I was watching a movie the other night, “The Sons of Katie Elder” with John Wayne, and my brain began to turn, which is always a dangerous thing. I shelved the thoughts and moved on…until I was watching TV again and saw a show called “Beyond Scared Straight”. The thoughts then began to whirl furiously in that empty space between my ears and I felt the need to again put my fingers to the keyboard. As the thoughts were flying in, I quickly realized that this was more of a dissertation than a blog, so I cut it into 3 parts. This is the first…
I remember a lot of things about growing up. I remember when I was little, my brother and I played outside…all the time. A few things I remember distinctly that I will share with you and after I make my point you may realize why.
I remember playing tackle football with my dad in the backyard. It was always me and Greg against him. We could never tackle him, obviously…according to him, my dad, I was a Chihuahua on steroids and my brother was Thunder Thighs. Yet that never stopped us from playing. We would trip him up occasionally but more often than not we lost that battle. We also played soccer with him. We had picnic benches that we set up as goals and again my brother and I would play my dad. Again we occasionally won, but I still remember losing to my dad. Eventually my parents put up a basketball hoop in the driveway and the sports moved there. We began to keep a record, always in Dad’s head (which I think began to get fudged the older we got), for our games and I can still remember getting beat by my dad. I used to think if only I was a little taller or could jump higher we could win and it would be awesome! Needless to say as the years progressed the games became more competitive. Dad became the “all-time quarterback” and in basketball he got 3 free 3 point shots that if he made he got the ball back, and eventually it became my brother and Dad against me. We played ping-pong, foosball and air hockey in the basement. My dad played left handed at first to “make it competitive”, but he still beat us. I remember telling Chelsea about the exposed trusses we had on the ceiling where we kept track of games and who was all time leading champ…to this day I still think it was my dad. Today I look back and think of the times I played sports with my dad and my brother and they were some of my fondest memories, the bitter sting of defeat (because Dad never won gracefully) and the thrill of victory (because we never won gracefully).
I remember trying out for basketball and soccer at school. I remember most distinctly sitting the bench because someone was better than me and knowing exactly why I was on the bench. I remember the BCSA tournaments, wanting so badly to win and not. I remember one year we played our soccer tournament in a huge snowstorm. It was a very close game and I committed a stupid foul and my coach pulled me out. He said to me “Livingston, what were you thinking??” I sat the bench until half time. Coach pulled me aside at half, gave me some encouragement and instruction and put me back in. I can remember that because Coach wanted us to win, as did the other players, and I had been a hindrance to that winning effort. We eventually won, but I still remember sitting the bench, upset that Coach had pulled me and wanting to play more than anything. There are probably more instances that I could reminisce about, but they all have begun to run together. I remember losing and hating it and sitting the bench which stunk. I remember the sports awards at the end of the year at our school. I remember leaving empty handed because I wasn’t as good as someone else. That drove me during the summer to get better, to be faster, to move quicker and to want more.
Fast-forward to today. I was talking to a friend of mine whose son plays in a little league. They don’t keep score. They give out trophies to everyone because they played hard. Everyone gets a trophy. My brother, who coaches his daughter’s soccer team, has said they don’t keep records. Everyone gets to play regardless. Yes I realize she is 6 and it’s just fun right now and I understand that, but when does it end? We have constructed a carefully controlled environment where no one loses, everyone is a winner and no one has to feel left out. We are so afraid to have our children be competitive that we have taken dodge ball and field hockey and wrestling out of gym glass to prevent someone’s delicate feelings from being hurt. It is my opinion that in doing so we have done a disservice to them, the children, and produced a generation who doesn’t know what it is like to lose. In a world where the environment cannot be controlled and someone is going to definitely lose this generation is unprepared to face those disappointments. Granted I am not a parent and would never profess to know how to raise a child, my mom would agree because she sometimes thinks I can’t even raise a dog! My point is this; I lost a lot when I was growing up. I know what it feels like to not be as good as someone else, but as far as I can tell, I am not that damaged! Winning and losing produces character and now we have a generation who has no character and we wonder what happened.
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