Sports

So...any of you who know me, know that I am a sports nut. Truly, a fanatic. So, when Karl got the anniversary issue of the Sporting News recently with all of its fun facts and figures and list after list of superlatives, we had a blast at our house with Karl quizzing me and the kids watching and contributing where they could on all that trivia. I held my own! My brain is chock full of useless stuff.

But one of my kids asked me a question. He asked what was the greatest sports moment that I had ever witnessed. WHOA! That is a tough question. I told him that I would have to get back to him on that. I have been pondering it ever since. Earlier this week, at one of Kodren's basketball games, I realized the answer to that question. I had to leave the gym, it hit me hard, but I now know the greatest moment in sports that I have ever witnessed.

It did not happen in Coors Field or in an Olympic hockey rink or even on the Cleveland Browns football field (yes, I am speaking of The Drive). This moment occured at a church, half court gym, pick up basketball game after Boy Scouts one night. I was watching the older boys, who were done with their activity, play ball. There was one young man there that I really enjoyed watching (think a young Steve Nash). And he was really in rare form that night. However...he was about the teach me what it is really all about. After a time, the younger scouts began to trickle in and asked to join the game. One of these younger scouts was a brother to this kid that I loved to watch. That is when I saw the greatest moment in sports that I will ever experience. I watched this very talented young man totally step back and work that game to make his younger brother shine. It was stunning. The younger brother was good in his own right, by his big brother's own admission, the younger brother had better pure basketball instincts than his older sibling. But that big brother WORKED that game to make his little brother look like the star player on that court. I cannot even begin to describe the magic it held for me. It changed my life and the ensuing conversation that I had with the mother of those two young men changed the way I parent my own two boys.

Both of these boys and their mother are gone now. It has been nearly six years now and yet I ache for them every day. And every day, they affect decisions that I make, all because of a pick up basketball game...well...not just because of that...they were a large part of my life than that moment. But that moment truly did shift my paradigm and make me a better person and isn't that what sports should do, in their purest form.

Thanks for listening!