2015-2016 Lincoln School Athletics Awards

2015-2016 Lincoln School Athletics Awards

Of 130 Secondary Students (Grades 6-12), 106 participated on SAISA sports teams this year. This is approximately 82% participation in our athletics program.

• The year began with the opening of our new Aquatics facility and hosting the 1st Lincoln School Swimming Championships, which we won!

• We were SAISA Girls’ Volleyball runners up, and that is the third year in succession that we have either won or been in the final.

• Our Boys’ volleyball team finished the SAISA tournament in 3rd place, an improvement since last year.   

• In the SAISA swim meet, our 15-18 girls won their division, while our overall girls team finished runners up.

•  An astonishing 24 School Swimming Records broken this year, including 2 SAISA records.

• SAISA Girls’ Basketball was hosted here and this was topped off with a fantastic 3rd place finish.

• In the Lincoln School established local league - NISSA - featuring other Nepali and international schools in Kathmandu - we were girls’ basketball champions!

•  Anthony Colavito won the singles SAISA boys tennis championships making him the best overall boys tennis player in SAISA. 

• Our young Boys’ football team showed improvement throughout the tournament, finishing 5th.

• Our Badminton team improved on last year’s showing and continues to grow.

• SAISA Girls’ Football team scored the most number of goals in the tournament with Karuna Sakya-Hooper scoring 10 on her own! They finished the tournament with 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss.

• SAISA Track and Field had some wonderful individual performances despite traveling with a young and inexperienced team.

• SAISA Boys’ Basketball Tournament - we hosted it and we all know what happened there! A brilliant victory for Lincoln School to go on the back of winning the NISSA basketball championships as well.

• MS Male Athlete of the Year: Eskil Sundar

• MS Female Athletes of the Year: Karuna Sakya-Hooper & Sarya Thapa Magar

• HS Male Athlete of the Year: Suryansh Vaidya

• HS Female Athlete of the Year: Laura Herren

• Snow Leopards of the Year: Ana Maharjan & Avi Rajkarnikar

At the end of each year, I find myself both filled with pride and yet shaking my head in disbelief at our accomplishments. This small international school in the Kathmandu Valley continues to go to toe to toe with the best that our SAISA league, complete with schools 3 to 4 times our size, has to offer. How do we do it? Year after year, how do we find the Snow Leopard spirit to dig deep, and be examples to the rest of our sister schools about what it looks like to give your all, and win or lose with sportsmanship and dignity.

First of all, we have a program, a philosophy, founded in tradition, yes, but even more importantly in values like teamwork, humility, respect, balance, friendship, responsibility, and perseverance. We know that to achieve excellence we have to work, we have to try, we have to fail, we have to pick ourselves back up and try again even harder, and perhaps fail again, because that is what it takes to realize our potential. And we have support for this program - from everyone in this school - our drivers, custodians, teachers, teaching assistants, administrators and coaches.

Yes, coaches. We have teachers, coaches who care a great deal. They turn up to practice each day with the commitment to develop our athletes’ skills, but more importantly their character. They are skilled in and passionate about what they do and know what it takes to build successful teams. By success I do not just mean winning, but learning, growing, and improving day-by-day mentally, tactically and technically. Without the commitment of our coaches, this program would not exist. 

The final reason why we can be proud to be Lincoln Snow Leopards is because all of you are Lincoln Snow Leopards. You, our student-athletes, are wonderful ambassadors for our school and make us proud because of your desire to learn and improve as athletes and as people. You feel a sense of ownership of the program; a commitment to not only carry on our tradition and model our values, but also to build on, innovate and develop what has come before. You recognize that each individual has values and positive contributions to make and you work to help everyone feel respected and cared for. Everyone can try out for a team, everyone can work to become a Lincoln School Snow Leopard at this school. 

Student-athletes, it is you that we honor tonight. Your efforts, your skills, your growth, and your leadership deserve to be recognized. However, not all of you will walk away with a physical award tonight. What I want to tell you athletes is that it is not a failure to miss out on an individual award. Everyone here is part of a team and all of you have had a vital role to play in forming that team. So be proud of yourselves and the efforts you’ve made, and be proud of your teammates and the special qualities they brought to your team. We might not have the pool of students that the other big SAISA schools have, or even the locals in Kathmandu, but we succeed because we are one, we are one big TEAM and as the acronym on our gym wall reads, together everyone really does achieve more. Thank you.

Luke Davis