Competition

While playing tennis with my girlfriend last weekend, a man and his approximately 7 year old son arrived and went to the court next to us. For the next hour or so, the father competed against the kid, trying to defeat him both physically and emotionally.

When they arrived, the dad told the kid where to stand and how to hold and swing the racket. Then he went to the other side of the net and smashed a forehand past the kid, who tried in vain to hit it. The dad corrected the angle of the kid’s racket and explained to him what he had done wrong before knocking another one past him. The kid fetched the ball and tried for about ten swings to hit it over the net before the dad advised him to just throw it over.

The dad eased up and gave the kid some slow volleys, but every third shot or so he’d hit a winner or put some crazy spin on the ball. Eventually, the dad decided to try some serves, again telling the kid where to stand before smacking the ball for an ace.

….

I remembered how much fun I used to have playing football with my peers at recess. I considered myself a pretty good receiver, an average runner and a horrible quarterback. I was comfortable with that. Catching the ball was the most fun part anyway. Then one day, in fifth or sixth grade, the PE teacher joined us. He was the quarterback. The ball was hiked. I ran to the end zone and stood there all alone. He saw me but threw to someone else. I went back to the huddle and exclaimed that I had been wide open. He told me that I couldn’t just stand there- I had to move around. I knew he was lying and that really he just didn’t want to throw to me because he didn’t think I could catch.

Around that same time, I went to a basketball camp. I had never played basketball in my life- I had never tried to dribble, had never tried to shoot and had no idea what the rules were. The first day, the teacher tried to show me how to dribble. Soon, he was shaking his head and mocking me, telling me his daughter could dribble better than that when she was six.

Baseball was the sport I liked most. My dad taught me how to pitch (although he was incorrect in showing me how to grip the ball), and I spent hours practicing at a target he had painted. Unfortunately, I had no idea what the rules to baseball were. I was in Little League for three years, and nobody ever bothered to tell me what they were. Nobody told me where the ball should make contact with the bat, how to bunt or what the heck they were talking about when they yelled “Force at every base!”

In Junior High, I learned how bad I was at sports. In football, I was the guy who ran the plays out to the quarterback from the sidelines. We always ran the same play, the one that took the ball furthest away from wherever I was, and we always lost. In basketball, I was the kid who, every time I got the ball, everyone in the stands would yell “shoot” and laugh. I quit playing sports. I quit watching sports. I didn’t like anybody who liked sports, except for Charlie Husack, the most affable teammate I’ve ever met.

It wasn’t until I got out of high school that I realized not only did I like sports, I wasn’t really that bad at most of them compared to a lot of other people. It hadn’t occurred to me that bad coaching, going through puberty, jeering crowds and always wearing over-sized uniforms and shoes were major factors in my poor performance.

….

I got really annoyed by the dad and his boy. I hoped the kid noticed that my girlfriend and I weren’t competing; that we were just playing for fun. But I wasn’t having any fun. I wanted to switch places with the kid so the dad could compete against someone more his age. Even if I couldn’t beat him, which I wanted very much to do, at least I’d make him have to earn it.

I asked my girlfriend why she thought the dad had to prove he was better than the son. She retorted by asking me why I thought I was better than the dad. I suddenly remembered a time a few years back, playing tennis with an ex who had rarely played before, when a gentleman on the sidelines advised me to stop trying to hit the ball so hard to give us both a better chance of playing longer volleys and having a more enjoyable time. Although slightly chagrined, I had followed his advice- and he was right.

Perhaps while we’re here, we should enjoy each other instead of trying to worry about who’s better than who. It’s a lesson I’m far from learning. It’s great to push ourselves to be the best we can be, but who we are cannot be judged by or in comparison to anybody else. Perhaps maybe someday I’ll pick up a basketball again….