Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Be aggressive, B E Aggressive!



What they lack in synchronicity, they more than make up in darn-cuteness.

Who even knew that 4th grade sports teams had their own cheerleaders?

I went to one of my nephew's Little League football games this week and it certainly brought back a variety of memories and emotions.



I was horrible at most sports as a kid, especially football. I never enjoyed playing it and was always so happy when each season was over. Also, no one thanked God more than me when a freak blizzard cut our westling season down to a few short matches the one year I actually was on the team.

The only sport I ever enjoyed playing was tennis and that was only because my best friend David (my friend now living in Atlanta) was on the team and we both were "so good" that we were often paired up against girls on other teams and were usually beaten by them too.



But, you know what....being beaten by girls and probably ranking as one of the worst players on the team never really bothered me...because David and I always enjoyed ourselves and had fun. We often just laughed about our absurd popularity-free situation and continued to do our best and hope for a Christmas miracle.

I had never really experienced that feeling of fun with any sport up to that point...or after.



Being the oldest, I am sure that my lack of skill on most playing fields was less than thrilling or brag-worthy for my parents. I bet they spent lots of time discussing about my "stellar" performances in a variety of no-budget High School theater productions and my unnatural obsession with almost every television show that ever aired.

Parents love to boast about the fact that their oldest son can sing almost every TV theme song and also carries a Laverne and Shirley lunchbox to school. Not to mention the "Star Trek" obsession...the choir competitions....oh, the geek-worthy list goes on and on.



Thankfully, my younger brother and sisters more than made up for my indifferent competitive nature and each excelled in a variety of sports, which I'm sure was much more satisfying to watch from the stands and to discuss over beers at the VFW.

My nephew's team won the game that day, although he didn't get to play much.

But, what I was pleasantly surprised to find out was that he doesn't like playing football either and his parents were okay with that. To hear my brother say that he just wants his son (also the oldest) to play something he enjoys, made my heart smile.



Life is full of enough unrealistic expectations and stresses as it is.

I'm just glad that there is at least one kid out there who is allowed to decide what he wants to do and, if it turns out it's not for him....is given the parental okay to do something else.

That's definitely something to cheer about.

4 comments:

Mark Ward said...

Those days seem like many lifetimes ago (I realize it was several decades). The plays...those plays...("oh chonny")...phil, terry, judy, david, pam, cindy...jan. Wow.

Vampire Hours said...

I know...if only life were that simple again (without the popularity contests, of course).

Brad said...

I would have been with you warming the bench. I do find it odd that you didn't enjoy wrestling...

Thank god for choir and drama!

Vampire Hours said...

Well, I liked the idea of wrestling...not so much the actual sport. It looks so much more fun in movies.