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Before the Hovering Helicopters
Orlando R. Barone
My
daughter called the other day. Her 11-year-old son was experiencing troubles
with his travel team swim coach. Parents in the know are already alerted. He is
a very good swimmer; he is on a travel team, which means his parents chauffeur him
long distances to meets.
The travel
team habit is also expensive. Membership is exclusive and not cheap. Kids are
expected to perform in a highly competitive environment. Participation trophies
are nonexistent. If you’re not good enough, you sit the bench.
This
notion of youth sports is the polar opposite of my boyhood experiences. If I
felt like engaging in youth sports, I’d grab my scuffed, worn football and head
up to Johnny’s house, then to Mike’s and Moose’s, then off to the 14th
Street playground to find similarly inclined kids for a game of two-hand touch.
We used
shirts to mark the sidelines and goal lines, did a finger throw (odds or evens)
to determine who’d receive the kickoff, reviewed the rules (count to 5 before
rushing the quarterback etc.), knelt for the National Anthem, and started the
game!
OK, I lied
about the National Anthem, but the rest is accurate. We played hard, uncoached.
In fact, adults or any authority figures would be nuisances. That’s the one
constant from that time to the present. The difference is that in our time the
nuisances were entirely absent rather than oppressively ever-present.
Rules were
passed down; older kids had taught us. The rules were malleable, though, and we
often had to negotiate with the other team, who could be guys from different
neighborhood with different traditions.
Who calls
tags? The tagger or the tagee? In my hood, the athlete making the tag called,
“gotcha,” meaning that the one tagging certified that both hands touched the
runner’s body at the same time, and the runner was thereby “tackled.” Other
teams left the decision to the runner. We had to hash this out, or there
wouldn’t be a game.
We improved
by playing with older, better players. It was not unusual for a member of the
high school varsity team to drop by and offer pointers. Those guys also played
choose-up games with kids their own age. In high school I joined them.
Much that
is good happens in organized youth sports. Dedicated adults coach and provide
solid role models, while parents show up in their children’s lives, a gesture
of love and accompaniment that my own children cherished deeply.
A lot of
good also occurs when youngsters are given space to enter a world comprised
solely of peers, where we had to navigate uncertain terrain and negotiate ways
to play the game, solve conflicts, celebrate accomplishments, face losses, and respect
the rules needed to keep the contest going.
We played
hard and competed passionately, but this world was not one that assigned any
particular significance to a win or a loss. I cannot remember a single instance
of regret the day after one of those games. Or of exhilaration, for that
matter. All that emotion was unleashed on the field, and then left there,
permanently.
It was a
bracing world where things were not prearranged by adults, so we had to
organize ourselves. It was a world where no one got participation trophies, but
also a world where no one got any trophies at all. Therefore, the game itself,
the joy, the camaraderie, the fights, and the laughs were all there was to
motivate us.
It was
more than enough.
Lonnie Barone is a consultant, college instructor, and writer. His articles appear regularly in Lonnie Out Loud (https://lonnieoutloud.blogspot.com/). He can be reached at lonnie.barone@gmail.com. Lonnie lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
