“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.” ~ “Nuke” Laloosh, Bull Durham.
National Public Radio recently suggested that, as we age, we lose our competitive drive. We play fewer sports, ergo we are less interested in winning or losing.
Some researchers speculate that this lost interest in playing sports – and in winning – comes from the “negative reactions to not winning” in our youth. In other words, blame your parents for Earl Weavering at your Little League games and for instilling in you the old adage, “It’s not whether you win or lose, Sweetie. It’s just win.”
I don’t usually argue with NPR. And, I realize that taking offense to this implies that I’m somehow older than I realized. (Young enough to still remember what I heard on NPR a week ago, but old enough to use Earl Weaver to make a point.)
Do fewer people over 40 or 50 play sports?
Well, sure. Point, NPR.
Not everybody can hang in like an Ichiro Suzuki or Bartolo Colon, the 42-year-old New York dumpling, who gets more endearing with every additional year and every extra pound.
But, unlike Bartolo, it gets a little harder to find time to play as we get older. Sure, we lose the physical ability. Who wants to get tackled on a football field when you’ve already got bursitis?
But, we also lose the time. We lose opportunities and, eventually, teammates.
Hey, we’ve got better things to do than volleyball anyway.
I hate volleyball. One time in junior high I was hit in the face by a volleyball, cracking my glasses and bending my headgear up toward my nose.
Yes, I wore a headgear. As though wearing braces wasn’t humiliating enough. You can stop chortling now. (You know I can’t hear you.)
In any event, is there no wonder I hate volleyball? That upon leaving high school, I promised myself there would be no time in my life where I would ever – ever – play volleyball again? Screw you corporate team-building retreats. Family picnics, or that awful weekend at the beach with friends who binge-played volleyball and Pictionary, which is even more hateful than volleyball, except that a game of Pictionary never crushed my teenage headgear.
There are even anti-volleyball tee-shirts! Clearly I’m not the only one with headgear stories.
But, just because volleyball sucks, doesn’t mean that I’m no longer competitive. I still like to win.
The Baseball Bloggess 