Three fun high school sports MVP traditions, from hard hats to paddles

What do a paddle and a hard hat have in common? Not much, but they have been chosen as awards that are given to high school athletes on the South Shore after great performances on the ice and the court.

Weymouth Lady Wildcats

For the Weymouth High School girls hockey team, a tradition was born last year. After every game, the team’s most valuable player for the week is handed the Hustle Helmet, which is a construction helmet that symbolizes the hard work that the player put into the game.

Head coach John Heffernan said the tradition started in youth hockey and was passed up to the high school.

“They decided to do the hard hat, which I think is fantastic,” Heffernan said.

A girl who has an outstanding game gets the Hustle Helmet. The recipient changes every week and the player who wins gets to take it home. After each game, Heffernan evaluates the performance of his team in the locker room with a short speech and then leaves for the girls to hold their Hustle Helmet ceremony. The player who wins it chooses the next week's winner.

“I don’t know who gets it until they walk out with the hat,” Heffernan said.

Freshman Molly Tuffs, a center, was the latest player to win the Hustle Helmet.

In addition, any player who scores their first goal receives the game puck, followed by a message from Heffernan.

“Anything that brings the team together is fantastic," he said. "I think this is a big part of being a team. I think that’s creating a great atmosphere in the locker room."

Hull Pirates

Jaime Standridge is in her first year as head coach of the girls basketball team. An Indiana native, Standridge moved to Massachusetts about four years ago. She prepares her team for when it's on the court, and when players are off the court and even past high school.

She said it's great to be part of the girls' daily lives.

“You really have that responsibility to make sure that you’re not just coaching to the sport, and providing them with life skills and empowerment going forward,” she said.

John Wooden was a legendary college basketball coach and an Indiana native. Standridge adopted Wooden’s "Pyramid of Success" model to instill life skills, tools and principles in her young players. There are 15 different blocks that construct the Pyramid of Success, and Standridge uses a block every week to teach her players valuable lessons that they can apply to their own lives.

“Outside of everything that we try to do from the basketball aspect, we focus on one of these skills each week,” Standridge said.

The team discusses the skill of the week and what it means, tying it to basketball and to their lives off the court. At the end of each week, the team votes for the player who has best used the skill that the team was working on. The winner gets a T-shirt that reads, “Practice Like a Champion” and gets to autograph the Golden Oar, which is a paddle that was given to Standridge by the family of a former Olympic rower.

“We’re the Pirates and (the oar) really represents strength,” Standridge said. “We’ll do whatever it takes, even it means having to row our ship to reach our destination, so that’s why we chose the oar.”

The team’s gym is known as the Pirate Ship. The girls vote and award the Golden Oar each week and it hangs in the team's locker room throughout the season.

The tradition is having a tremendous impact, Standridge said.

“Yes, we all work hard, and we want to win games. It's not always possible to win every game, it's making sure that what they are learning in practice, they're applying to their daily life as well,” she said.

The most recent skill was self-control. Standridge spoke about how losing is temporary and it’s important to learn from it and have the self-control and composure to move on and forget about it.

Sophomore guard Elly Thomas was voted by her peers as the winner of the T-shirt and graced the Golden Oar with her signature. The building block for that week was alertness.

Team captains Lucy Peters and Amelia Donovan said what Standridge is doing with the Golden Oar and Pyramid of Success is effective.

“It motivates our team,” Peters said. “It's been pushing everyone to work hard in practice, which results in pushing ourselves in games so that we can win more games and work harder overall.”

Peters said skills such as enthusiasm, friendship and loyalty have all helped the team and are tremendous skills to have.

Donovan talked about the Week 7 skill, which was initiative.

“I use that to make myself a better player and student,” Donovan said.

Duxbury Dragons

In Duxbury, girls varsity ice hockey head coach Dan Najarian awards a game puck after each win or tie, but he said that is secondary as he tries to focus more on the team rather than on individual successes.

Every week, the Dragons have "Music Monday," when the team plays music during practice that is selected by a player or a coach. Najarian said the girls love it and look forward to it each week.

Another team tradition: Someone from the community enters the locker room and reads the starting lineup before each game. Najarian said that helps fire up the team as they celebrate the starters for each game.

Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Patriot Ledger subscription. Here is our latest offer.

Reach Joel Barnes at jkbarnes@patriotledger.com.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: South Shore MVP sports traditions honor best players