“Showing” and “Knowing” One’s Age

As I have grown older, year by year, I find that certain chronological “landmarks” sometimes startle me into realizing just how many years I have been around. Watching television is perhaps the best source of such startlement. The names and dates of important events and people who made up “The March of Time,” as the Newsreels of my day put it, perhaps provide the best examples of this sort of thing.

      For example, the other night, Mari and I were watching a documentary about President FDR’s career, and they played a brief clip of him speaking on the radio in the 1930s. Suddenly, I realized I had heard those speeches, indeed, that very voice, when I was a child 80 years ago. My grandfather was deeply involved in Democratic Party politics at the time, so we naturally listened to FDR whenever he was on the radio. Remember, there was no TV. 

         Similarly, film footage today of Hitler and his Nazi Stormtroopers berating and herding Jewish people brings back memories of World War II, which I experienced firsthand as a kid. Also, sporting events from before our time look quite different from how they were when millions of other viewers, including me, had a chance to see them. Back then, they were all “out of reach” without TV news coverage. I used to watch the Newsreels carefully to see my favorite players “in person” before I had a chance to read about their exploits. When I see such “reruns,” I realize how “old” I have become.

Having lived through the Great Depression and World War Two gives one’s view of those realities a more “first-hand” quality, perhaps more vivid, if not more real, than mere “accounts” of them in history books. I had the privilege of marching with political leaders after Martin Luther King’s assassination, and it made all the difference in how I feel and think about those days. This is not just the difference between having “been there” and not, but also the difference in the “distance” one feels long after the events themselves. That difference renders one conscious of the flow of time and how it, along with reality, literally “leaves you behind.” 

There is absolutely nothing “new” or especially “deep” about what I am trying to get at here. Time and life move on, and that’s the simple truth. The difficulty for those of us being “passed by” is that our lives get ‘thinner” and harder to track and hold on to. For a long while, our lives were busy and rich with meaning, and now they are getting “slimer” and slower, and we feel increasingly “left out” and bored. Having family and friends helps a lot, as do hobbies and television, but obviously these only work in the short term. What I want is my “life” back, and that’s not going to happen. So “grow up” and get busy with others and things. Maybe something weird and neat awaits us after we “finish up” here. Or at least something …. 

 A Major Puzzle in My Life

This puzzle has bothered me on and off for several years, so now I want to focus on it. When I was about 11 years old, I was looking at comic books in the drugstore, and my eye caught a colorful one titled “Dick Cole,” featuring a close-up drawing of a football player in a bright green jersey, helmetless, running with a football under his arm. For some reason, I was entirely taken with this cover and bought the comic book then and there. It was completely new to me and turned out to be a pivotal item and moment in my young life and far beyond. It’s a long story, but I think it’s a fascinating one, at least it has been for me. 

Next came the task of devising ways for these players to advance down the field toward their respective goals. At first, I simply propelled them by snapping them with my finger across the carpet. Soon, however, I realized that rolling dice was a far more effective way to move the game along. I followed the regular rules of football and worked out plays and scores as I went along. Soon, I had set up a group of regular games between my teams and established a regular schedule. Eventually, this paper-doll game was transformed into a much larger enterprise involving my friends and a regular schedule with championships, etc. A really big deal, indeed!

However, what interests me in this context is how and why this “Dick Cole” thing soon changed my entire life. You see, up to that day, I had absolutely no experience or interest in any sports whatsoever. Not only did I not have any relatives or friends who knew or cared anything about sports, but I myself had never thrown or caught a ball of any kind, nor had I ever attended a ball game. My Grandfather listened to the Notre Dame vs. Army football game on the radio every year (because he was Irish, I guess), but other than that I knew nothing about sports of any kind. I had no relatives or friends who tossed a ball around with me, and there was no television.

So, the mystery is how and why I soon became an absolute sports addict by the time I arrived in Junior High. From that point on, I played every major sport until “the cows came home,” every day, every season, and every year long. I drove my Mom almost to distraction with my incessant attendance at nearly every sports game that came to town. I had become a complete sports “junkie” and carried the disease through college, playing basketball and track and field all the way through college and long after, as well as doing some coaching along the way. All my life, I have been an avid fan of nearly every major sports season and teams. I shot baskets in my backyard regularly until I was 80 years old. 

Well, that is how my “disease” came about. The question is, why? What could have triggered such a “disease” at my early age, when I had had absolutely no exposure or examples? Why did that comic book cover of Dick Cole completely capture my attention and enthusiasm? Sports were not, and are not, simply a serious hobby or addiction. They and I have become inseparable, and it all started out of the blue when I spotted that comic book cover in the drug store. I do think that this “disease” has kept me out of a great deal of trouble, especially the main source of my troubles during my teenage years, because I never developed the sorts of troubles many other kids do. Of course, I am extremely grateful for and proud of the path that sports have led me down. But I am still puzzled.

After some further reflection, I have focused on a couple of ideas that may shed light on this dilemma. First, aside from my mother, there was essentially no major person in my young life. Unfortunately, due to the difficult situation we were in during the Depression and World War II, Mom and I had little time to spend together when I was a youngster. During my high school years, this situation improved a good deal, but by then I was already a sports “addict.” So I grew up almost completely without a close, dominant male figure to help shape my life. Thus, in a sense, it was natural for me to gravitate toward other male adults, and athletes were the most obvious and available. The college that surrounded my grade school and junior high years was dominated by World War II veterans who were also athletes, and they became my primary role models. 

A few years later, after I became a young Christian, church and college leaders dominated my life, as did the image and teaching of Jesus Christ. Indeed, my college coaches and teachers became my primary role models for my adult life. Throughout these years, I continued to admire and emulate my professors and coaches and to desire to be like them. Their example led me toward a career as a coach and professor. As I grew into my vocation as a college professor, I became increasingly aware of the influence that other teachers and I had on the younger generation. In a sense, I may have grown into what I had always lacked at the center of my life. Over the many years of teaching literally thousands of students, I became a role model for many of them. A good many of them went on to assume roles that exemplified this type of leadership. 

So, in some ways, I have come to a richer understanding of my growth through sports and through working with ideas, by tracing my emergence as an athlete and teacher. Sports filled the vacuum at the center of my confused, relatively centerless life. This commitment to, almost an intoxication with, sports gave me a center that my childhood life could not, and it enabled me to grow into a largely centered person who could be of use to others. I am ever so grateful that it has been my destiny and a source of great satisfaction.