One of the greatest gifts my husband has given our boys is his story.
It’s not that his story is so dramatic, or deeply moving and powerful. In some ways, it is just the story of the things that shaped him, and how he has traced the thread through his life. But he has given it to them more than he realizes, I think.
They have heard it from the time they were young, mostly in the hilarious tales of antics about his siblings or his mom or the sayings from his dad. As they got older and had cares and struggles of their own living overseas, he would share more about his move to Australia as a middle schooler and the way his life was turned upside down; going from a small suburban town in New Hampshire to the bush of rural Australia. From a life filled with school, a tight-knit group of friends, and what felt most important at the time— a budding sports career—to the complete opposite world of homeschooling, a small community, and what felt most important at the time— the death of his sports career.
As our older two have become young men, he has shared more of his story. On walks to school and early mornings at McDonald’s, he’s given them his own history: the ups and downs of his faith as a high schooler, the things God used to draw and convict and pursue him, his ups and downs with girls and dating and of course how God gloriously led him to me:)
I say this because the story he shares with them has taken narrative shape in their own lives, so much so that it now powerfully informs some of the things they themselves go through. One of those things is, well, the death of sports.
Our family talks a lot about sports these days. Actually, it has has always been a big part of our lives because as far as we know (the two youngest are still wildcards) we all love them. Enduring the lack of school sports was one of the hardest parts about our three long years of COVID in China. But now, we talk a lot about sports partly because we always have multiple children playing in some sort of game that needs to be dissected and discussed, celebrated or mourned, and also because we are now living in a world that desires to make sports the orbiting center of a kid’s existence and purpose in life. That world being America.
Josh’s story is so formative because it has constantly showed my older boys in particular (who are now graduated or graduating) that it can be a gift to have a life where sports is taken away from you. He has told them many times and in different ways how his own dad loved basketball, played in college and coached a high school team, but that when they moved to Australia and his own son’s opportunities to play were nonexistent, he was okay with it— never making life decisions around that aspect of his kid’s lives. They were oriented around a different calling, and sports wasn’t the most important thing.
This was painful in some ways as a kid. It wasn’t easy to swallow when all you had to keep up your ball skills was an outside court with an old rim, or when you went back to visit your friends years later and discovered all your promise as a pitcher was long buried in backwoods of the Australian bush.
But seeing his own father make choices that backed up his conviction made this the truth he preached root down deep in a place that would someday bear real fruit. I see the fruit every day.
Our boys have heard their dad talk repeatedly about how thankful he is for the legacy his dad gave him.
I’m thankful for it too. I’ve watched Josh over the years as a school administrator, supporting athletics but never wanting it to drive the program at the school or become too high a priority. I’ve watched him hold those at bay who would make it too important, and fight to see the formation of a whole child. I’ve watched him as a dad with our own kids— never with an ounce of pressure or misplaced zeal. How he cares more about who they are than how they perform. How he has never once tried to live out his own unrealized dreams through them.
I look at the way our oldest is responding to life at the Naval Academy, his own estimation of himself, his expectations, his ability to endure difficulties or disappointment, and see a direct line to his less than shiny high school sports experience with all the desires and hard work he had in the midst of it, subtly narrated by his dad’s story always in his ear.
Just the other night, after another basketball game— and I can’t remember if it was the one where Ari had missed the game winning three pointer, or made it (both happened in the space of a week)— we sat talking about Josh’s story again, and the uncanny way Ari’s narrative has so closely shadowed it. How they both moved back to the States for their senior year, having most of their high school experience a sort of desert of high school sports. And how the moral legacy is his for the taking too: That these moments, wonderful or disappointing as they may be, are not what he is living for. He can walk away saying “thankyou” either way. He can enjoy the good and endure the bad, without needing it to define or sustain him. He can see God’s hand in keeping him from a life curved in on himself.
And yet, yet… this wonderful story of Josh’s is no easy story to swallow in the American waters of Do Everything In Your Power And Beyond To Make Your Kid A Star. I’ll be honest, when I see even the tiniest bit of potential in one of my children, I want to fan it with all of my energy and help them realize this amazing talent that is obviously wanting to sprout into full bloom. I want to sign my daughter up for the volleyball travel team. I want to get my son in the best town soccer league. I want to encourage my kid to play in college.
And it’s true, when I watched the movie King Richard, about the dedication and support of Venus and Serena William’s father, it was hard not feel a twinge of— should we be more supportive? Are being negligent, or just bad parents to deny our kids or not fight harder for their opportunities? That feels like a crazy sentence, but it can get under your skin.
I heard someone say recently (I think it was Tim Keller, here) that you do not wait until the decisive moment to look for wisdom. You must cultivate becoming a wise person, who is then able to make decisions based on your already made or formed virtue and character.
I think this must be true for things like How To Do Sports With Your Kids In America. You must already have a story to guide you, a narrative that has shaped you, boundaries and values set in place so that the waters of your life flow in the way you should go. It’s not the only narrative guiding us, but it is one reason why I’m thankful for the gift of my husband’s story, given to him by his dad, now given to our kids, and in many ways given to me too.
Amen, and amen! I can echo some of your post...how we feel about sports, how my husband as a board member of the classical christian school our kids attended worked so hard to not let sports take over the life of the school, how all four of our girls played volleyball but it's been our youngest who loved it the most and showed the most potential which made me question our no travel teams ever policy.
But we have seen the horrible life taking effect on families whose lives revolve around sports as they sacrificed being in and part of the church we know that it was the right call.
Well said!