Across the state, fall athletes are practicing for their upcoming seasons in soccer, cross country, field hockey and golf. Games, matches and meets will be here before the end of the month. Thinking about the season ahead reminds me of last fall and the experiences of six young friends of mine. There were plenty of wins, a few losses, lots of goals and a few PRs, but those statistics are not as important as the life lessons my young friends learned.
My fifth-grade friend played soccer. She is a fast runner, which usually serves her well, but in her first season playing with the offsides rule, her speed sometimes got her in trouble. In one game, she was called for offsides two or three times. She was so upset that she could barely play in the second half. After that, game by game, she got the hang of it, and two or three games after the bad one, she was racing up and down the field, onside, with her customary smile back on her face. I am confident that it will not be the last time my fifth-grade friend will have to figure out how to work her way through a patch of adversity.
My sixth-grade friend had played soccer for many years, but last fall she followed her older sister to cross country and ran for the middle school team. She loved her new sport and told me so every time I asked her about it. She dared to try something new, and it paid off. She scored in most of her meets, but her proudest moment came in a meet in which she did not score. My sixth-grade friend ran the state championship meet with a cold, could barely breathe for the second half of the race and finished in tears. But she finished, and her team won the state championship. The strength she showed in that race will serve her for decades to come. She now knows that she can do anything she sets her mind to.
My seventh-grade friend played middle-school soccer. About 30 girls tried out for 18 spots on the team. As a seventh grader, my friend was excited to make the team and even more excited to begin the season in the starting lineup. But a nagging injury flared up and, reluctantly, she followed her physical therapist’s advice and sat out for a few games. Getting back in the rotation was tough, but my friend played as hard as she could every time she hit the field, and at her fall sports awards night, she was recognized for having an assist on the game winning goal in the league tournament semifinal game, a game she might well have missed if she had ignored her physical therapist’s advice. Lesson learned.
My eighth-grade friend also played soccer. She tried out for the middle school team and performed so well that she was offered a spot on the high school JV team. She accepted the challenge and played up. She scored a bunch of goals and proved to herself that she was ready for the next level. Playing up isn’t for everyone — many players decline — but this player took the risk and reaped the reward.
My tenth-grade friend is another soccer player. In ninth grade, she was on teams that went to the Final Four in soccer, basketball, and lacrosse. Not surprisingly, she was looking forward to big things in tenth grade. Her hopes were derailed when she suffered a knee injury in pre-season practice. It wasn’t the kind we all fear with female teenage athletes, but it was enough to keep her off the field for a handful of early season games. She did come back, and scored a couple of goals, but she didn’t have the season she was hoping for. Even so, just like my seventh-grade friend, my tenth-grade friend played her heart out every minute she was on the field, and there’s a valuable lesson in that.
My twelfth-grade friend ran cross country. Her previous season had been a bit rough, with a couple of on-course injuries. So what did she do the summer before her senior season? She trained as hard as any athlete I have ever known. She did training runs religiously, and even went to foot camp with a college coach. All her hard work paid off last fall. She had her best times ever on most of the courses she ran and set a personal record at the Meet of Champions. Her hard work paid off, and she paid it forward by taking a freshman teammate under her wing as a training partner.
Like any fan, I can easily get caught up in wins, losses, PRs, and state championships. But those things fade rather quickly. The life lessons last. Watching them unfold is what draws me to the sidelines.
Parker Potter is a former archaeologist and historian and a retired lawyer. He is currently a semi-professional dogwalker who lives and works in Contoocook.