It's Only A Game

At what age does participating in a sport become serious business?  When do you stop yelling words of encouragement from the sideline and instead start yelling at them to stop screwing around?  How does it make a kid feel when they do strike out or shank the ball and the entire crowd moans in frustration, and then doesn’t even offer support?  It makes them feel small.  It makes them hang their head.  It lets them know they have disappointed you.

Somewhere along the line the seriousness of sports got crazy.  If you plan on going to college or beyond in sports these days then you have to start specializing early.  You have to pick a sport, or maybe your parents pick it for you, and then focus on it non-stop and try to be the best.  There are school teams, club teams, rep teams, traveling teams, camps, clinics, indoor practice, winter practice, going to watch the college kids or the pros practice, private lessons, and many more things to make you a super star.

The main goal of playing a sport, especially when you are learning, is to have fun.  I tell my kids to do their best, but most of all smile and laugh.  You are a kid, have a good time!!!  There will be plenty of time for the serious of life soon enough.  When you are young it should spend every day like the kids in the movie, The Sandlot, playing and laughing because you love it and it’s fun!

Today Audrey had a volleyball game.  It was a pretty exciting game!  The two teams were well matched.  There was tension in the gym.  The two teams were battling for the final point.

My attitude is to cheer for good plays and to cheer for not such good plays.  There is a lot of clapping and I like to praise individual accomplishments, “Good pass.  Nice set.  Beautiful serve.”  I also like to applaud the other side of the coin, “That was some great hustle.  Way to attack the ball.  That was a hard, scary serve and you stood right in there with it, good job!”  I even cheer on the other team.

When my kid shanks the ball I make a silly face at them and laugh.  And you know what, they laugh.  It’s all about having fun!

Today I believe the score was 25-25 in the volleyball game.  The opponents served the ball and Aud went running for it.  The girls started yelling that it was out so Aud tried to stop herself.  She went down on her knees and slid and the ball landed smack dab in the middle of her thighs.  I howled!!!  What are the chances of that?  Audrey was laughing, the coach was laughing and I was about keeling over laughing.  Well, there were some folks that weren’t laughing and I got some looks.  This, of course, made me laugh even harder.