Happy 70th Birthday Dad: 4 Reflective Lessons on what my Dad taught me through a lifetime of sports
70th Birthday Golf
This weekend we celebrated my Dad’s 70th birthday doing one of the things he requested; playing a round of golf.
It didn’t matter what course, the score we shot, or even how well we hit the ball. We had a simple goal. Enjoy a day doing something we love together that’s physical but would allow us to still share the special day with our family who couldn’t be on the course with us (grandkids can’t golf yet!).
Playing together is something we never take for granted and try to grab each chance we have to celebrate sports and what they mean to our family.
Sports matter in our house
Growing up sports were a non-negotiable part of our lives.
My sister and I were always enrolled in a sport, and our parents encouraged us to strive to higher levels if we had talent and wanted to compete. We watched the local teams and cheered on our favorites on TV and made special trips to sports venues across North America to take them in live. Some of my best memories aren’t the games themselves but the drives to and from NHL or MLB games.
My deep love of sport was engrained in me through my family.
Beyond the Game is most important
Despite the importance placed on sports in my household, they were always played with appropriate balance.
We played them to test ourselves, to stay fit and out of trouble, to rise to the challenge, and to express our passion. There was never any expectation outside of trying your best, accepting the results, and making sure movement was part of our everyday lives. All the best elements of sports stood out in high definition.
I’m beyond grateful and appreciative that my parents, and especially my dad made sports a big part of our house growing up and have distilled the decades of lessons I’ve learned from them 4 pieces of advice for you.
1. Playing should be fun
This seems obvious but when it comes to sports it needs to be repeated because too many lose sight of this simple truth.
Sports are challenging but we should enjoy the challenge. If you don’t have passion for it, you’re not going to enjoy the adversity, struggle, sacrifice, and discipline needed to excel in it. Despite playing high level sports, in my house if fun wasn’t at the top of the equation we didn’t do it.
We also spent countless days creating new sports, trying out different ideas, laughing and joking when things went awry, and always coming back the next day to try something new
.
2. Quitting isn’t an option
When we made a commitment in sports we were expected to honor it.
Excuses fell on silent ears and we showed up on good, bad, and even worse days. No matter the score or situation, we always tried our best and were expected to give a full effort. Quitting was the worst thing we could do because our coaches and teammates depended on us.
In our house, you didn’t quit because things got hard, you learned how to gut it out until the very end.
3. Aiming for your best matters
Championships and individual awards are nice, but that was NEVER what mattered for sports in our house.
Losing was acceptable, not trying your hardest was not. If it was a pre season practice or championship game our attitude was the same, give it your best or don’t bother going out at all. Sports were the place to show our characters and we didn’t want to lose there.
It was never the outcomes that mattered, it was always how we carried ourselves and our effort that were prized.
4.Always Honour the game
We liked to joke, make fun, and fall into the ‘stereotypes’ of sport but NEVER at the expense of ourselves, our teammates, our opponents, the referees, or our coaches.
Above all the game deserved respect and we needed to have actions and attitudes that matched them. We learned about the history of sports to teach us the legends and evolution of the game. Importantly, we understood that sports reach beyond the individual and deep into the community through participation and spectating.
If we honoured the game, we learned that the game rewarded us in deeper ways then getting to win.
Takeaways
The takeaway for me is crystal clear: sports aren’t cheap distractions but are deep expressions.
If they weren’t serious I wouldn’t have learned such valuable lessons from approaching them seriously. Most importantly the fun of sports makes them valuable and meaningful practices. Whether it was creating our own sports, battling each other in sports video games, going for our best in competitive sports, or travelling to lives games to take in the atmosphere and drama I’m grateful to my Dad for teaching me the best way to live through sports.
That’s the good life.