Column Lombardi and Little League make a poor karmic
match
By KRIS
BERGGREN
I ran into a friend the other day who is head of the English
department at a prestigious private high school. He has a lot on his mind. He
is in the midst of interviewing for two open positions in his department,
planning his family's vacation and trying to find time to write his poetry. But
what he really wanted to talk about was an ethical dilemma he had to handle as
co-commissioner of his 11-year-old daughter's softball league, a situation
convoluted enough to challenge even Solomon's wisdom.
It was the championship game. The Orioles and the Yankees played
the seven regulation innings to a tie. They played a tiebreaker inning, during
which the Orioles scored a run and the Yankees two. After the game, however,
the parent in charge of the Orioles' scorecard realized she had erred back in
the fourth inning, scoring one run instead of the two her team had earned.
Somehow it had been overlooked by both teams.
After the game, the Oriole coach raised doubt about the
authenticity of the Yankee victory within hearing of several of his players.
The umpire and the league president offered differing interpretations of the
rules regarding such a situation. But it was too late for subtlety; parents,
players and coaches demanded justice. So it was up to my friend and his wife,
the co-commissioners, to figure out a fair solution.
They are peaceful, gentle people. Baby boomers with a liberal
bent. They're the kind of parent I aspire to be. They were miserable with the
possibilities.
Should they stick with the declared win? Should they go back and
change the score? Should they play another inning? Flip a coin? Cancel the
whole thing and play another game? A championship rode on their decision. There
were parents and players to be satisfied. This would be a decision with
long-lasting outcomes. Would summer's game be tarnished for some of these kids?
Would their decision cause bad feelings about sports for some young
enthusiasts? Would families be embittered about the league? And what about the
rights of the teams that had played hard? What about the rights of those who
had been declared the winners, only to have victory snatched away?
As the commissioners agonized over these conflicting interests and
rights, they wondered just what kind of message this brouhaha was sending to
the players. They feared that the importance of winning overshadowed the
importance of playing one's best and enjoying the game -- the latter being the
reason we usually claim (out loud, anyway) for encouraging our children to get
involved in sports in the first place.
In the end, my friends figured that because the Orioles and the
Yankees had actually scored the same number of runs, counting those made in
regular and extra innings, the teams would meet once more to play a decisive
inning to determine who would proceed toward the championship.
I tend to scoff at parents who get overly invested in their
children's athletic endeavors, assuming these armchair quarterbacks and
benchwarming first base coaches are attempting to relive real or imagined glory
days through their offspring. Yet even I, who claim that my football-playing
brothers got all the competitive genes while I got the do-gooder ones, have
found myself caught up in this parent trap. I sometimes struggle to detach my
self-image as a parent from my child's prowess on the field.
My son plays on a coed park league soccer team for 5- and
6-year-olds. During his first season my expectations were minimal; no
aspirations to college scholarships here. The coach, another parent, was
wonderful, supportive and patient. But come the team's second season, I found
the spirit of Vince "Winning Isn't Everything, It's the Only Thing" Lombardi
negatively affecting my karma.
My son came home bursting with excitement one day after a game I
had not attended. He exclaimed, "Mom, I made a great kick!"
"Oh, honey, that's terrific," I gushed proudly. "Did you score?" I
let out before I could stop myself.
His father mouthed behind the boy's back, "It was already out of
bounds and out of play when he kicked it."
"Well," I said lamely, "it must feel good to use your muscles like
that."
The competitive genes, I discovered, weren't absent, just latent.
The next game I attended, I cheered for every purple-shirted kid who did
anything resembling official soccer play. And I was generous. I mean, this is a
team where players occasionally hold hands on the field just because they're
feeling happy or make a sudden dash to the sidelines, not for Gatorade, but to
give Mom or Dad a hug.
Toward the end of the game, my son kicked the ball hard, right
into the goal -- the wrong goal. He jumped up and down, exuberant and
oblivious.
I waved at him in solidarity, then hung my head in mock shame. Or
was it? I sheepishly said to the coach's wife, whose son was out there too, "I
guess we need to go home and work on the fundamentals."
Was that a piteous look she gave me? She said, "Yes, the
fun-damentals," with no mistake about the emphasis.
Maybe it's we parents who really need coaches.
(Note: The Orioles defeated the Yankees and went on to win two
more games, including the championship.)
Kris Berggren lives in Minneapolis.
National Catholic Reporter, September 5,
1997
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