Season 3

JT started the 9th grade by joining the cross-country team.  He’d run on the Middle School team for the previous two years but when practice began in mid-August, it rather kicked his backside.  Still, he kept running and made every practice and every meet, earning himself an Ironman Award from the coach for his efforts.  I drove him to pre-season practice, stayed at school for late practices, and attended cross country meets all around central New Jersey.  I started the season in flip-flops and ended it in sneakers and a sweatshirt, there as he crossed every finish line.  His coach was a terrific combination of enthusiasm and rigor.  Thanks to her, the boy gave up soda and took up the eating of fruits and vegetables with the spirit of a convert.  The season ended at the start of November and we had three weeks off before he joined the wrestling team.

Wrestling has not been a sport I historically enjoyed, largely because of the macho culture I associate with it.  I’ve changed my mind this season, a tribute to the tone set by the head coach of our school’s team, one of the most gentle and kind men I know.  Within a week of the start of the practice season, JT was sold on the sport.  I’ve joked that wrestling is part team and part cult and I still think that’s true.  There seems to be a different kind of intensity when you prepare to grapple with a stranger in a cavernous gym.  Practices were long and demanding and we drove home in the dark most nights this Winter.  But JT loved it and ended his season wrestling Varsity as a freshman, an honor that meant he got pinned in most of his matches.  He takes solace in the fact that one of this year’s team captains lost every one of his frosh matches.  The boy has drunk the wrestling koolaid and he’s already planning for next year’s season of sweating intensity.

The third season of our year is the nation’s pastime and our family’s favorite obsession: baseball.  Practice officially started last week, barely a week since wrestling practice ended.  Yesterday, he flew to Florida with his team to spend a week at a high school spring training camp.  The game is his first true sporting love, an affection inherited from his grandfather.  The coach of this team was JT’s first PE teacher. Back then, at the age of 3, PE was the best part of his day.  That’s still the case, which perhaps explains his eagerness to play on a team for every athletic season available to him.  JT ginned up for the baseball season by fitting in pre-season weight-lifting and heading off to 7 am Sunday practices with nary a peep of complaint.  His love of the game is palpable, an intensity that I found endearing.   That’s a good thing, because this is the most equipment-intensive sport in our repertoire, with bags for gloves, bats, cleats, and the range of catcher’s equipment he uses.  Soon enough protective cups will be left all over the house with an abandon that will cause me to shout unkind comments.  

All of these teams have in common coaches who go more than the extra mile every day, serving as good-humored mentors and role models to my boy.  They demonstrate a combination of work ethic, intensity tempered with kindness, and competitive spirit that serves JT and his teammates well during the season.  But it is the way these coaches and teams teach lessons about life beyond sport that makes the teams an experience that will last long beyond the season at hand.  My son’s life has been richly blessed by these experiences and I am very grateful for that.