Sports are important to me

I love sports.  I always played as many of them as I could when I was growing up.  I was never very good at them but I loved being a part of the competition and the camaraderie.  It was the hope of victory I think, the feeling that you could be the champion and be the best.   My husband played sports too as a kid and then we played on a few adult teams after we were married.  I also think that it helps develop leadership, teamwork, decision-making skills and a whole host of other positive character traits.  Yes, there is the potential to over develop certain attitudes like competitiveness, self-centeredness and aggression but I believe that happens less often than it seems.  I think just like with so many other things, the “squeaky wheel” gets the attention. 

Recently, the Australian Open crowned the first tennis champion of the season, last Sunday was the Super Bowl and Friday is the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.  It has been a good few weeks!  Add to the fact that I’m a born and raised Washingtonian and I’ve always been a Seahawks fan – it’s been a very good time! 

Both of my girls have also always been involved in sports.  Starting when they were both 3 years old they joined dance class.  Sydney set a goal to earn her 10 year pin and then move on, which she did, and Audrey lasted the entire 15 years until she graduated from high school.  Not what I thought would happen when I was just looking for a fun activity for Sydney because she was already an intense 2 ½ year old with a thirst for knowledge, but I’m so grateful for what it taught both of them.  They both ended up dancing competitively and lest you think that “Dance Moms” is all staged – no, it’s real.  It’s amazing really how easy it is to get caught up in all the drama and competitiveness when you are watching your children put so much of themselves into such a subjectively judged sport.  However, it is the parents that usually cause most of the troubles in all children’s sports.  Dads get just as crazy sometimes at baseball, basketball and football games.   But that’s not where my mind is going today so I’ll leave all of that for another time.

We never rested on just one sport.  Through the years we had basketball, cheerleading, horse riding, volleyball and tennis added to our schedule.  At one point we had practice 5-6 days per week and several of those were jumping between 2-3 different sports on the same day.  Not necessarily something that I would advocate unless you really like living out of your car and eating sandwiches.  But, those character traits that I mentioned earlier were definitely developed.  I never believed that someone was bound by circumstance to either succeed or fail at something.  There is always the hope and potential to succeed at anything you do.  I believe that it is our job to find our passion, find our talents, find whatever it is that God has enabled us to do well and do it with everything we have.  I firmly believe that He has given something to everyone that when used in His power benefits all of society in some way.  Many times we can find that through sports but also through school, church, our family, our neighbors, our friends – wherever, if we just look for it. 

When I hear someone complain about not being able to do something I often wonder “why not”.  Most often it really isn’t the obstacle that they’ve named keeping them from achieving the success they seek, but the doubts inside of themselves.  When you’ve been a part of some kind of a sport and you’ve pushed yourself harder than you thought you could either for the sake of your teammates or to accomplish your own personal goal, then you can put that experience to use in every other area of your life.  It’s always funny when someone becomes the best at whatever sport they learned to love and gets that trophy, medal or award - people start to call them lucky.  They aren’t lucky, there were just willing to fail more times than anyone else and keep on going.  Their teams lost, they didn’t make varsity exactly when they wanted to, they broke body parts, they lost sleep, relationships and money but they kept on playing.  I don’t want to ever forget the lessons I learned from playing sports and every time I watch others get out there and challenge themselves it makes me want to do the same.  Russell Wilson’s dad taught him to ask the question “why not me”, I challenged my girls with that same question as they were growing up and now I find that I still need to challenge myself with it too.  I have dreams and desires that I haven’t fulfilled yet and I need to remember to get out there and join the team, develop the skill and push myself to win every bit as much now as when I was a kid.