Hard ball
Demanding parents take fun out ofsports
SAM MCKEWON is a
senior news-editorial and
political science major
and the editor,\
Meet Chris.
Chris is a 12-year old boy who’s
already signed his life away to athlet
ic slavery this summer.
Chris could play tennis.
Or soccer.
Or hockey.
Or whatever sport he might play.
For Chris, though, it’s baseball.
Chris plays 90 games a summer.
He practices every day, for sure.
Somewhere along the line, some
one, probably some coach who does
n’t even have kids, earmarked Chris
for the meat market.
(He has the talent, does he have
the drive? You got the balls, Chris?
Got ‘em?) >
Chris wakes up. He runs. He eats.
He goes to practice.
(Harder, faster, stronger.)
His parents buy the shirts. Chris
has two bags, three uniforms, two
gloves, two pairs of shoes, barbecue
sunflower seeds, a bat for hitting, a
bat for practice, his own helmet with
a face guard. Chris eats fast food
every weekend, lives out of a suitcase
in some rundown hotel. He learns
how to lose, as no team can win 60
games, can they?
Along the way, Chris adopts the
philosophy of the coach, his team
mate^ Sports is not about love.
(Ybu don’t WANT it enough,
what the hell are you doing out
there? They’re babies, every one of
them. Apparently, you are too.)
His parents are there, living vic
ariously, for every game. They drag
along Chris’s brother, who spends
every weekend playing in the bleach
ers with all the other kids who’ve
been dragged along for the weekend
to play in the bleachers. He cries to
his mother. He wants to go. The play
ground. The park. The bumper cars.
Anywhere but here. Another time,
she says. Watch your brother.
Chris sits the bench this game.
He has nothing to do. His father
stands outside the dugout, leans on
the fence, with the other fathers. He
glares at his son and then at the
coach, one of five, four of which
have their crappy sons on the field,
and they’re not any damn good.
(I did not pay $3000 for my son
to sit his ass on the bench.)
Chris can hear his father cussing
out the coach. There’ll be trouble
later at the Denny’s. His mother
looks furious, too. She used to brings
books to the game. No more. She
doesn’t even talk to the other moth
ers much.
Chris can only watch, helpless, a
spectator to those who control his
future.
Chris does not read much. No
time for books. He did read the
newspaper one day. He saw a story
about a 14-year-old girl whose par
ents were going to sue the Women
Tennis Association because they
wouldn’t let her daughter play pro
fessional tennis yet. The WTA
backed down, the story said, and let
the girl play in one tournament. The
girl still isn’t very happy with that,
but she wasn’t going to sue. She was
ready.
Chris listens to music, but he
doesn’t play any instruments.
He doesn’t see movies. He really
wants to see that “Star Wars” movie
and one night he was going to, but
his coach called a meeting.
He doesn’t play baseball for fUn
in the sense that it doesn’t matter
who wins. It always matters, coach
says.
Chris does know how to detect a
pick-off move. He knows to get
BACK! He knows how to shift for a
pull hitter. He knows how to drag
bunt. He plays in the infield, so he
can turn two if he has to.
Chris has never been to his
hometown museums. Not to the zoo
in years. A lot of Chris’ friends don’t
play on the team. He has no idea
what they’re doing right now.
They didn’t have the talent.
Chris doesn’t have a favorite sub
ject in school.
He likes football, too.
After the game, Chris’s mother
approaches the coach first. She’s
pointing her finger at the coach. The
father walks over. When its parents -
vs. coach, the other boys scatter.
They go to their parents and every
one watches from behind the bleach
i ers.
Chris is still on the bench.
Like the boy in Conrad Aiken’s
short story, Chris wants to shrink
into his owusecret, silent world,
where the winds whirs loud enough
to drown out his mother, his father,
his coach. But he can’t go away. He
can’t even look away. It is his ftiture,
after all.
And Chris can’t quit, no matter
what. There’s too much money
involved, too much time. Besides, he
wants to be a pro ball player. He 1
can’t think of anything else he’d like
to be. Chris didn’t celebrate the
Fourth of July He was in at Atlanta
at a 32-team, firecracker tournament
with 500 other boys. As they drove
back to the hotel that night, Chris
saw a few roman candles out his
window.
He won’t celebrate Thanksgiving,
either. By then, he’ll be playing bas
ketball. No Christmas. No New
Year’s or St. Pat’s Day. He won’t be
there for his brother’s birthday.
(Chris is boy, interrupted.)
Chris is starting to see that sports
stops for no one. Not for the country.
Not for family. Not for God. And to
some people, sports are more impor
tant than all those other things com
bined. Chris, at 13, is starting to see
that nothing can stop sports, except
people.
And they don’t want to.
into a healthy
i ■ %
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Thursday, July 8,19991 Daily Nebraskan Summer Edition ■ Page 5