I couple months ago I reached out to some friends and asked if they were interested in any certain topics for my MS blog. I got some good responses back and will some day get to all of them but one that stuck out to me was, "How, if at all, has playing sports helped you take on MS?" I thought it was a great question because sports have taught me a lot over the years and has played a significant role in my MS journey.
One of the first things I thought of when I was asked this question had nothing to do with what sports taught me about life, but rather what sports taught me about myself. If you know me, and maybe even if you don't, you know that I am an incredibly strong willed and stubborn kid. Hard headed may even be the phrase people use to describe me. It has always been something that tends to get a bad rap, and most of the time it rightfully should. But I learned that being hard headed could be valuable in my life thanks to sports. I figured I would share just a couple examples of my hardheadedness in sports and then tie that into my journey with MS.
This is just a fun story to tell so hopefully you guys get a kick out of it and fully understand what my parents had to deal with when I was growing up. My dad decided to be our AAU basketball coach when we were in middle school which is never good because he is just as hardheaded as I am! Like father like son. One tournament things weren't going well for me and my dad decided to take me out of the game. I was not happy about that and probably started mouthing off to him. He proceeded to tell me that I was done for the game and would no longer be playing. Devestating! Most people would pout and sit at the end of the bench, maybe even cry as a little middle schooler. I am not most people. I obliged and was okay with not playing because I didn't want to play for my dad at that time. He made me mad. But I took it further than just sitting at the end of the bench being upset. That wasn't showing him and I wanted to be done my own way. So I went to the end of the bench, took of my basketball shoes, put on my slip ons, and calmly joined my mother in the stands for the rest of the game! :)
Now that you have a good idea about me I want to talk about another story that happened my junior year of high school basketball. I played for a coach who was also very hardheaded and that caused us to clash a lot my junior year. I don't remember who we were playing but I remember taking a 3pt shot and missing it. I was then promptly pulled out of the game and as I was walking back to the bench I see the coach push the assistant coach down one seat so that there was an empty one right next to him. That is never good! He sits me down and tells me that I am a bad 3pt shooter and I need to quit shooting the ball. In the middle of a game. Most people are going to accept the harsh reality and stop shooting the ball. Especially if it means more playing time. I am not most people. I thought to myself, "I am a good shooter and I will prove it to you." I may have taken a few less 3pt shots over the remainder of the schedule but I didn't stop shooting. After the season I met with the assistant coach and he straight up asked me about that situation. He said, you became a much better shooter after coach told you to stop shooting. Why do you think that is? I responded with a simple, "Because he told me not to shoot." I was told I couldn't shoot, I was told I shouldn't shoot, so I decided to prove him wrong. I continued to shoot the rest of the season and shot it at a much better clip. My stubbornness told me to push ahead. I then think about some of the messages that I or my wife have received since I have been diagnosed. When people tell you, "You wouldn't believe what so and so said to me." you don't believe it. But let me tell you, people just let it fly! My wife unfortunately has received the most unbelievable comments which is really unfortunate. She has been told to expect me to be in a wheel chair in a couple years and has even been told to start planning life without me. Seriously! Most people would be hurt by those comments. I am not most people. I am a stubborn hardheaded kid that wants nothing more than to prove people wrong. I hear, "He will be in a wheel chair in a couple years", and I think "I will do everything in my power to prove to you that I won't EVER be in a wheel chair." You think this thing is going to happen? Let me show you that I won't let it happen. I will completely change your perception of someone with MS! Watch me!
That stubbornness and drive helps me continue to wake up early in the morning and workout. And it helps me deal with these annoying splints that are in my nose from nose surgery. Most of the time being stubborn gets a bad rap but it is what fuels me currently!
I also learned things about life from sports. Through all the self help I got from sports it also taught me some important lessons about life. The biggest lesson being the lesson of getting back up after you get knocked down. I think sports is one of the best ways to teach someone how to respond to difficult situations. There will be times when things don't go your way in sports and you have to respond. You can either respond in a really positive way or you can respond in a negative way. Sports allows you to respond in a relatively low pressure, safe environment. It allows you to respond in a negative way, learn from your mistakes and respond better the next time.
I think back to my basketball playing days on the basketball hoop behind my house. I would play my sister 1on1 a lot back there. She reminds me of a time where she was beating my and I didn't like that. If I remember correctly she says that a bat came out and I swung it at her head? I don't remember but if that is truly the case then that is a situation where I didn't respond very well to getting knocked down. But luckily the bat swung harmlessly by and I learned from my mistakes. I love you Jenny!
I went and played soccer at Northwestern College and we were bad my freshman year. We were really bad. We started 6 freshmen, a couple sophomores, and had zero juniors on the team. We were very inexperienced and it lead to a 5-10-2 record. I was a starting defender on that team and we gave up a lot of goals at the end of the game or overtime. It was not very fun. We got knocked down quite a bit that year and were pretty deflated by the end of the season. Another opportunity to respond either in a positive way or a negative way. I had a lot of experience failing and getting knocked down earlier in life so I was ready to get back up and respond positively! Luckily I had a bunch of teammates who also wanted to respond in a positive way. We could have been deflated for the rest of our career. We could have had a bad attitude and not be real interested going forward but that wasn't the case. We all responded with an attitude of, "we aren't going to let a season like that happen again." We hated losing and didn't want to endure that again. We worked our tails off in the off season and during the season and responded with a 12 win season. We went from 5 wins my freshman year to 12 wins my sophomore year. It is still one of the most fun seasons of my sports career because we weren't supposed to be that good. No one picked us to do that well but we picked ourselves up and more than doubled our win total from the year before! We responded in the right way!
That brings me to April 6, 2018. I got punched in the mouth. I got knocked down hard. I was just diagnosed with MS. But thanks to my stubbornness and all the times I got knocked down in a safe environment during my sports days, I learned how to get back up. I learned how to take a punch and fight back. This wasn't the situation or the way I wanted to get knocked down but that's life. I have been able to look back at all the times in my life where I got knocked down. The time I was getting beat by my sister in the back yard. The time my varsity head coach told me to stop shooting. The time my team lost double the amount of games we won. I was able to see how I slowly learned how to get back up and leverage that knowledge on April 6. I was good and getting back up and responding in a positive way, all thanks to sports.
Life is going to punch you in the mouth. There is sickness, death, relationship problems, financial problems, and a million other things. It is inevitable, unfortunately. Life isn't defined by the things that knock you down. Life is defined by whether or not you get back up afterwards. Put another way, "It isn't about how many times you get knocked down. It is about how many times you get back up." How many times will you get back up? You better believe I am getting back up every time I get knocked down!
John 16:33 Take heart!