Ammo and sports and why I am a believer... you know the story since you lived through the teen years with me on SI but I think I hadn't quite realized how this was a peak moment for all of us until I was writing to Solon and thinking about all the good and bad of the sports we have gone through.
Ammo's senior year, the swim team went to State. As you know, the boys both swam through high school which meant rising at 5 to drive to a nearby town for practice every morning, and twoadays a couple of times a week. It's a grueling training schedule, and a tough sport with results being decided by hundredths of a second. By the time you reach State level, it is COMPETITIVE.
He qualified to swim the 50 free and was on the 200 free relay, but his warmups the day of the competition were slow. Just before his 50 free, the coach was debating dumping him off the 200 unless he proved himself in his 50 free. I was furious, thinking oh the pressure, oh my poor baby, and contemplating how I was going to murder the coach after the meet.
Ammo got up on the block for his 50 free with the best 4A swimmers in the state of Texas alongside him. It's a very tense moment, waiting for the mark and the gun, the swimmers stand there in silence, staring down that empty lane, and--
this huge grin spread over Ammo's face. When we asked later-- what were you thinking! he said that he had just had a moment of perfect happiness.
He had trained for years for that moment, he said he saw that quiet water waiting for him, and he relished the potential, knowing he had the tools to do his best, that he could never be more ready, that it was all on the line and he believed in himself. And he did it. His best time ever. The coach left him in the relay, and the team went on to win the State. But for us, it was in that moment that taught us (sitting there helpless, terrified, furious) - how much he had learned about himself and what he could do.
Despite the inevitable bad experiences of certain coaches, other seasons, and earlier times, I believe that overall, what we saw in that moment was the best of what sports can be in a young person's life. |
