“Sports are overrated in our society.”
“It’s just a game!”
That is the opinion of some. Like all opinions, there is more than one side.
Athletics has opened many doors and conversations for me at cocktail parties, in airports and walking beaches wearing a UNI t-shirt.
I won over a grizzled southern chauvinist who clearly didn’t believe the “fairer sex” could know anything about football. After our discussion on a dock in Juneau, he ended by inviting me to a Furman game “any ol’ time y’all are down our way.”
Athletics has always helped provide a distraction in our sometimes cruel and stressful lives. After the horrible events of 9/11 and the postponement of football, baseball, golf and other events, millions gathered during the following weeks to share grief, pain and patriotism, and to begin the healing process in stadiums and on athletic fields across the nation.
A coach from Aplington-Parkersburg said before their first football game this fall that life had begun to feel normal again. The same words were uttered by a female A-P track star who continued to train on her own after the tornado this spring, just to “feel normal again.”
Athletics creates a bond that allowed fierce competitors in a high school conference to assist a rival in clearing debris from their football field, a field where they themselves had suffered defeat. They came because their rivals needed help.
Football has always been the pride of Aplington-Parkersburg. The Falcon Pride flag fluttering in the aftermath of the destruction in May served as a symbol of hope. “We will rise again” has often been the mantra out of despair. One only needs to remember the courage and determination of the Marshall University football team to carry on after the tragic plane crash wiped out its entire team in 1970.
Athletics changes lives. The new movie “The Express—The Ernie Davis Story”, as well as “Glory Road”, depicts how athletics can change cultures and overcome huge barriers. The character who plays Davis says in the movie, “Football is just a game. It’s what you play for that matters.” Athletes play for respect, for self-esteem and to overcome fears.
Sometimes athletics acts as therapy, as in the case of a young boy afraid of the water, suffering from ADD, and ridiculed by his classmates.
Through swimming, he overcame these challenges—and went on to win eight Olympic gold medals.
Athletics is about accomplishing more than anyone expected or imagined. So maybe athletics receives more attention than it should. In the scheme of life, it’s just a game. Then again, maybe not.
As we celebrate the one-year anniversary of Cedar Valley Athlete magazine, we salute all athletes whose spirits shine through the pain, the disappointment, through the loss to continue to strive, to put one foot in front of the other. That’s what athletics is all about. That’s the lesson for us all—showing up and giving it our all.
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