What Will Your New Sport Be?

I love watching the Olympics - Summer and Winter.

I love the feel good stories of triumph that we are able to witness.

I love the athletes who are the best in their country but won't really be good enough for a medal.

I love watching the athletes who have been in multiple Olympics and have given their heart and soul to their sport for so many years.

I love watching sports that I haven't ever experienced or don't get to see very often. (The luge...so scary to me!)

And most of all I love choosing what sport I will do next. Not really, but I dream. I wanted to be an Olympic athlete but just wasn't good enough. So every Olympics I choose a sport that I should pursue to become an Olympian. Now, I'm getting a little bit old for these dreams now, but I still do it.

Speed Skating. Oh how I would love to be able to skate that fast under control! I have been on skates practically since I could walk. But I live in Texas, so skating wasn't something that we did often. I can imagine myself being on that ice going as fast as I can pushing my body to the limit.

One year it was rowing. I even looked into where I could start rowing because I was

convinced that was a sport I could start late in life but still be successful.

We love showing our boys the Olympics too. When my oldest was 2.5 during the 2016 Summer Olympics, he wanted to "run and jump in the dirt" meaning the long jump. In fact, he still talks about it. We want them to see these stories too and dream big dreams. Likely, they will not end up Olympians, but witnessing the results of others' hard work is definitely worthwhile!

But what I really wanted to comment on is this article I read a few weeks ago about athletes from Norway.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-norways-radically-different-approach-to-sports-helped-it-climb-to-the/

It is definitely worth a few minutes of your time. Basically, the Norwegians changed their perspective on sports after a poor showing in the 1988 Winter Olympics. They changed their philosophy on sports and made sports about participation until the age of 13. Most families play sports together and don't specialize at least until they are teenagers. Many don't specialize until later. At the 2022 Olympics that just finished, Norway had 37 total medals and 16 golds. They won the most golds and had the highest total number of medals.

I. LOVE. THIS. I can't tell you how many volleyball players I have talked to in the last 10-15 years who either chose not to play in college because they were burned out or quit after their first year of college. Sports should be enjoyable for kids. I even had to remind my competitive varsity team sometimes that they should have fun. I wonder what sports would look like in the US if we adopted a model like Norway?

#coachforhisglory