Sports and Hard Lessons Learned

I sat in my living room the other night as the game clock rapidly counted down the life of the season for my Dallas Stars, two wins short of skating Lord Stanley’s Cup around an empty arena in Edmonton. Frustrated and defeated. If you followed them at all, you know it’s been a roller coaster season for many different reasons so riding through all of it just to suffer defeat was nothing less than life-shortening.

I can remember staying up late in 1999 to watch them win The Cup in triple overtime and not being able to jump and yell and scream as loud as I wanted to because everyone else in the house had long since gone to bed. It was June, I was 13. It was muffled but glorious.

I know there are many out there that have no interest in sports. I’m not one of them. I’m one that believes sports is a great tool in developing young people. Skills and values and lessons that most eventually learn are thrust upon those the first time they pick up a ball or stick. Learning to be a good teammate is one that comes to mind as one of the early lessons my boys have learned/are learning before ever having to depend on that skill to make money and maintain relationships.

But for all the positives that comes from watching, playing and coaching sports, there’s always that inevitable letdown. For some, it’s a precipitous decline that you can see coming. For others, it’s a guttural shock that comes suddenly and heavily. And still others that get so close, perhaps unexpectedly and, despite overachieving, still fall short. It doesn’t lessen the disappointment. Investing in a team since childhood means you will undoubtedly be disappointed far more than elated if you stick around long enough. At the end of the season there’s only one happy fan base and team. Which leaves all the others in varying states of despondency.

The easy answer is to never fully invest in any team ever. I guess that could apply to politics, jobs or anything that pits one side against another. But if you were to do that, you’d just be some asshole that doesn’t care about anything or anyone. What a terrible existence. So I could try to warn my boys about the inescapable sorrow that will eventually befall them as they play for, root or coach a team, but I won’t. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way. It makes winning that much sweeter. And hopefully one day I can celebrate with them as “our” team wins it all. Until then, “there’s always next season.”