Home Inspires Reflection

This past weekend when I returned home to my parents’ house it occurred to me exactly how large a role sports can play in our development, not just physically but in every facet of life. With one panning stare across the trophies, hats, souvenir baseballs and pucks, and well worn-out golf balls that adorn my old room, I was reminded exactly how much sports can affect everything from our faith to our character.

Resting on a ledge near my window sits the piece of hardware that taught me to believe in a higher power — the championship trophy from my 9-10 year-old little league team. That team made the Bad News Bears look like the American League All-Stars. The beginning-of-the-movie Bad News Bears too, not the end-of-the-movie smoothly clicking Metrodome-playing machine that they became. But still, our 4-10 regular season team defied all odds and knocked off every team in the playoffs to earn that glinting pillar of gold-painted plastic for which so many Saturday Morning cartoons were sacrificed. That trophy, taught me to believe in miracles. Whether they come on little league diamonds, frozen rinks in Lake Placid, or in hospitals. Anything can happen.

The Coach’s Award from my JV soccer team taught me about hardwork. That even the most inexperienced player, who dribbles the ball like he has both legs in a cast, can improve and contribute through hard work.

I was the backup goalie and if I dribbled like my legs were cast-bound I ran that way too, with the addition of a metaphorical anchor dragging steadily behind. I played goalie because I hated to run, but my coach had this crazy notion that conditioning was “necessary” and frequently ran a drill in which two teams of four players would chase each other around the mid-field circle trying to tag the other players out. I was always the first one out, and one day my teammates started taking bets on how long before Molasses Hume succumbed this time. I heard them. And I wasn’t about to be tagged.

That day I didn’t stop running. That day I made Forrest Gump look like a chump — I was the last one tagged out. Afterwards I went over and leaned against the goalpost (I think there were about five of them) and dry-heaved a bunch of times. But I didn’t care. When all of my teammates came over and slapped me on the back it was worth it.

I practiced just as hard for the rest of the year, even though I was the backup. My teammates noticed and weren’t about to be shown up by a reservist that never played the sport before. They picked it up too. We finished the season 6-0.

While I certainly take pride in that achievement, sports teaches us humility also. In fact humility takes many forms. I’ve seen it in the form of a 90-mph fastball, followed by a 65-mph change-up. I’ve seen it when I was humbled, and badly bruised, by the nerdiest kid I’ve ever seen on a squash court. But most of all, I’m reminded of humility when I see that little, white, dimpled golf ball sitting on the shelf in my room.

I can hit the ball about 300-yards now with a driver. But if I’m 10 yards from the pin, I can make it 20 with just one flick of my sand wedge. I’ve gouged divots the size of small islands, given worms third-degree burns with low-flying drives, spent more time on the beach that most mollusks and during a round in Hawaii I’m pretty sure I killed a whale. Maybe two. Golf is the most humbling game on the planet. You can be 6-foot-8, 250 lbs and be the worst player in the world. Of course the challenge makes it all the sweeter when you sink that 20-foot putt for birdie. But even with success, golf can still get you back.

Even when, at that crowning moment of glory, when the stars align, and the gravitational pull of the planets unites to counteract the over-pronation in your wrists and guides that beautiful, perfect shot into the cup for a hole-in-one, even then golf humbles you. Because now you owe everyone in the clubhouse a drink. Way to go, moron.

But all of these lessons would be nothing without those who gave us the chance to learn them. In my case, and many others, those would be our parents.

In my mother’s case she’s always been there to support me, drive me to practices, cheer for me at games (and not that obnoxious-mother cheering, where some sherpa in Tibet needs to hear her screaming for her son at that precise moment either.) She’s even tried to learn about baseball and the Yankees so she can get in on my and my father’s fantasy baseball obsession. My mother, and others, have done a lot so their sons and/or daughters can enjoy and learn from sports so a heartfelt thank you for that.

But more specifically, this weekend I rediscovered the value of playing catch in the front yard with your father. There really is some sort of traditional, therapeutic magic about that exercise. Thoughts of dating, bills, and commuting give way to the more basic and far more civilized, break, extend and release. On-the-job stress melts away, manifested in another 10 mph on your fastball. The car horns yield to the sole sound of the pop of the mitt. It’s so simple that we take it for granted, or perhaps take him, my/your father for granted. But in my case I’ve found that he’s always been there. Whether to field a baseball, or one of life’s “little questions.” Throughout everything he’s been a coach, both on the field and off.

Something I can only aspire to be for my child.

Sports can teach a lot of valuable lessons, but without the support of the clichéd, but ever-apt, home team those lessons would mean far less.