As I slowly have processed everything that has happened this last weekend I am solidly feeling like we as a culture have lost the meaning and purpose of sport. Maybe I am a nut job, or maybe I got kicked in the head one too many times this rugby season but to me, the purpose of sport is to learn about yourself, express yourself, and to provide self-care to your psyche. There are some real hero's for kids to look up too in the sports world, but they are not on the television.
The real heroes are the ones holding down a 9-5 who still get up and make it to training. Who still participate in their sport of choice, who still make time to grow as an athlete despite life's little bumps in the road. Let's be honest here, it ain't easy to pull yourself off the couch and strap on your gear to go train on a cold wet winter day. It's even harder to strap up and go when you just finished a 9 hour day, did homework with your teenager, and know you're not getting home from practice until 10:30 tonight. Work still looms tomorrow and yet there you are freezing in the rain, running until your quads hate you, doing the thing you love because god damn it; you practice what you preach!
We grow as people as we grow as athletes. We learn our limits, we massage them, then we surpass them to find new limits. We learn to breathe, we learn the meaning of patients, we learn to channel our emotion into action, and if we are lucky we learn to win with grace, mostly we learn to lose with dignity. We learn the meaning of failure, and how to pick up the pieces. We express our feelings openly on the field in a way that our culture frowns upon when we are off. And by taking ourselves to the brink we calm ourselves, center ourselves.
Now think about the teenagers you know. How many of them have parents who don't do that, but are screaming at them at a Saturday game to run harder blah blah blah... Yeah, your teen is really listening to you, I promise. It is easy for them to get blinded by the big leagues too, all that money, all that media attention. What happens though when they are not the 1%? So to be a true hero to the next generation you have to practice what you preach, you have to get up and 5 am for that run or stay up until 11 in the rain. You have to hit that gym when that pizza sounds better because that is what a hero does.
So here is to all the real heroes out there, please remember my admiration the next time your wondering why you do what you do... because somewhere even if you're single, there is a youngin who is watching, and your helping them to decide if they want to join the ranks of weekend warriors or couch junkies.
