The beginning of the school year is the beginning of the calendar for many of us, as the end of summer and the start of classes provides so much more to cover in this sports section.

It’s an exciting time as cross-country, a sport with a championship tradition in this area, is about to start up. The private school association has softball and girls’ soccer going on now and public-school volleyball is on tap too.

With that in mind, I thought to offer my encouragement to those student-athletes that embrace the thrill of competition through high school sports as they get back into their routines.

1. There is nothing wrong with hustling, coaches even like it when you do.

I haven’t coached high school or college basketball in a while, but I’ve stayed involved with some of my son’s rec teams over the years. One thing I loved about coaching was being around the great teammates that made their teams better.

Every team I worked on didn’t have them, but the ones who did were unforgettable groups. You block the bad teams or players out of your head, but you always find yourself thinking about those role players that fully embraced who they were.

A guy like Gerald, who played on a Co-Lin team that I assisted with. He’d set 100 screens a game, guard the other team’s best dribbler, rebound like his life depended on it, and took one shot attempt every three games. He was always ready to draw a charge.

If a guy like Gerald went through a practice today, selling out like he did all those years ago, he’d probably get labeled a “try-hard” by his teammates. Nothing makes my blood boil like a kid getting shamed for his effort and given that dismissive nickname.

I was talking with a local football coach recently about his rebuilding team. He mentioned how excited he was about a younger defensive player on the roster. He said that he knew what the player was capable of because of how he practiced last year as a backup.

He made it hard for us to run stuff correctly in practice, the coach said. It was frustrating for me as a play caller, but at the same time, I loved it, he finished.

Your effort might earn you a walk-on spot and then a starting position on a community college basketball team, and it might not. It might just earn you more playing time for a high school basketball team. It might earn you the respect of your coach.

It’s worth it to embrace your role, give your best efforts, and see where it takes you. Be a force for positive, not negative. Which brings me to my second point.

2. Talk your team up, not down, same for your coaches.

I really don’t want to issue too many broad generalizations, but I do have some observations from almost 20 years of being around student-athletes. Kids today talk their teams down more than their parents’ generation.

Nobody would talk about how bad our team was going to be when I was a teen, because what would be the point of that? We just went out and played and sometimes we thought we were going to be awesome and were way wrong.

I was on a bad basketball team for one year in junior high. At halftime of our first game against a private school that no longer exists, we were up 20 and were giddy when Coach Dale Watts walked into the locker room. In his second year at the school where he’d eventually win seven state championships, Watts pointed his finger at us and told us that we were the worst junior high team he’d ever coached.

We looked at each other, incredulously, we were up 20 at half. Pine Hills didn’t stand a chance.

I might be wrong, but I believe that was one of our two wins on the season. Dale began starting practice with us doing 10 sets of 10 bleacher runs before every practice. If you’re going to be bad, you might as well be in shape, his actions told us.

I’m sure there were times when we were taking off our shoes after another loss that our best player didn’t fling his down and yell about how bad we sucked.

I swear though, I think we always thought our next win was just a day away. Open your ears today and you’ll hear kids that default to talking down their team when adversity hits.

I know, I said no sweeping generalizations, but hear me out. They hear their parents talking about what a bum the coach is and are just mirroring that kind of talk.

Are all coaches created equal? Absolutely not. If you feel the need to criticize, do it, just don’t do it to the detriment of your child. I know that some coaches mail it in and how frustrating that can be, it’s having those conversations around players is what creates the most entitled kids that treat weak coaches like dirt.

Talk the team up. Talk your coaches up. Speak great things into existence instead of being a hater of your own squad.

3. You never know who’ll be in the stands watching on a given night.

I loved recruiting when I was coaching at the community college level. I loved finding kids that might have been overlooked at small schools. I loved building relationships with the families of the players. I loved going to gyms all over the state to watch high school basketball games.

I was at a game one year in Jackson when a couple LSU assistant coaches came and sat beside me. We started talking and they told me they’d come to check out a senior at Provine. I knew he wasn’t an SEC guy, but I didn’t say anything.

He was obviously nervous, and airballed three shots early. His airballs were grabbed out of the air and slammed by one of his teammates in impressive fashion. Who’s that kid, they wanted to know, the dunker. He’s a junior, I said. A year later, he signed with Louisiana State University.

You never know who’s going to be watching you. That goes for the practice and the games. You never know who is going to see you dogging it when you should be running up front as one of the best players, but instead you are hanging back with the junior varsity.

Parents, let your children play without having scholarship concerns hanging over their heads. Sometimes they do need your help to chase their dreams, but don’t try and swap your dreams for their dreams.

If they’re good enough, they’re going to get opportunities. Once you get to the collegiate level, they’ve got to love it, or you’ll be miserable. The hours required make your social life small.

Make a college scholarship part of your child’s journey, not the end-all, be-all goal. That’s setting them up for disappointment if the dream is not realized.

It’s not for everyone and if you’re waffling, the game will let you know. When it comes to sports, it’s always better when we’re all having fun.

4. Have fun, you’ll be old soon enough.

Sports are supposed to be fun. They’re supposed to give us pleasure and to bring us together and to push us to grow. Above all else, enjoy yourself.

One day you’ll be a linebacker, making a tackle for the Brookhaven High Panthers on King Field. Within what feels like an instant, you’ll be one of the dads or uncles that stand along the fence at the south end of that same field, talking about how many tackles you’d have if you played today.

Enjoy the ride, make memories with your teammates and remember that your high school career will be done in the blink of an eye. Make the most of it while you can.

Cliff Furr is the sports editor for The Daily Leader. He can be reached at sports@dailyleader.com.