Sports Stuff

By Gary Arrington

By GARY ARRINGTON
        My life has been more or less based around sports.  It wasn’t always that way.  I was raised in a non-sports family.  Folks back then I guess did not have time for sports, they were too busy working, existing and getting by.  I have three older siblings and not a single one played junior high or high school sports and if my father had had his way neither would I.  I wasn’t smart enough at the time to know why he didn’t want me to but much later in life I figured it out, he just didn’t understand and didn’t have the time.  I made him get out of his comfort zone.
When I got old enough to play little league sports my Dad said no and that could have been that but my siblings went to bat for me, said it wouldn’t hurt and that I would have fun.  They did the trick by pulling for me and I got the reward.
I was never great at baseball, it had something to do with a curve ball and in basketball I could have been good if I would have only been about eight inches taller, I had the skills more of a power forward rather than a shooting guard.  But football, that was my sport.  I was good but even then I didn’t realize it at the time.  Football made me.  I went to college to play football, I left Idaho for Utah and I have never been back, to live that is.  Sports changed my life.
In college I had roommates that were good at ping pong, I was not.  But somewhere after the second month or so I figured it out and even today my kids want to beat me.  I got better at basketball for my height, I figured out softball, I golf decently and can play tennis.  Learned to ski but snowboarding never tempted me.
My kids played sports, they were competitive, many married athletes, they had kids.  They all played sports.  They all learned that in order to succeed they had to work hard, they had to obey their coach, they had to be a member of a team.  The grandkids are probably better than their parents and they are definitely better than me, each generation got better.  Maybe parents are good for something.
Today I still coach football at Emery High, although this past season I probably wondered if the game had passed me by as I battled an injury but now I feel as good as ever (that is a lie).  I umpire high school softball, I try to stay active but as far as playing goes, golf is it although I did play a little tennis last vacation and I was tired when the first game was over, I won though.
Sports was good for me, I learned a lot of life’s lessons because of it, I became a better person and I shared those lessons with my kids, with my grandkids and with others and in fact I still do.  We need sports, it makes us better people.  Let’s play!