By: Mason Kalman

Upbringing/Introduction to Sports

Sports are an integral part of any child’s upbringing. Parents can sometimes push, but typically encourage athletics in their children. The latter has been my situation. I was practically born with a bat and ball in my hand. My first 10 years of life my parents would sum up with “baseball, baseball, baseball.” That was the sport that sucked me in from the beginning. I eventually found other sports that I chose to obsess over, like hockey, running, and basketball. I learned many life lessons and adopted new strategies that felt the best for me as an athlete. This post will be about how a lack of pressure surrounding sports in my life and a feeling of acceptance helped me truly grasp “the love of the game.”

My Parents

My parents never once forced me into sports. Once I could walk, I would play catch with my dad in the backyard until I learned to hold onto the ball. He tried to teach me to bat lefty, to no avail. My mom often talked about her milestones in running (both in races and on the treadmill). However, I never went for my first “run” until I was 13. This benefited me, because it allowed me the freedom to choose the sports I wanted to pursue. 

With absolutely no remorse, I took up an avid interest in hockey, a sport almost no one in my family had attempted before. By age 10, it was my new baseball. From then on, my parents summed up everything after age 10 as “hockey, hockey, hockey.” Because of their support and cheering from the sidelines, lawn chairs, and stands, I never felt like I had to go through with anything I didn’t want to. I uphold the greatest amount of respect towards them for that.

Lessons I Learned

Sports not only shaped the way I fill a good chunk of each day, but they also taught me about empathy, about enduring failure, and about standing up for myself when I feel something is unjust. 

Sports taught me empathy, because they shaped a greater sense of perspective for me. As a hitter, my goal was to hit the ball hard. A coach once told me to pretend the pitcher had stolen my favorite food from me: pasta and meatballs. This helped shape my understanding that both sides can’t always be happy in baseball. That’s why you need to get the pasta and meatballs back, so the seesaw can tilt back in your direction. With the crack of the bat or pounding of the mitt, a player who can control both sides of the game can control the two-faced seesaw. Another example is when a pitcher who threw very hard hit me square in the back with a pitch. Instead of saying nothing, he asked me if I was ok. These scenarios shaped my sense of empathy. 

Sports taught me to move on from failure. This is because not only do you get a hit a third of the time in baseball, but you score roughly a fifth of the time you shoot a hockey puck, you can hit the hardest ball ever and still get out, and in basketball you can get fouled three times and miss a seemingly wide open layup. Unforeseen circumstances such as the ref filing his nails with his whistle can shape these outcomes. In conclusion, failure is inevitable in sports, and learning to accept it in sports transfers over to the real world, every day. 

Finally, sports taught me to understand that my role in this world is completely subjective to my actions. When I realized I’d volunteered to pitch at the start of the season and was never given the opportunity, I told my dad. He told me to explain everything I was telling him to the  coach. I did, and I learned taking initiative is what keeps the ball spinning on its seams. I was brought in in relief multiple times the rest of the season. This initiative will hopefully someday impress managers at a job or teachers of a class.

Winning Strategies

Without the pressure of feeling a need to prepare myself a certain way, I’ve experimented with a lot of tactics to get me game ready. These range from listening to rap music to meditation. I’ve found that listening to upbeat music with some visualization helps me reach my peak level of intensity and composure. 

I’m glad that I was able to find this out for myself, and was never confined to a certain ritual by a guardian, trainer, or other influential figure. I feel that I am the best version of myself as an athlete, because I have the freedom to decide to do buttkicks before a race instead of Frankensteins. Without any outside pressure, I can lock in before games, and prepare myself properly to leave all my energy and effort on the court, field, or rink.

Conclusion

Without sports in my life, I don’t know where I’d be today.  Ever since I was little, they have shaped my personality, work ethic, coachability, and confidence. Sports are what make me want to get out of bed every day. To be able to wake up every day, eat a breakfast high in protein, and start my day with a pump at the YMCA, a run at the pond, a shooting workout at a local basketball court, or a simple game of mini hoops, sports influence my life more than any other presence. 

I am grateful that I experienced no outside pressure to play the games I love. I get to idolize the sluggers, hoopers, snipers, and sprinters that make it all look so easy on a daily or nightly basis. That’s exactly how I was able to grasp ”the love of the game.”