“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. . . who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”(Theodore Roosevelt)
God knows Dave didn’t marry me for my sports acumen.
In a church college which had the audacity to interweave basketball grades with academic performance, I claimed a magna cum laude only by memorizing rules. When you can’t heave a softball 60 feet between bases, your memory of whether runners can stray beyond the base line had better be perfect.
Or else you should be able to improve outlandishly in the space of a semester. Like my bowling score that skyrocketed from 10 to 92.
Given his attachment to sports, my 1982 courtship with Dave might have ended quickly had he not given me a new television on my October birthday. The 12 inch black and white model I’d purchased a decade earlier rendered World Series players fat, thin, and then AWOL as the picture rolled them into oblivion. Dave was having none of it.
Dave purely loved watching sports. He’d played most of them, even doing a stint with a minor league pro football team for college money. His dad had coached—officially and unofficially. The Walters held coveted and pricey Green Bay Packer tickets. The family joke/cautionary tale was this: It was New Years, also Dave’s birthday, and the family had gathered to watch football. Dave’s younger brother, Peter, brought a new girlfriend over. Who interrupted half-time festivities by asking “Who’s in blue?” She did not make a second appearance.
Dave loved sports so much that we upgraded often–buying the latest and largest TV that we could. And as soon as we could afford it, ordered Direct TV sports packages. Spending leisure time with Dave in our Choteau Street home meant gathering in the basement rumpus room and watching whatever was in season. We’d be in our respective recliners, tucked up in old comforters. Sometimes squeezing work into commercial breaks. But often, just watching. I went to some pains to know who was in blue.
As Amanda came to live with us and launch her basketball career, we attended every home game and an astonishing number of road matches—middle school through college. Dave turned our backyard patio into a free throw circle—using traffic yellow—so toxic that he had to paint in stages.
Summer evenings found us at the Brewers rookie league baseball games in Kendrick Legion Field. Dave bought a program and scored each game. In March, if Carroll College hosted Class C basketball regionals—the small high schools scattered across western Montana–we took vacation to attend. Then there were Carroll’s own games and Amanda’s shot put competitions. I got proficient at assembling food for her track friends: yard-long sub sandwiches divvied up; Gatorade; cookies and peanut butter crackers. In other words, sports were almost as central to our lives as history and the Land.
My understanding of rules and patterns and fouls and plays varied sport to sport. I was pretty hopeless with hockey and football, though I much admired the skilled fearlessness of warriors on ice. Women’s basketball was enough more deliberate than men’s so I could follow it unfolding. Soccer hadn’t caught on here yet. Track didn’t count. I never tired of baseball.
My son-in-law now coaches small town Montana girls’ basketball. And were Dave living, he’d be beside himself at the availability of a high school online sports network. Most Montana schools participate. I’m that excited, too, in these wintry Covid times. And I’m tickled to realize that the lessons learned during basement basketball with Dave remain. Twice a week, these dark January days, I’m sitting here at my desk shouting, “She traveled!” or “NO, Simms touched it last!” or “For the love of god, you can make that bunny.”
But now as always, I never tire of considering what it takes for a 17-year-old ranch girl or 18-year- old rookie from Guatemala, or for that matter, a seasoned relief pitcher to stand there alone. With the eyes of the world or the eyes of their parents and friends on them. When the outcome of a game depends on the pitch, the swing, the basket, the punt they need to make at that moment.
The rest of us face important moments, decisions that will have consequences, tests of our judgment or skill. But most of those occasions don’t occur in an unforgiving public eye. Or in an instant that can never be recalled. In our world of words, most actions can be walked back, at least a bit—with a correcting phone call, an apology. We have time to think, to plan, to hedge our bets, to film a retake, to scrap one draft for another. Even musicians and actors can repeat a performance the next night.
Team sports allow players to lose themselves in group action, to be part of a moving screen or full court pressure or a strong-side run, a draw. Players become elements of a larger whole. They can anticipate and execute the next steps in concert with their team mates. But I watch for the moments when players stand alone—where the outcome of so much rests on them. When they either make a basket or don’t. When they throw the perfect unhittable ball masquerading as a strike. When they field the crazy blooper that’s found open turf and could have gone on bobbling forever.
The world does not turn on the outcome of a game or a race. Even though we sometimes act as if it does. But those singular moments of visible personal responsibility, of skill and focus required as the gym quiets, as a pitcher stares down the catcher–never lose their power for me. I hold my breath for those players. I imagine the magnitude of the responsibility they must be feeling, the wicked blend of fear and anticipation, the mental gymnastics at work, the slip of consciousness into motion. I am in awe.
Roosevelt’s “man in the arena” speech has been beaten to death, often for causes that make me uneasy. And yet, hearing it brings me up short. I’ve never been in the arena. Or on the free throw line or in the batter’s box. I have lived a life that did not create those do-or-die instances of terror and exhilaration. My come-to-Jesus moments have had parachutes. And I’m sedentary. Am I overthinking the all-or-nothing moments of sport? Does it all happen in a blur? I should ask. But in a universe where human behavior and skill still amaze and enliven me, I relish these freeze-framed moments of courage. ©
