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Christopher Wood's avatar

I am lucky that back in the day --- a half century ago --- kids could enter high school without playing organized sports other than CYO basketball and Little League that had no championships, just a win/loss record, and be taught a sport.

I learned how to play organized football and lacrosse positions, and run the high hurdles in my sophomore year and became proficient enough in track to be offered a scholie.

I realize that track is the "easiest" sport in which natural ability has a great advantage over technique compared to FB and Lax (a term that didn't exist in the 1960s).

There was an innocence then that is impossible for kids to experience today...playing for the sheer enjoyment of using one's body with skill and being part of a team with others having the same feelings.

By the time my daughter was playing soccer in the early 2000s, I saw how our sports culture had changed. From intra-town teams, to inter-town teams, to travel teams, to elite summer camps.

She was good enough to be offered college placement, but hung up her spikes after her senior year and never played again...until after serving in the Navy, attaining a M.S. degree, and a role in a start-up company. She now plays on a adult-woman's team in her 30s and says she feels the sheer enjoyment of running, kicking, and jostling other players, as in her youth.

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Carol S.'s avatar

My high school had an all comers JV tennis team (at least for girls). Beginning of sophomore year, a friend said she was turning out for tennis and said I should too. I was not good at any sport involving hitting or throwing or catching anything, but I liked the idea of tennis, so I did.

My friend turned out to be an excellent player. I was terrible, but I kept at it for three seasons. JV players got two or three doubles matches each season. After year two, I was given the Most Improved JV award, which I knew was actually for being the most doggedly persistent bad player on the team. In my senior year, my doubles partner & I won a match, and I'll never forget how enthusiastic the best players were in congratulating me.

Maybe it taught me to keep at something that isn't really working very well ... but I'm thankful to the coach who was so encouraging the whole time.

There's a coda: After a long time of avoiding sports involving hand-to-eye coordination, I had occasion to try a bit of softball, then shoot some baskets, go bowling, try tennis again, shoot some pool - and I did much better at all of them than I had previously done. Or at least I did really well once, in some cases. (My basketball story is a little bit insane, but absolutely true.) My first time on a golf course, my brother (who's not given to idle praise) said I did better than most beginners he had seen.

If there's a usable life lesson in all that, I haven't found it yet, beyond "There's no harm in giving it a try."

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Christopher Wood's avatar

Good for you.

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