I’m still learning

You don’t have to go very far to find top entertainment, suspense, excitement and edge of your seats performances. It’s all here in Bladen County and playing in a lot of other cities around the world as well.

It’s not the NFL or the Denver Symphony or a top-rated musical in Chicago. It’s something that has been around for well over a hundred years and we have a chance to see it weekly in our local venues.

It’s high school sports. Played in each season – whether it’s 20 below zero or 103 degrees. Whether the wind is blowing or it is as still as that scene in a horror movie just before the psychotic killer appears out of nowhere.

Of all the years I played and coached and spectated, I can never seem to get enough. When I was younger, I was one of the Volatile Voices that made me an obnoxious fan. I knew that I was because people who were seated next to me on the bleachers got up for popcorn and never came back.

That competitive nature most likely was a learned experience when I was a child and when it meshed with my personality type, it was like wet sticks of old dynamite. Since I have matured, and I am very careful to say “grown up,” because growing old is mandatory, but growing up, in my mind, is still optional.

I’ve mellowed. And with the mellowing, I have learned to enjoy the sports and performances so much more. I mean… I can’t remember what the pep band was playing the night I was screaming at a ref from the cheap seats because they missed a call and of course, my sons were affected by errancy of their judgement. And everyone needed to know that I WAS NOT HAPPY.

As I was escorted out of the gym before halftime, I realized that I missed a great halftime performance by the competitive cheer team and my son’s girlfriend. Water under my bridge, I suppose, but the regrets of my youth caused me to miss a lot.

Part of it, I’m convinced comes from wanting to blame someone for something going wrong. All in an effort to protect MY kids and shield them from that dreaded injustice and God forbid… losing. I never realized until later in life that life itself was the greatest coach my kids could ever have, and for me to question the motives or the method that they were being prepared for in their pursuit of “more life,” was shortsighted on my part and futile as life will have its way.

Here in North Carolina, we are so fortunate to have such a variety of delicacies at our sports buffet. We have kids performing in all courts and fields of competition. In just the past month, I have had the chance to see volleyball, basketball, football, cross-country, golf, tennis, darts, jiu jitsu. And that was all here in Platte County.

What I love about it is that nothing is scripted ahead of time. You never know which team is going to show up. You can feel the momentum of an underdog and the brutality of a powerhouse that is void of compassion. You bite your nails in the fifth game of a volleyball match where time isn’t a factor on a never-ending volley or the fourth quarter of a football game where time is a cruel taskmaster with the ball, inches from a chalk line that seems as impenetrable as a 40-foot cement wall.

And sometimes we win. And sometimes we lose. It’s the way of our sensei who teaches us how to get through a storm that we have yet to encounter. It teaches our young competitors as well. And sometimes, we walk away hurting for those we love. We feel that injustice was not fair.

But you know? It never promised that it would be. And here in a twilight moment of my life, I have learned to let life teach. And when I do, I see so much more of the excitement, the drama, the suspense and the ambiance that surrounds it all.

I am glad, too, because things like the band’s halftime show on homecoming night is just one of life’s sweet moments that I would hate to miss.

When a cruel blow has leveled one of my players, I can further teach that athlete to blame someone, scream about the injustice and complain about everything from coaching staffs to players to referees. But that balm is not healing nor will it prepare them for what comes when I can’t be around to justify things for them.

My regret is that I taught my kids how to use excuses and how to blame. Thank God they didn’t follow in those footsteps and they had a mother who was the voice of reason. Just as I couldn’t take a spelling test for my children, I now realize that I couldn’t take a life test either.

To quote a Rod Steward song, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger. I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was stronger.”

And looking back, I realize that life was teaching me too. And it still is.