In baseball, when a pitcher has not given up a hit going into the late innings, no one is supposed to mention it. It is one of the game’s great superstitions that talking about a no-hitter is jinx.
Jackson Rosinski isn’t much of a baseball fan, though, and not particularly superstitious.
So, as his own impressive streak continues, he simply shrugs his shoulders at the thought that something may yet disrupt it.
Rosinski, 17 and a senior at Starkville High School, has attended school for the past 2,378 consecutive days. He hasn’t missed an official day of school since entering kindergarten, in fact. With 27 school days remaining, he is pursuing a rare, if not unprecedented 13-year streak of perfect attendance.
“How often do I think about it? To tell you the truth, never,” Rosinski said. “It just happened. It wasn’t like it was a goal.”
Rosinski’s parents, David and Nadine, credit good health and what amounts to something of a family ethos as main factors is their son’s perfect attendance.
“Growing up, he had his share of sniffles, like all kids do,” said Nadine Rosinski “But other than that, he’s been very healthy, so there weren’t any serious illnesses, nothing that would keep him out of school, anyway.”
His father said what’s true of their only child is true of his parents, too.
David is the sports information director at East Mississippi Community College. Nadine is the secretary at the College of Business at Mississippi State University.
“Neither of us miss work very often, if at all,” David said. “I grew up in a military family, so it’s almost like that. We don’t run our home like that, but all of us like order and routine. It’s kind of a family trait, I guess.”
In baseball, when a pitcher throws a no-hitter, the catcher — who calls the pitches — is also considered instrumental in that feat.
If you carry the baseball analogy over to Rosinski’s attendance streak, some credit belongs to Nadine, who is responsible for getting her son to school.
“I’ve driven him to school every day for the whole 13 years,” she said.
The only really close call was when she and her son stepped out of the house one day to discover a flat tire. They were able to preserve the streak with the aid of a neighbor.
None of the family gave much though to the attendance streak until just recently, although there were periodic reminders.
“After the first five years, he got a plaque for perfect attendance,” Nadine said. “Then, he got another one after the next five years. It just keep going. There wasn’t a reason he should miss school and Jackson never really needed much convincing.”
For most kids, missing school is not always attributed to illness. There are, in truth, some days that school just seems to be the last place you want to be.
Jackson Rosinski said he’s not immune to that temptation, either.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Some days, schooling is just something you don’t want to do. But I always push it to the side because, once you get there, it’s OK.”
Rosinski has a variety of interests, especially music. He plays saxophone on the Starkville High band, but he’s not sure what he’ll pursue after graduating in May.
“I really don’t know what I want to study,” he said. “I’ll probably go to EMCC for a couple of years and figure it out.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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