CurrentMom

Sports Mom

Truth Thursday (a little bit late) 

So, my daughter made the high school JV (that’s Junior Varsity, for those of you, like me, who didn’t know) field hockey team. Yay.  And she wants to try out for lacrosse in the spring. Yay.

What I didn’t know was that there is practice every day, and that the after school activities bus leaves much earlier than practice is over. And that there are many additional responsibilities for parents than just showing up at games – there’s the pasta dinner before the season opener, there are list serves to be managed, fundraising to be done, calls to be made, sheds to be built (to house the girls’ gear) and at least 10 other volunteer responsibilities on the sheet that was passed around at the parent meeting at the beginning of the season. 

Sheesh.  I got through my son’s four years of high school by visiting the school about 10 times. I’ve been there 10 times plus in the first week and a half for my daughter’s launch. 

Different kids, different needs.

I went to a high school that had no sports teams. It was the 1970s, and my school, a bit of a hippie experiment in education, was non-competitive. I took ballet and modern dance as my gym credits. There were sports, certainly, and I have a memory of one of my good friends walking around the halls in her “gym leader” uniform, although I don’t know what a gym leader was, since I never once set foot in the gym (really.)

But I have a good friend today who was a high school and college athlete, and she and her daughters have been beacons for my daughter for years.  My daughter has skimmed being really athletic, and while having played on some teams – soccer and basketball – had never really found her niche.

Until now.  She really, really likes field hockey and lacrosse. She comes home from practice starving, because she’s working so hard every day. She delightedly showed me the beginning of her “six pack” the other day. And she is getting to know a wonderful group of girls who are tightly knit and who work together as a team.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Truth Thursday

For the most of this summer, my 11-year-old son has had the unique pleasure of living in a city with a winning baseball team. This has coincided with his own desire to play the sport a little more seriously. So almost every night for the past number of weeks, he has parked himself in front of the television, swinging a bat at the screen. Half the time he also wears his baseball uniform.

As far as I’m concerned, there is simply nothing cuter than an 11-year-old boy in a baseball uniform.

We’re in the final, nail-biting games before the end of the season, with our young team still with the best record in baseball, but nervous about actually making it to the big time. It’s kind of like this year’s presidential election – you know in your heart that the best candidate has the edge, but you just don’t want to jinx it by thinking it is so.

What is it about baseball that makes someone like me, who doesn’t know a hockey puck from a lacrosse stick from a touchdown from a free throw, actually like it?  I went to a few games as a kid, saw the Mets at Shea and the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. I always liked the Mets because they were the underdogs, and I lived in New York in ’86 and felt the love. 

But it certainly wasn’t enough to make me a true fan of the game.  And for years I have lived in a house where basketball has been king, and all of my male children (including the one I married) are glued to the set during the entire NBA season. Not to mention football season, hockey season, and of course, now, baseball season. 

Be a Good Sport

Fatherhood Friday

With Superbowl Sunday around the corner it’s a good time to remind my wife how lucky she is.

I grew up a passionate, though not rabid, sports fan. My favorite sports were (and still are) baseball and hockey, with football and basketball a distant third and fourth.

I grew up in New York, but now live in the Midwest. This is important (in this context) for two reasons: first, since my favorite teams don’t play in the local market there is a limited number of occasions to watch them on television. Second, in the New York City area, professional sports were king, at least in the circles I traveled. We just didn’t really get into college sports.

What does this mean for me as a sports fan and husband today? I have plenty of friends who love – I mean love – football. College, professional, high school. It doesn’t matter. And when autumn comes around these guys seem to spend ten hours a day on Saturday watching college football and ten hours on Sunday watching professional football. When college basketball and the NBA come around the same thing occurs.

Since I don’t have an interest in college football and my NFL team is only on national television a few times a year, my wife knows that my weekends are not geared towards hanging in the man cave. Baseball, hockey – same thing, though spread out over the entire week.

In addition to that, I generally keep sports in perspective. If my team loses – even in the biggest of big games – I’m usually not thinking about it too much the next day. If I have to miss my favorite team on television I can survive. That doesn’t mean I don’t care. But I do try to keep it in perspective. Sports are entertainment, a diversion; not life.

Okay, so perhaps I exaggerate when proclaiming that these factors should make my wife feel lucky. In fact, it’s a two-way street. Because I don’t plan significant portions of my free time around sports, on those occasions that I do want to watch a game my wife recognizes the relative rarity of the event.  How our free time is spent during those hours almost never becomes a point of contention.

Every once in a while my awesome wife, who really isn’t in to sports at all, will make an effort to watch a game with me and try to engage. And while she may ask me what quarter the hockey game is in, how many runs the football team has scored or who’s winning while overtime is still being played, her willingness to participate makes me feel similar to the way I imagine she must feel every time I join her in watching a Reese Witherspoon or Kate Hudson movie: it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. What matters is that we’re doing it together.

(Photo Credit: http://thesportsfanjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/man-and-woman-watching-football-together.jpg)

 

The Three Musketeers and the Four Hour Erection

Fatherhood Friday

My oldest son turned eight last month. Lately, we've bonded over sports. While I consider myself a sports fan, I'm hardly a fanatic and really would be as comfortable bonding with him over books, music, science or just about anything else as much as sports.

The fall is a fun time to enjoy sports together, both playing and watching. A budding baseball groupie, he's very excited about the World Series even though his two favorite teams were eliminated. We also live in a town where football is king, and our professional football team is the best in the nation right now.

Despite the fun and quality time we have watching sports together I've been very uncomfortable, to the point where I'm not sure if I want him to watch. The problem is the commercials.

I understand that football and baseball are a business and they need to sell advertising that appeals to their core audiences. The message seems to me that the audience is men younger than 21 or older than 65. It seems every other commercial is for a violent movie coming to theaters soon or for viagra/cialis.

I know my son will soon be exposed to violence and sexuality in popular culture all too soon, but I still want to keep him young and innocent for as long as possible. I'm not sure which bothers me more - the violence or the sexuality.

Whenever a violent commercial comes on (lately its been for the "Three Musketeers" over and over and over again) I'll turn the channel or cover his eyes. He gets that he shouldn't watch it, and while I've sensed some curiousity from him lately I think for hte most part he would cover his own eyes if he knew there was violent content on the television. (He really doesn't like violence of any kind.)

On the other hand the Viagra commercials are less in your face but even more of a challenge to explain. Fortunately he generally tunes it out and I don't think he's caught the content of it. But he's a smart kid with real good listening skills. I fully expect him to ask me very soon "what is a four hour erection?"

So, I hate to say this, but fortunately the World Series is just about over. We enjoyed a a great season and a very fun playoffs. My eight year old really isn't that into football, so I think I've got at least until next spring to wrestle with this one.

(photo credit: http://media.carbonated.tv/39689_story__507.jpg)

Team Work - On the Field and in the Office

Truth Thursday

Twelve 9- and 10-year old boys tear up the soccer field each week. One of them is mine. He is my third child, my youngest, and he is a great all-around athlete. While I thought I had already paid my dues on the soccer fields and the basketball courts, with two older children who have participated in and enjoyed sports much of their lives but who have never played on high-performing teams, my youngest is on a soccer team that has just made a leap from "rec" to "classic" games, which means everything is now being played on a higher level.

This team has been playing together for five years already, and my son joined three years ago, a relative newcomer. Thankfully, he quickly became an integral part of the team, respected by his coaches and teammates alike for his skill on the field and his good sportsmanship. It's great that he loves the sport. But the most exciting thing about watching the games is seeing the team coalesce and function as a singular unit. While each boy on the team is a strong and enthusiastic player, this is a case where the whole is even stronger than the sum of its parts.

This is a team that works. The coaches have identified each player's strengths and help each one harness his assets and improve his skills in areas where he might be weak. They have taught the boys on-field strategy and given them training in their positions, so that they understand how each position is a cog in the larger machine. They have taught the boys how to work with each other, talk to each other during play, and rely on each other as they move the ball up and down the field.

As a result, this team functions like a well oiled machine. While they aren't going to win every game, they play as one unit; they all believe in the team and they all play hard and with each other to win. While they each are proud of their own special skills, they cheer each other on without being prompted and they all feel the thrill of their victories and the agony of their defeats together.