As Biddle drove past Eugene (the last exit before Eldon) he pulled over to the side of HWY 54. We were confused. We were so close to home and he was pulling over? (We wouldn't have put it past him to be finding a tree...)
On the contrary, he stood and looked back at all of us. In all of the time we had spent, and would spend in the future, with Mr. Biddle, we had never once seen him emotional. Until that moment. He gave this remarkable speech as he choked back tears. Biddle, this big, strong, usually sarcastic, always wise, pillar of a man, Papa Parli, was choking up over his 7 teenagers.
On our hardest days of practice, he would tell us to keep swimming. (No, not like the Dory, just keep swimming!) He knew studying Parliamentary Procedure was tedious, plus we were Seniors and could easily cave to Senioritis. So he reminded us frequently not to stop swimming just because we saw the shore (Nationals). Don't stop when you see the shore, stop when you reach the shore. He promised us that as long as we kept out-working our opponents that we darn sure wouldn't be out-coached either.
In that moment on the bus, he thanked us for continuing to swim when it got hard. In the two weeks leading up to Nationals when tempers flared, he was proud of our fight to keep moving forward and continue working as a team. When they announced the wrong teams in the Final Four, he was proud we didn't go in to finals defeated and still gave it our all. He thanked us for reaching the shore with him.
Needless to say, we all ended in tears. The 10 minutes we had left on the bus we sat in silence, fighting back tears, and reflecting. I don't think there has ever been a prouder group of 3rd place finishers. Don't get us wrong, we ALL wished we would have won. But in our hearts, we felt like we had won. (We also thought there should be an asterisk by our 3rd place.)
Finally, we pulled into Eldon. We got to the street that passes the high school to the Ag. Department and there were people lining the street. They had signs and were cheering. It was as though we had just won the World Series and this was our welcome home, celebration parade. If you know anything about the small town of Eldon, for them it really was like a World Series Championship.
Parli was so much more than just a contest. We were all part of something that was bigger than ourselves. For Biddle, it was years and years of dedicating himself to coaching young people and building their character. For some of us, it was continuing a family legacy. For all of us, it was living up to the 2000 and 2005 teams who made Final Four at Nationals, it was representing not only Eldon, but also Missouri, to the best of our abilities, and it was about learning to reach the shore.
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| Parli reunion a few years ago. |
*Mr. Biddle retired in 2015. He won State and took teams back to Nationals in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. In 2010 and 2014, he finally got his National Championships. To be honest, I was a little jealous of the 2010 team, wishing we could have been the first to win it for Biddle. But in true Biddle fashion, he thanked the members of his previous teams, because he knew each of those teams had created the legacy and paved the way for others.
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| 2010 National Champions |
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| 2014 National Champions |
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