a different ending
Sports parents are nuts. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
I am just home from three days of an intense selection camp. Logan made it to the Team BC Lacrosse camp for PeeWees (11 + 12 year olds), so we made the 4 hour trek to Kelowna, BC and settled in for a weekend of lacrosse.
Designed as a way to whittle the top 60 athletes down to a team of 20, this had the potential to be a high pressure situation for the kids. And for many I’m sure it was. But for many more kids, it was about playing the game with the best of the best, having fun on the floor and making new friends.
The parents, though, were a whole other thing to watch. I’m as competitive as it gets – when it comes to my own life. I like to succeed and when I choose to compete, I want to win. But that’s my life, my choice and my chance to shine, or not, in my efforts.
I want my kids to always showcase their very best, whatever their best might look like. The key words there, though, are “their very best”. Not mine – their’s. I have no desire to live vicariously through their success – that belongs to them and only them. My kids have to succeed because they want to, and they have to live with what their efforts bring them. I just have to congratulate or commiserate, as the case may be.
Too many parents sat with tense shoulders and frowns on their faces, noticing every little thing their children did wrong this weekend. Missed passes, dropped balls, poor positioning – those things happen, but for some it was like the world ended. Parents left the rink, heads low, grumbling about how poorly their boys played, and I found myself both amused and bemused by what I was seeing, sad that those parents were putting their own hopes and dreams in front of their children’s. The truth is, these boys are 12, caught between boy and man, and the pressure put on them was enough to crush adults.
Don’t get me wrong, I wanted Logan to shine, to choose greatness on this weekend. But what I wanted more was to see him fall in love with his sport again, remembering the joy of the game, regardless of who was watching. I wanted him to make new friends, try new things, and be twelve with 59 other boys the same age. I wanted him to fit it, to stand out, to be a team player, to be selfish enough to do something amazing. I wanted him to want it and to show how good he can be. I wanted him to laugh, to be excited about getting to the rink, to be proud of what he was doing, and to have fun.
Fun. That’s what sport is supposed to be. Fun.
But it’s not my choice, never my choice, how he plays the game. When Logan walks onto the floor he is completely in control of what happens next – it is up to him, completely up to him, to chase greatness, to be a team player, to be selfish, to be generous, to love each moment, and to trust his teammates. No one can play his game for him. This is, perhaps, the only place in his life right now where he is in charge of what happens next.
So I watched quietly, wanting him to make his dreams happen. Wanting so badly for him to be proud of his efforts and to be rewarded for that. I wanted him to know the joy of having a dream come true.
And he did . He wasn’t interested in making the final 20. For a lot of reasons, he did not want to play for this coach and with some of the boys he knew would make it. He wanted the experience of the camp, and he got that.
Logan reminded me of something very important this weekend – the finish line isn’t always the destination. Sometimes, the journey itself is more important than the finish line; the journey is the destination. Logan’s dream for this weekend was different than mine…
His dream was better, his ending different. And he did exactly what he needed to do.
He laughed as he left the rink and got in the car. Laughed, and joked with his brother, and told stories about his new friends.
A different ending….a better one.
