Why Sports #2: Doing the Difficult

Why are sports good? Sports are good because they require us to do hard things.

Friday night was crushing. After two months of not winning, we were in a position to win. Great position. And then we didn't. After one of the most creative officiating calls in my eleven years of coaching, a scramble for  a loose ball, a 3-point prayer answered for our opponent, and a missed shot at the buzzer, we fell defeated by a single point.

Saturday morning I did not want to face the day. Curled under blankets in bed, cradling dejection, disappointment, and anger, I had no desire to attempt anything for the day, let alone the miracle of getting out of bed with any semblance of a positive attitude. I'm sure it was even tougher for our players. But this is what you do if you're involved in sports. Even when you don't want to, you deal with disappointment. You do hard things.

What else do you do if you're involved in sports?

You get out of your comfort zone. You do more physically and mentally than you otherwise would, sometimes more than you thought you could, because somebody is pushing you to be more. When discomfort tells you, "Enough!" you keep going anyway.

You learn to have hard conversations. You deal with coaches daily pointing out your weaknesses, requiring you to face your own limitations. You communicate with people you don't like because you have to, and because you know success is worth more than the forsaken pride required to join with somebody you had an argument with five minutes before.

You put your failures on public display. Where else can everyone with $5 in their pocket come and be present for goals not met, risks not rewarded, desires unfulfilled.

You learn to be humble in your own success. While the natural inclination inside you and those spectators who are cheering you encourage you to walk taller and prouder, arrogantly declaring your own immortality after victory, you learn that there are few behaviors less conducive to future success and more annoying to the general population than shameless self-promotion.

You sacrifice. Time. Effort. Emotion. More time. Freedom. Pride. Money. Comfort. And some more time.

You fight for success unseen. You realize that of all the spectators - family, friends, community, casual fans for and against - maybe 10% have a clue what your real success looks like. Most will not understand when you've really won. Or really lost. And they're going to forget most of what you did in the not so distant future. You realize you may not have your reward until years later, when you're sitting down to dinner or talking on the phone with an old teammate, or an old coach, and you remember, so many different things you remember, and you realize just how that all changed who you are what you became.

You battle. You battle fatigue after a bus ride that gets you home at 1 AM, you battle a packed schedule, and self-doubt, and fear, and situations and events outside of your control. You come in every day, and every day the battle is there to greet you.

And it's all worth it. Not everyone does this. Not everyone can voluntarily put themselves into a situation that requires them to do hard things. But the ones who do are better. Smarter. Tougher. And they know that it's the hard things that bring the good.