may have been the largest crowd on Softball 2 since Kenny Loggins came to town back in the 90s.

With two out in the bottom of the last inning, Green Lane scored three runs to tie the game and you could hear the roar across camp.

What does it look and sound like when the entire camp gets behind just one person? Ask Ari Berman, who had his name chanted between every pitch he threw. Ask Parker Gershman, whose name rang out when he made a big catch. Ask Ethan Petrozak, who ripped the game-tying, three-run triple at the end.

They played an extra frame, but buses and schedules won out. The game ended in a tie, and it was off to the Dining Hall for a pizza lunch, which turned into a pizza party. I can’t imagine what the Arrowhead guests were thinking when in the middle of the meal, the cheers erupted again. Cheers are something part of our meals, but it was quite a thing to hear the boys do their cheers, ending with the Not Fade Away sing-song back and forth with the girls.

This is a special, crazy, fun place. And today was an incredible advertisement for all that.

There’s an old song we used to sing at Color War called “Hey Say.” In it, there’s a line that goes, “Let’s show the world how sportsmanship works and what friendship can mean.”

And that’s exactly what happened today.