Love With A Capital L

A journey towards living an inspired life of love in the modern world

Tag: youth sports

Youth Sports, Pt. ?: Crazy People — December 4, 2023

Youth Sports, Pt. ?: Crazy People

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The site prompt is to list 5 things I’m good at, but I won’t do that because the high school basketball season began last weekend. My son plays and is quite good. The team won two games by what others might consider comfortable margins, but they weren’t comfortable for me. You see, as embarrassing as this is to admit, I am the crazy person of the title.

The officiating in all sports is, by all accounts (except perhaps by the officials themselves…perhaps), terrible. Saturday’s game featured a referee that was convinced the tournament was a showcase for him, that no one had come for the kids or the sport, but only to marvel at his creative facial hair and overall cool factor. He aggressively confronted the players and stopped the game several times to do something – we didn’t know what the somethings were but they were clearly very important somethings.

He’s not this story, he’s just bad at his part time job. So are the rest. But lots of us are bad at our hobbies and side-gigs. I love to dance, and I do it any time I can, but I’m not what you’d consider a talented dancer. Big deal that we’re incompetent, right? Big deal that the officiating is always unfortunate. If the definition of insanity is expecting different results with the same variables, then I am an insane person.

So, Friday’s game was frustrating to watch. The kids were being pushed and thrown down with no calls and others were barely grazed with angry whistles, and some parents and spectators were incredulous. Loudly incredulous. Of which I was one.

On the way home, I expressed to the Angel that I can’t continue to get so worked up, that that isn’t who I am. But the thing is, I immediately realized, it is exactly who I am. I am a fiery, passionate man who loves sports and competition. I get excited easily at everything, highs and lows and everything in between.

Then, the next night, after committing to being even-keeled and calm, I pointed out that one boy was pushing another in the back with both hands over and over and over. It should have been helpful to the officials, because the 3 of them were obviously having a lot of trouble with the speed of the game and their responsibilities. It should also have been lost in the noise of the crowd, but everyone got dead quiet at that precise moment and my voice was the only one in the gym. So, I am that guy.

After the game, a family laughed at me – kindly, but still… And they wondered if I was like that on Sunday mornings. You have no idea. The answer is yes, of course.

A real problem (in every space, maybe especially the church) is hypocrisy, being different people in different spaces, pretending to be the image the situation wants. You can make a long list of my faults, but this is no longer one of them. I am just me. But like everything else, there’s no such thing as “just.” And like most everything else, the best thing about me is also the worst thing about me.

A wonderful development in my life is how I’m finally meeting the real, authentic me, and finding that I don’t hate that person at all. In fact, he’s alright. I just wish he’d calm down a little at high school games.

This Is Not A Lament — July 27, 2021

This Is Not A Lament

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This Saturday, the county all star baseball team my son plays on will compete for a state championship.

I just wrote a post for the Bridge site about the aggressive passivity that is running rampant, crushing everything (including our spirits) in it’s path. The post is a lament. Marianne Williamson says, “Our playing small does not serve the world,” yet that’s what we have decided to do. We’ve chosen to lower the bar, setting it on the ground so that we never try, never fail, and consequently, never succeed and never grow.

This post, however, is not a lament.

Last week, I watched as a group of 15 & 16 year-olds gave pursue excellence. (The day before, I had the privilege of sitting with a player who had been given news that he would not play, that he was an alternate, a victim of roster limits, as he wept in disappointment. That kind of holy disappointment only happens after we’ve given everything.) 15 & 16 year-olds have a reputation, perhaps deserved, of apathy and indifference. But not on this team.

This team was full of boys who had trouble sleeping the night before, whose bellies were full of giant butterflies. This team was full of “try hards.” (“Try hard” is, inexplicably, a term of derision in schools nowadays among insecure, inadequate kids overwhelmed by their own fear.) This team was full of passion and energy, driven by, and full of, life and love.

It goes without saying that I’m proud of them. What might not be so obvious is how deeply I am inspired by them. Do you remember that movie, As Good As It Gets? Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, “you make me want to be a better man.”

I am an assistant coach for these young men on this team. I throw batting practice and hit balls infield/outfield. I give high-fives. Every now and then, I try to give helpful suggestions learned from years and years of being a ball player.

A coach is in an interesting, enviable position. I am more thankful than I can tell you that I am allowed to watch from the inside. They remind me how I want to show up to my own life, every day, for ‘practice’ and for games. They don’t take days (or even plays) off, they pour into themselves and each other. They are committed. They are deeply respectful – of absolutely everything. They are gifted and grateful. They give without reservation. They bring all of them and they show up. I used a million words, but the only one that truly describes what they do is worship.

This is not a lament. This is a celebration. If they are the future, we can all breathe easily and with tremendous hope.

Man, I want them to win this championship, they really deserve it. But I guess it doesn’t really matter, they’ve already won. And so have we.

It’s The End Of Youth Sports As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) — July 6, 2021

It’s The End Of Youth Sports As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

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The baseball season is over. When anything ends, there is always that familiar maelstrom of (often conflicting) emotions. I’m happy to get my evenings back, family dinners, and rejoin the groups where I have been absent. It’s awesome to not have to call to report scores, or line the field before games. It’s not as awesome, on the other hand, to be inside on this hot, sunny day and not on a ball field. I already miss the crack of the bat or the sound of a nice fastball hitting the glove. And I’m heartbroken that I don’t get to see the players and coaches every day anymore.

After the last game (a loss), I gave a game ball to one of the players I had coached for several years and would never again. He was 1 of 3 of in that category. They are 3 of the finest young men you’ve ever had the pleasure to know. So that’s hard. It was also the last game where I would be my oldest son’s coach. That’s way too much to sit with for too long, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? If we don’t spend that time, it stays kind of hidden in the corner of our hearts until…right? Who knows what it takes or when, but it simply has to be addressed. That’s what I did. I sat with that box of memories and I cried and cried, and then I laughed and thanked God that I had the opportunity for so long and that it may be the last for us together, but it is not the last for him. And it’s not the last for me.

Here’s another thing: The umpires quit before the season was over! They resigned because of the behavior they were forced to endure night after night. I wouldn’t consider myself one of their biggest fans as officials, but I am generally a fan of human beings and am always a fan of interacting with respect and love. This puts me and the team I coach squarely in the minority. Apparently, the online culture of aggression and arrogance has left the screens and stormed the fields.

Now, I am not pretending that bad behavior didn’t exist, but like everything else in 2020 (and now -21), the pandemic and it’s partner isolation turned up the volume on the loneliness, anxiety and fear that breeds this selfish nastiness and lack of self-control. Nearly every night, there were new stories. I probably would’ve quit, too.

I know the root of the aggression and arrogance is inadequacy and insecurity. We find our identity in wins and losses, as if youth sports were the Great Arbiter of Truth. Youth sports is a lot of things, but distributor of worth isn’t one. Yet we keep asking it to do what it can’t. Of course, the kids sometimes act like monsters (because they sometimes are monsters), but they’re teenagers. They’re looking to the coaches to expect more from them. I’m not sure we’re not desperately looking for someone to tell us we’re so much better than these embarrassingly low standards we’ve accepted. And the coaches are acting like monsters (because they’re looking, too) and it’s a snowball that is rolling down a steep hill into the garbage dump of history.

I happen to be one of those lucky few that is very rarely tied to “how it used to be,” and especially in this case, if this is how it used to be, I say let it die and let’s start fresh. We can and should forget where it has mutated. Instead, let’s keep the amazing parts and trash the rest, and make something new and awesome in it’s place.

We can still call it youth sports, if you want to.

Youth Sports — January 9, 2019

Youth Sports

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The subtitle for this post is “An Argument for the Abolition of Competitive Youth Sports,” because I can’t think of any reason for this dinosaur to continue to exist, infecting generation after generation. 

[Full disclosure; I grew up playing baseball, from the time I was 8 through college, now my children play, and I’ve coached them in each of the sports they’ve tried. I am a sports guy. I love all sports (playing and watching and especially talking about) – except maybe soccer – and competition. I can make arguments all day long for the important values and lessons sports teach. My kids are athletic – good at most sports, very good at others. 1 is easy going and less driven, the other is ultra-competitive – I was a maniac, winning or losing on the field set the tone for everything else in my life. There, now that’s out of the way.]

The entire system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt, from the inside out. The one that stands in its place is a monster that has grown hideously disfigured. Of course, as it usually goes, the monster is me, is us. 

Sports do teach ‘important values and lessons,’ but the vast majority of lessons the adults (including me) teach are important, they’re just negative ones. We teach selfish ambition, pettiness and ugly vindictiveness, not class and character. I could tell stories forever, detailing the experiences I’ve had, the venomous words directed at me, the rage-filled stares and glares dripping with hatred focused on me. Oh, the phone calls!!! 

But instead, I’ll just apologize and ask forgiveness for the many times I’ve spoken quickly & harshly. The many times I’ve made decisions about the ability and (much worse!!) character of children that were 6 or 8 or 10, based on commitment and effort – as if who we are at 6 is who we will be at 26 or 46. The number too high to count of times I’ve thought only of the final score at the expense of the lives that had been entrusted to me to care for. I am unbelievably sorry for the damage I’ve inflicted, the friendships I’ve broken, the moments I’ve lost to disordered priorities.

The positives that kids learn can just as easily be learned a few years later, at 13 or 14. Self-esteem? If we are getting our worth and value from a game played every Sunday, Heaven help us all. Friendships? Again, if our teammates a few hours a week are our only relationships, maybe we need the push elsewhere. Physical activity? Seriously – we all need to go outside and breathe a bit more, kick a ball or play catch. Competition? Maybe that can wait. Maybe we don’t need to start to learn comparison and winning and losing until our personalities are a bit more developed, our character a little more solid, our worth a bit more sculpted. 

Maybe our kids don’t need to see the grown-ups behaving like animals because of ‘them’ and their playing time. The coaches are always wrong, right? They always are playing the wrong people, making the wrong decisions, buffoons, trained circus animals riding tricycles in circles. The coaches “don’t know the game,” and the officials are much much worse. From the sideline, the politics of the team, league, and universe have all conspired to keep their kid, my kid from achieving his/her true potential. Obviously, this has absolutely nothing to do with the player and absolutely everything to do with me.

The kids we’re so concerned with hear and see us arguing, screaming and fighting with each other – where are the ‘values and lessons’ in that??

So, I have an idea. There is such beauty in sports, in the artistic expression of athleticism, in the introduction of perseverance, the development of skill and coordination. We can keep sports, keep the practices, the instruction, the camaraderie, just eliminate the games. With the absence of victory and defeat and starters and substitutes that aren’t getting enough playing time, it would only be about kids and the game. I know, I know, how would we display our pride and vanity? I’m sure we would discover ways to do it, (cage wrestling or gladiatorial combat, perhaps), but maybe no longer at the expense of each other’s kids.