Crossed paths of kids and parents activities

We want our children to try whatever the activities they get to have interests for. When they involve in something that I as a parent have an experience in, that adds a totally different, joyful contrast, no matter if I was good at it or not.

It's the Super Bowl season. American Football is the type of sport I had the least interest in in an area where the close-by colleges, University of Georgia and Auburn in Alabama, is as good as winning the national title and many alumni, young or old, seem to be so proud of the local collegiate teams' achievement.

While that is unfortunate that I cannot involve in the neighborhood excitement, fortunately football is not the only sports here. Atlanta Braves won the World Series 2 years ago, so did Atlanta Hawks go to conference final last year(?). And children's sports activities are always joyful subjects to talk about regardless the win or lose (wins work better for sure though). And having my own experience in certain sports often helps to lubricate the conversations.

Recently I've chatted with some neighbor parents about Lacrosse. Apparently there's a good mid/high (or even elementary) school team in the city we live in.

Lacrosse is one of the few sports I played competitively -- I played the first 2 years in a college in Japan in 1990's. I didn't master it, in fact I was far from being varsity; the team was winning the national championship, multiple team members made it to the national team, and more than half of team mates played the sports in high school while I was fresh newbie to any field ball sports other than baseball. Practice was INTENSE, 7am to 11am, 5 days a week including in the hot and humid Summer, with helmet and shoulder, elbow protectors on. We practiced on rough soil ground without turf (which is so common in Japan. Playing on turf was/is a luxury there). Also I lived 2 hours away from the college campus with my sister (in the center of Shibuya...It is probably not an exaggeration to equate it to Manhattan in NY). Life tired me out and I eventually became sick, stayed in a hospital for pneumonia. I had to quit the sport (ended up pursuing singing).

Some neighbor even has a Lacrosse goal net in their backyard. AK and LM found it cozy. Also the one on right is a self-catch net for (man's?) Lacrosse. Back in my era I use a tall wall to self-catch in order to practice stick work. I wish I had stuff like this net, seems so convenient!

So it's a very unexpected but nice refresher of my 20+ years old memory to talk about lacrosse. Some parents asked me if I can fix their son's lacrosse stick, which I also asked my team mates to fix so I can't...But I found out I still remember the movement using the stick. As I quit the college team prematurely, I don't think I am experienced enough to coach local teams, but if any of our kids will be interested in playing it in the future, I might be happy to help the team as I can at least serve and pick up balls with the stick.

I have never been proud of my Lacrosse experience at all, hence I haven't talked about nor thought of it much for decades, but if our kids can utilize any of that, then I am happy to retrieve my old memory back...It's amazing how one can change when it comes to raising children.

I don't have any picture of me playing Lacrosse...no cellphone with camera in 1990's. Later my wife gave me her college's Lacrosse t-shirt. This picture where I wear a t-shirt with "Lacrosse" printed could be one of my only (remote) footage to Lacrosse. Also crazy that I got to know some college big names like Princeton, Duke, through Lacrosse, not through the academics.

 

Last year I started assistant coaching our then-6 boy's local baseball team, which I had to quit in the middle as some unexpected family stuff emerged I had to deal with. I also found I am way too in capable of coaching kids sports team when they are very little (the team consisted of age group 4 to 6. I was/am still learning English language to discipline pre-k age).

I've never thought of how sports and any activities I've enjoyed would help kids and also help communities in this way. Raising kids is filled with mostly exhaustion and some delight. Hope we'll keep finding more.