The Sports God

The end of football season marks the beginning of wrestling & basketball season at our house. And the end of wrestling and basketball is quickly followed by the beginning of baseball season. Throw some intense competitive sheep shows throughout the summer and fall in there, and you have a pretty clear picture of how competitive our house can feel.

There are things that I really love about having two boys who view themselves as athletes. They have a healthy outlet for their aggression towards each other. They learn physical control of their bodies. They learn what it looks like to lose and win well. They learn that a bad attitude towards their coaches means a loss of playing time. They learn how to be a part of a team, and that one person, regardless of talent, cannot make for a winning season. At least, that's what they should be learning by playing sports. These are the lessons that are worth the money, time, and energy spent on any endeavor. Lessons that transcend a basketball court or a football field, and pay off in government buildings, farmer's fields, and companies all across America.

But something seems to be getting lost in translation. I'm not completely sure where the breakdown occurs, but it seems to me that it happens first in the home. You have dads that are coaching from the sidelines. A mom yelling at the coach for her son not getting more playing time. A parent screaming after a lost match at a charity dodgeball tournament, demanding they recount the scores and the third grade team that won should have lost to her son's team (this is a true story that happened to my third grader two weeks ago!)

A talented freshman on a friend's JV volleyball team was in the starting lineup last year, and when Ashley rotated the girls out, this particular girl was benched for a few minutes of the first game. The young lady was so upset by being benched first, that when she re-entered the game a few minutes later and the other team served the ball, it landed at her feet, without her moving so much as a toe to hit it. The next serve went exactly the same way, until the coach realized what was going on. She pulled the young lady from the game until she was willing to apologize to her teammates for her attitude. She sat there for FIVE games, refusing to apologize. Needless to say, her team lost. Afterwards, the coach received a three page-long email from a very angry parent.

Imagine how much learning could have occurred if instead of being irate, the mother had applauded the coach for putting team dynamics and good sportsmanship above winning a high school junior varsity game. She could have used that opportunity to teach her daughter a hard lesson about having a good attitude and respecting authority, even when she disagreed with the decision. The chances of her daughter becoming a professional volleyball player? Almost none. But the lesson that her daughter almost certainly needed to learn could have been taught that night.

Sadly, I see this play out in sports and on teams a lot younger than high school. I see parents of elementary-level kids allowing their kids to get away with shoving teammates to the ground, swearing at adults and friends on and off the field, getting into fist fights at school, and still bring them and expect that they will be in the starting lineup on Saturday morning. It isn't a coach's job to parent our children. It's our job. It's our job to teach our children that no amount of talent should trump respect, in any situation.

We bemoan that kids of this younger generation only want to play video games all day, about the offensive language that kids use, how this generation of kids don't know how to speak respectfully to adults, and yet we are the parents responsible for creating a culture that elevates athletic ability at the age of TEN over being a coachable, respectful teammate. We pay thousands of dollars so that they can play on traveling leagues, have private coaching, to have every advantage. And for what? It certainly isn't for love of the game. It isn't to learn the lesson of being a good teammate or a good person.

Last year, Drew did particularly well in wrestling. It was his first season, and as he began to win more frequently, and as other parents and coaches complimented his natural ability, all of this great sounding ideology flew out the window. I knew better, but still, his success on the mat began to feed into my own ego. Suddenly, I was the parent who was signing him up for extra sessions. I was the mom taxiing him to ridiculously priced private off season clubs.

The problem is not the private clubs, or extra lessons, it's that I was relying on Drew's abilities and successes to feel good about myself. I was willing to spend so much time, energy and money investing in something that ultimately serves me more than him.

The kids are paying the highest price when we elevate sports above all else. Every time we yell at the refs. Every time we roll our eyes at a coach. Every time we tell our kids that it wasn't fair that they weren't in the starting lineup. They are becoming the type of people that will struggle to respect their boss. They will feel too important to do "lowly" work that someone else should be doing. They will be the type of adults that feel entitled to high pay with little effort.

I wish that I could say that I had mastered this particular struggle. If you were sitting near me at Drew's last football game, you would know otherwise. I cringe to even think about my attitude, having lost any perspective about this just being a game. Forgetting that no one would live or die by the win or loss. No scouts were there determining anyone's future in the sport. It was just my ego, playing out on the football field, and being crushed.

We need to find our way back to the heart of athletics, where we treat sports as a means to an end, and not an end in and of itself. Sports are a way to train our children up to be confident, self-controlled, respectful, hard-working, perseverant, humble, not a God to be served.

Your son or daughter's athletic ability will never be enough if you are willing to sacrifice everything for it.