The boy’s hockey practices resumed this weekend. On Sunday specifically. Individually, he seemed less than thrilled to be playing. He was standing up a lot and didn’t seem to be giving a lot of effort. It was possible that he was tired; but overall, the impression was one of him not really being interested in playing.
Being who I am, this bothered me. But the one good decision I think I made was not to say anything to him about it. Remaining silent wasn’t easy for me either. In fact, it was darn hard for me to just let it be.
The problem I run into with stuff like this is I’ve already gone through the learning curve. I understand what it takes to be good at something. How much extra effort is involved. Even if you already excel at a sport or activity, it still takes more practice and exposure to first become consistently good, and then potentially consistently excellent. It doesn’t hurt to realize that you’ve found something that you love to do.
While pondering this I suddenly remembered way back to when I first began competing in anything. That was cycling- and I was terrible. I got involved in cycling almost as a fluke. My parents had some friends whom invited us all to join them in a youth cycling club. That lead to my entering a race- a one-lap affair against other “non-racers.” I won that race and just kept up with it from there.
I think I raced “competitively” for 4 years- until the middle of my Junior year in high school. I put “competitively” in quotes because I was really anything but, until my last year. That was the year when I finally figured out how much work it took to be competitive. Even by then, I was light years behind some of the other kids. Up until that year, I basically skated by- going out on training rides sporadically and not giving a lot of effort when I did go out on those rides.
But that final summer, I logged several thousand miles of training from the Winter until the end of the cycling season. I remember “riding the rollers” all Winter and then being out on the road early in the Spring. I had some vastly improved results to show for my efforts as well. But that following Winter I made the decision that I wanted to focus on football. This time was also when I picked up on the discus and shot put for Track and Field.
So that Summer prior to my Senior year of football, I spent weight training and running and practicing. My reward was a unanimous first team All-League selection as an o-lineman on a team that finished last in the league (we had 0 league wins that year.) I also got noticed by a small college that actually wanted me to play for them, so I got to continue my football career into college.
My Track and Field career enjoyed similar success. I was something of a natural discus thrower and after football season ended, I started training almost immediately in the discus. I still remember throwing from a circle filled with water and having to wipe snow off of the discus. Again, I had a lot of success that last year: setting school records in the discus and shot put (my discus record still stands; my younger brother broke my shot put record), I was a league and district champion in the discus and placed 5th in the State meet in the discus on a severely sprained ankle.
But the reason for all of that success was that I had figured out two important things. First, I really enjoyed those sports. Second, I worked hard to excel at them and that’s related to the first.
Having related the lengthy personal anecdote, I realized the boy is too young to have figured any of this out. Just as important, I also realized that he can’t be told any of these things that I learned. He will have to experience it himself. He will have to find his own sport, or whatever, that he loves and it will have to be his choice to work at it and then watch his efforts bear fruit. Most probably, none of that will happen until he gets into High School. As it was with myself.
I preach patience to him all the time. I’ve realized that I too must be patient with respect to this aspect of his life. The best I can do is to offer some form of guidance: to play hard and have fun, to play fair and with integrity. Beyond that, for any of it to mean anything, it has to be his journey. I had my turn, it’s his now.