Dear Sports

In the spring of 2019 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and all sports just stopped existing, sports fans realized what life without sports was like.  And it was not pretty.  ESPN provided a platform for fans to write a letter to sports to express what we were feeling at the time about our relationship with sports and our thoughts while we were without it.  Many ESPN personalities and regular fans alike participated, including the hashtag #DearSports in their posts on social media.  At the time, I thought what a wonderful topic for me to write about because sports has always been a big part of my life.  Every time I started to put my feelings into words, I became overwhelmed with the prospect of putting my relationship with sports into mere words.  The following is my attempt.

Dear Sports,

Where do I begin?  You and I have been together for literally as long as I can remember.  I have loved you for all of my 5 decades on this earth.  You have given me so much joy and entertainment and have been there for me when I really needed to escape for awhile when life became too much.  You have given me a focus and a purpose and a goal.  You have provided me a connection with family, friends, and at times even perfect strangers.  

When I was young, I remember listening to late-night baseball games on a transistor radio in my bed.  Some of my best memories from when I was young are watching Sunday Night Baseball or the NCAA tournament games with my Dad.  Or listening to the Bradley University basketball games on the radio with him.  I remember watching Bulls games with my mom.  My first live major league game was at Wrigley with my dad.  My first NASCAR race with at Indy with my dad.  Sports were a way for us to connect and something for us to enjoy together.  

When I started playing sports myself, my parents were there in the stands at every single game.  They supported me and encouraged me and loved watching me play.  I still feel a sense of pride about my accomplishments on the court and a strong connection to the Maroon & Gold of my high school team.  

My husband and I have a strong sports connection.  We share a love of all things sports, whether we are pulling for the same team or not.  He proposed to me at Wrigley Field, our honeymoon was to go see a few MLB games.  We have traveled thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars attending baseball games, basketball games, races, etc.  Our dogs Wrigley, Fenway, and Jacoby (Ellsbury) give evidence to our love and commitment to sports.  We even named our son Ryan after Nolan Ryan.  

And of course, we have passed this love of sports on to our two children.  Vacations have been to major league games.  School calendars and summers have been full of practices and games.  Hours and hours of volleyball, basketball, baseball, and soccer.  And of course we have spent countless hours together in front of the tv watching, rooting, and discussing our beloved sports.  

Sports, you have been a daily part of my life for decades .  You have been woven into every aspect of my life.  You have given me some of my highest highs--2016 Cubs, 2015 Duke Basketball, watching Mark Grace get a World Series ring in 2001, and Kyrie's shot & LeBron's come-out-of-nowhere block in the 2016 NBA Finals--and some of my lowest lows--1984 Cubs, 2003 Cubs, and JJ's Duke team losing to LSU in the tournament, ending his Duke career.  You have been with me always--on the tv or the radio and now, all over the internet on my phone.  I cannot imagine a world without you in it.  And yet--here we are.  

For the past few months I have felt this huge void in my life.  At times, I feel like I am wandering aimlessly, looking for something--for a purpose perhaps--to the hours on my evenings off work.  I have read more books to pass the time, but they are solitary endeavors and I miss the connection with my family and friends.  In the beginning of this, I enjoyed watching all the old games and retrospectives that were being broadcast.  But once those stopped, there were days I never even turned the television on.  What's the point?  I have hundreds of channels, but the one thing I want to watch isn't there.  

I heard a speaker at a graduation ceremony years ago talk about about finding something in your life that you love and feel passionately about. Find that one thing that motivates you and gives you a reason to get up on those days when you'd much rather stay in bed. Find that one thing and throw yourself into it. That is how you can be truly happy.  I realized that even on my worst days, there was always sports.  Until there wasn't.

Now, in July of 2020, we are on the cusp of you returning in earnest.  We got a small taste of you coming back when soccer started playing again.  This week and next week baseball and basketball will be back on my television.  I will be able to watch and root and discuss you again.  

It's crazy how I never even imagined that you would be taken away from me.  That just sounded absurd.  Shut down sports?  Pfft, never happen.  But then it happened.  And the whole saying about not realizing what you have until it's gone hit home in a big way.  Sports, I can't wait to see you again!  And I promise you from the bottom of my heart that I will never ever take you for granted again.  

Love,

Michele

 

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Sound like a Christmas song?  It does, I know, but I'm not talking about the Christmas season.  I'm talking about March.  So many wonderful things happening.  Most (read: regular) people think of Spring and flowers blooming and warmer temps and windows open and things like that.  I, of course, am referring to sports. 

Today is the first day of this year's NCAA basketball tournament.  In the next four days, there will be 48 college basketball games played on several different tv channels.  Me, and literally millions of other fans like myself, will be flipping between these channels over the next four days watching, reacting, cheering, yelling at the tv, checking our picks, watching replays on Sportscenter, talking with our friends and probably ordering take-out.  For college basketball fans, life stops for the next four days...or, life begins. 

These games matter to us.  They're important and thrilling.  Everything our team has worked for comes together right now.  You lose and your season is over.  Survive and advance.  Any team can beat any team on any given day, especially this year.  And it's all on the line this weekend. 

This tournament and all the talk and brackets and excitement over the games and their outcomes brings so many people together.  We're all fans.  We all care.  We all have an opinion.  We love our teams.  We love to compare brackets and talk about the games.  People who seemingly don't have much in common talk about their picks or the crazy finish to some game. 

It's been this way for me and my family for almost as long as I can remember.  I remember being just a little girl and watching (and listening) to games with my dad.  I'd ask questions and he'd patiently answer them.  My earliest basketball memories are of watching Ralph Sampson and his University of Virginia teams play, and listening to Bradley basketball games on the radio and being so excited when they won the NIT in 1982.  Now as a grown woman with children of my own, he'll call and ask if we're watching some exciting game, or we'll talk about the game when I'm at his house, or we'll sit and watch games together.  We all have our brackets and make our picks.  Even my kids, and my family members who don't watch all the games all year like some of us do.  My mother, for example, often picks her winners based on school mascots or team colors.  Somewhat surprisingly, she will frequently do better in her picks than some of us (read: me) who study statistics like RPI and points-per-posession and pay attention to Joe Lunardi's opinions. 

It's a crazy, wonderful, exciting, passionate time of year.  And I love it.  I love everything about it.  I love the game of basketball on every level from grade school to the NBA.  It's complex and exciting and amazing. 

But as much as this is the most exciting time of the college basketball season, it is also the beginning of the end.  When this tournament is sadly all over, however, we have baseball season beginning!  I'm sure y'all know that baseball is my love.  I could write a whole separate blog about my love for that game!  It's a totally different game.  Slower, much more majestic, but just as complex and exciting in it's own way.  But basketball, especially college ball, is a very close second in my heart. 

This is what makes this the best time of the year for me.  We have these amazing, exciting few weeks filled with important basketball games that everybody cares about and watches and when it all ends, we slide right into the best season around.  I'm in sports heaven right now.  And that's why this, for me, is the absolute best time of the year.

It Doesn't Take Talent To Hustle

"It doesn't take talent to hustle" is a quote from H. Jackson Brown that I saw on the back of a competitor's team shirts a year ago at our early-bird travel baseball tournament. It struck me as one of those quotes to remember. I shared it with Billy and he liked it so much that this past Jr. High baseball season he had it on the back of his team's shirts. Talent and natural abilities will only take you so far in sports...or in life. You have to be willing to work hard and hustle. Things won't always come easy for you and you have to know how to work in order to have success--in sports and in life. Sports are one great way for kids to learn such things.

Ashley is playing competitive club volleyball this winter. A couple weeks ago, she brought home a paper that her coach handed out to the team at practice that night. It was about her expectations for the players on the team. I was reading through the list the other day and it occurred to me how nearly everything on the paper could be applied to all of our everyday lives, not just to sports. Some of the things on the list include: be prepared, give 100% all the time, go as hard as you can for as long as you can, challenge each other to become better, hold each other accountable, everybody helps, eat right, and be active and find a way to contribute. All good things for team members to remember, but also for you and I to remember.

At the bottom of the sheet there is this list:

Things That Do Not Require Talent

• Punctuality
• Concentration
• Focus
• Mental Toughness
• Enthusiasm
• Communication
• Effort
• Hustle
• Awareness
• Attitude
• Rest
• Diet
• Patience

People sometimes disregard sports as a frivilous waste of time. I find that so frustrating, not only because I love sports so much, but because when they do that, they set aside the important things that can be learned from sports. Things that we all need to learn in order to be successful in all areas of our lives. No matter what our age or our situation, if we do our best to adhere to these suggestions, we give ourselves a great shot at achieving our goals in school, at work, in our activities and in our relationships with others.

"How do you go from where you are to where you wanna be? And I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. And you have to be willing to work for it."

~ Jim Valvano

"The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand."

~ Vince Lombardi