Keeping sane during a pandemic isn’t easy. All this stillness. I am a doer. You can ask Audrey. We love to get out and hike, bike, and kayak. I miss my hockey and volleyball friends. Team sports light a fire in me that I’ve been without for going on five weeks now. I am hoping that soon, when it’s safe, we’ll be back at it. For now, we want nothing more than to stay healthy. We hope and pray that when this is over we can emerge from this quarantine and be back together with our families and friends.
I miss them all so much.
We have been connecting with the world like everyone else. Watching your lives on different social media platforms is both comforting and frankly a little off putting. I was under the impression that a global pandemic would unite us, much like I’ve seen in movies like “Independence Day” and “Armageddon”. It hasn’t been like that at all. It’s too bad. Will Smith and Bruce Willis we are not.
The thing I wanted to express today though is more positive than that. Many parents I know are posting Parents of an Athlete photos with stories of their children’s successes. My kids didn’t play sports beyond high school, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t somehow shaped by them, and that those experiences didn’t in turn shape me.
Yearly trips to the OBX were a highlight for our family.
I’ll start with my Aly. Poor kid was in more gymnasiums than she would care to recount. She literally spent her years between 5-10 playing with dinosaurs and coloring pictures with the JV volleyball team from Leechburg, every Tuesday and Thursday night. At 10 we signed her up for YMCA volleyball, and she had the skills you’d expect a 10 year old to have, but she had seen enough matches to have an advantage over most of the other kids. At 13 she tried out for the Junior High team at Kiski and was cut. As parents we wanted to be angry at the coach, but as coaches Ellen and I knew we had to tread carefully.
Aly didn’t believe in herself and being cut from the sport her mom coached was confirming this. As a remedy, without questioning the coach, we ask that she be made manager, and that when possible, she could work on her skills. Thankfully the coach agreed. Aly was not fond of this arrangement, but did it anyway. Two weeks later, she was given a uniform, and played in many of the matches. Even though she never played volleyball again, I believe that this experience taught her something, and that her life as an “athlete” wasn’t a waste. Aly has been strong and steadfast since her mother’s death. She has the confidence to pitch complex curriculum ideas to her superiors, and to teach those same ideas to children all across the Pittsburgh region and beyond. Aly will bristle at this, but sports played a role in her early development, and I know she has more athletic equity than she’d care to admit. It made her a resilient person and a caring and kind presenter for the Carnegie Science Centers “Science on the Road” Department. Also, coloring with the JV team at Leechburg helped formulate a love for art that frequently comes in handy and gives her great joy. I’m so proud of my Alyshwally!
Mason stuck with athletics a little longer. Though he played golf in high school, my fondest memories come before that, and after. As an adult Mason and I have played on a few dek hockey teams together. I’ve scored my share of goals in my career, but none of them compare with winning a face-off back to Mas, and having him bury a slapshot from his spot behind me. I taught him that shot, and he has a cannon. The student has become the teacher, I fear.
Like most kids, Mason just wanted to play. He would do whatever you were doing…
Mason loved hockey, but as the game got more physical, Ellen and I taught him about golf. Not as many concussions in golf.
He ran the last mile of the marathon with me into Heinz Field, he tailed me to hockey games and took shots between periods. He played pepper before and after matches at Leechburg. By the time he was 11 he was really good at baseball. He listened well to instruction and absorbed what coaches would tell him. At 11 he was a contact hitter, and a fast runner, so he ended up leading off. He had a good season, and was selected to the all-star team. It seemed like baseball would be his sport.
Now most of the people who have been sharing the “Parents of an Athlete” posts have accompanying pictures. I do too, but this one is in my head, and I will never forget it. I don’t know a lot about the intricacies of baseball, but manager Tom Johnson, a man I look up to both literally and figuratively, had me coaching third base, in perfect position to get this shot of a lifetime.
It was Mason’s first game of his 12 year old season, and even though he had a growth spurt that made him bigger and stronger, he was still a very fast runner.(I have no idea where that came from. Credit Mangus DNA.) The line-up card had him batting first, and starting in centerfield. Centerfield in Vandergrift had an oddity. The flagpole was positioned INSIDE the fence, dead center. To accommodate balls that might strike the pole, league officials had painted a line, about ten feet off the ground. A ball striking the pole above the line would be deemed a home run, based on the distance from the flagpole to the fence. I’ve played in that park my whole life, coached there for a few years. Never had the line been needed, yet there it was, freshly painted, waiting for it’s chance.
There was a nervous energy at the ballyard that day. 24 kids and 10 coaches wondering if the things they had been practicing in that early spring would lead them to victory. Mason was extremely nervous as he stepped to the plate. First batter of a new season is a heavy load for a twelve year old.
I’m not sure what the count was, but from my spot at third I had a feeling this ball had a chance right off of Mason’s bat. As trained, he wasted no time getting on his horse. He was halfway up the first base line when my gaze left him to find the ball. Arching high into the sky in centerfield, it reached its apex and descended as the center fielder started his chase. He quickly broke off the pursuit, and looked upward at the flagpole.
Goooooonnnnngggggg. The ball struck the flagpole a good 8-10 feet above the painted line. The noise it made still rings in my ears. The kind of sound that signals something important had happened. My gaze then went to the umpire at second base. Hand in the air, finger upraised, twirling in a circle. Home Run! I then found my son Mason, rounding second, hands down at his side, palms upward, in a gesture of disbelief. The look on his face was of pure joy, the happiest I had ever seen him. His grin seemed to leave his face on either side. Click. That’s the picture I get to see in my head. It makes me so happy, that I cry to this day just thinking about it. I’m weeping now as I type.
The picture that is missing, is the one he got, of me looking at him. I wonder what that was like on the other side of this story, or if he took the time to notice. I can’t say I’d blame him if he didn’t. I never hit a home run. He did on his first at bat. He hit many others after that. Mason had a pure swing, kind of like a young Ken Griffey Jr. Some of them were fairly impressive, but none like the one off the flagpole in centerfield, early spring, 2006.
I guess maybe the message is this. When this is over, we can be better. Right now, the ball field is locked, the soccer pitch empty, the rink dark, and court barren. When they leap back to life let’s try to get the most joy out of what our kids accomplish on that fresh cut grass, polished wooden floor or bright white ice. Let the coaches coach, let the players play and let our children see in our eyes the joy that brings us. Whether they drive one out of the park or go 0-4, let's be there to love and support them.
Can’t wait to get back out there….
Make no mistake, there will be changes when we come out of isolation. Sports and activity will lead the way back. As athletes, coaches, and parents let's make the most of this break and come back renewed.
Watch out, Murrysville Sportszone goalies. The first goal will be so glorious. The celly, epic.