Some people are athletes. Some are not.
Athletic skills can be taught, learned or built upon, but I also have found that if you just don’t have it, it’s unlikely you can learn it. I have a niece who’s a klutz; she cannot run without (almost) tripping because she has two left feet. Her lack of athleticism is a part of who she is, although I suspect she could hit a ball if she cared, which she does not. Instead, she’s busy being a surgeon while co-parenting two kids. Priorities, y’all.
There are naturally gifted people in every sphere, and in every way. In sports, those gifts might include better hand-eye coordination, quicker reaction times, greater lung capacity or heavier muscles in the arms or legs. Sports can be torture for some, a survival tool for others. They also provide community and even, for the lucky few, upward mobility.
I am an aging athlete, which has its own special pain and pleasure. Injuries I received in high school sports and several epic falls while rollerblading in Central Park have come home to roost. Happily, however, they’re minor. All my life growing up and well into adulthood I was told, “You don’t throw like a girl,” which was meant to be a compliment, but is a backhanded one, served with a side of sexism. Outdated gender norms say girls can’t throw, lift heavy objects, shoot straight or drive a stick-shift, even while not all boys and men can do those things, or want to. I’ve always responded to the non-compliment of “not throwing like a girl” with the following, “Yes, I do. I throw like a girl because I am one. Duh.”
I’ve also added this, “But you sure talk like a sexist!” Being told you throw like a girl is meant as an insult; not throwing like a girl is meant to be a compliment and it’s a sexist one, because there is supposedly nothing better than whatever standard men set, and attempt to impose on all others. No thanks, guys.
You’ve probably never heard of Heather Anderson, but she was an Australian rules football player who took her own life in 2022 at the very young age of 28. Anderson started playing Australian rules football at age 5, retiring from active play at 22. She suffered multiple concussions during the intervening years. Heather Anderson was also the first sportswoman to be diagnosed as having CTE: Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
What’s my point? Elevating an ethos of rough and tough, attempting to play sports all out, giving 1,000% in order to prove your “grit” or the equivalent of “manliness” is a dangerous and foolish thing to do; Anderson’s post-mortem diagnosis of CTE proves it’s equally dangerous for us all.
Risk versus reward, for there are many rewards in team and individual sports, is a calculus parents and individuals make; adults’ willingness and ability to allow children to take part in sports, especially the most concussion prone — football, soccer, hockey and skiing — is a part of parenting and coaching.
The question is, are coaches and parents fully informed on CTE, or running blindly on their own unrealized athletic dreams? Parents might be too busy to notice, simply glad their kids have something to do after school. Or perhaps we might consider abandoning the mind-set of “unless you’re bruised and bleeding you aren’t trying hard enough,” the “leave it all on the field” credo?
How about we leave some on the field and live to see another day? Sounds good to me.
Valuing other human gifts and qualities would work too — gifts like intellectual curiosity, empathy or the ability to think long-term, imagining the consequences of our actions. We could also refuse to let kids play rough until their brains have finished developing, at ages 25 to 27. Hilarious, right?! We live in a conscienceless capitalist world; sports are a multi-billion-dollar business! Who cares if your average NFL player has dementia or is dead by age 59?
More than anything, I hope Heather Anderson’s death won’t be in vain, because dying at twenty-eight due to having left it all on the field as a child is regrettable and unnecessary. I hope, too, that parents and coaches everywhere will pause and reconsider before pushing children onto that potentially dangerous rink, field or slope when they are too small and too dependent on the desires, wishes and judgement of their parents and coaches to just say “Whoa.”
Children will most often do what they believe their parents want, even if the parents are performing the “It’s up to you, sweetie!” dance.
But hey, perhaps we should all just live and be “like girls.” We’d live longer, and better; there’d be less war and much more care for our fellow humans. Up with the matriarchy!