The Senior Games and youth sports - how watching one can help you enjoy the other.

The National Senior Games came to Cleveland this summer and I was lucky enough to be there.  After years of watching my young sons wrestle and play football and baseball it was refreshing to witness the kind of support provided to our older athletes.    

When the loudest cheers are for the person who comes in last, you know you aren’t at a youth sporting event.   

I’m not saying all of youth sports is cutthroat – however the differences between the Senior Games and what I’ve witnessed over the years in school gyms and on fields and in arenas are stark.   

Granted, the audiences at the Senior Games had it easy.  We didn’t feel the enormous pressure of making sure our athlete catches the eye of a scout and gets that scholarship and pro deal and buys us a beach house and supports us in our retirement.  Instead we got to just sit there and be proud of our loved-ones’ perseverance and hope that they have fun.  Imagine that.

A few times my mother came in last, but what touched me was that her family members weren’t the only ones cheering her on – the whole crowd cheered.  People from Alabama and Pennsylvania and Virginia who didn’t know her cheered - in fact the entire crowd cheered every last-place person more loudly than they cheered the gold medal winners – including those who broke national records. 

The loudest cheers I heard were for a woman who learned how to swim a few years ago after her doctor told her she absolutely had to find a way to lose weight.  Fast forward and here she is at the Senior Games in Cleveland with a slow and clumsy stroke, feeling for the lane markers (did I mention she was blind?) and being lapped by the others.  In her final stretch the entire crowd was on its feet and the majority of us didn’t even know her story at the time – we were just impressed by her effort.

I invite parents of school-age children to attend the Senior Games, a Master Swim Meet, or any athletic event where scholarships and future glory and personal bragging rights are off the table.  Focus on how awesome it is to see the human body – a miracle of mechanical and bio-chemical engineering – in motion; take pleasure in seeing a loved-one have fun (hopefully – if not then it may be time to question whose decision it is for the athlete to be out there); and be satisfied in knowing that it builds character for someone to learn how to be part of a team regardless of who wins. 

After you watch events like that it is easier to cheer for the boy whose first contact with the baseball all season is a wide foul, or the girl on the other team who may have cost you the game but you must admit made a skilled and beautiful goal, or the kid who is overweight or socially awkward who deserves admiration for stepping outside his/her comfort zone. 

After you watch the Senior Games it is easier to just enjoy sports and enjoy life.