Sporting memories: having a bit of a sport "legacy" family

I often talk about how sports were heavily encouraged in my family and my parents were absolutely instrumental in getting all 4 of their kids involved in as many sports as possible. My parents were and are legends for encouraging this but I think back in the 80's parents were kind of playing the "game" on easy mode because they didn't have social media, video games, and other things that we have today that were competing for their children's attention.

For us, we wanted to go play sports and were encouraged to do them as often as possible. While we might get told no about going to just wander around and muck about with our friends, if we ever wanted to go the the YMCA for basketball or to the park for pick up soccer games, the answer would always be yes. Easy choice for a kid that doesn't want to be stuck at home I'd say.

But there was another factor in our lives and that was that my own father was someone who lived in a small farming community that didn't see a lot of action and the only way to get some amusement in your life was to participate in team sports. For him American football was all the rage and he would regale us with stories of glory when he was a teenager and how one day on the field he played against a team that had a boy on it that was just leaps and bounds above anyone else he ever witnessed.

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That boy's name was John Riggins and he was then, went on to be, and still is one of the greatest running backs the game has ever seen. My Dad talked about how this guy would just run right through everyone and one of his greatest memories in playing high school football was that he twice tackled John Riggins in a one-on-one situation. Of course it didn't mean nearly as much to my father at the time as it did 10 years later when Riggins won MVP of the entire NFL.

My father's involvement in sports was pretty amazing considering that he was on a working farm and he and his two brothers were expected to wake up before dawn every day, put in hours of hard manual labor, then get changed and go to school all day, then return home after school and do several more back-breaking hours of manual labor. Their weekend rewards mostly consisted of doing the same thing but without the break for school in the middle. One of the only things my Dad and his brothers could do that would relieve them of farm duty, was to be on the football team so obviously they all did that. My father was the standout though, and he ended up being one of the most celebrated players of his high school. Of course this was completely overshadowed by having the misfortune of being in the same high-school "league" as John Riggins at the same time, but still, he was really good and he wanted his kids to do the same.

In my family, I have an older sister and she took to sports like a fish to water. Most notably she was exceptionally good at basketball and well, since she is 5'3", she needed to be. She worked tirelessly at becoming the best at speed, shooting and dribbling and while she was in high school her team came 3rd in one state championship, 2nd in another, and then in her final year they won the state championship and were rated by USA Today as being the 7th best high school basketball team in the country. She was recruited by basically all sport colleges and she had her pick about where she was going to go for free. She would later play professional basketball in 4 countries and lastly in the WNBA, but unfortunately for her this was well before we had eyes on the sport like we do now and her short career in that league is barely a footnote in wikipedia.

This 2nd step of the legacy put a bit of pressure on me and my two younger siblings. While we didn't have the drive that my sis did in basketball. We went the "easier path" of choosing sports that we are naturally physically built for and for most of us that was football of the soccer variety.

I practiced like crazy and looking back at the level of support I had from my father in particular, who worked full-time, was always doing DIY at home, and played golf on a regular basis, I can't really imagine how the man ever found the time to put in the level of support that he did towards all of us.

He built a goal in our backyard and purchased about a dozen soccer balls for us to practice set pieces with. He carefully maintained perfect turf that would have made the official fields hold their heads in shame. We had a powder machine for the line markings and he meticulously made certain they were exactly the right size. The excessive amount of soccer balls were so that we could practice the kicks over and over without needing to chase the ball after each kick. For me anyway, he would sometimes come out there and retrieve the balls for me while I continued to practice. Keeping in mind that my father had zero history in football of the soccer variety and wasn't even 100% on the rules, this was absolutely amazing to me. Obviously he would have preferred if I had played American football but he never pushed me towards anything. "Show them what options they have and let the naturally gravitate towards the one that interests them the most" he would say later to me in life and if I had any children I would definitely use the same logic because it really did work.

I ended up being very good at soccer and got a bunch of scholarship offers as well although I will admit it was far fewer than my older sister got and I was never in a nationwide newspaper as being one of the best in the country. I did manage to make an all-state team twice and was in regional newspapers on a regular basis. All of those articles are locked away in my Mom and Dad's attic to this day. When we were recently out of the house and in college at the same time, both me and my sister had a shrine of sorts in the basement that was dedicated to all our awards. I am not at all ashamed to admit my sister's shrine was much larger than mine was.

This excellence of the legacy kind of tapered off from that point forward though and I don't know why that is. Maybe the times were changing and I do know for a fact that electronics were slowly taking more of a forefront in people's lives although by the time both my younger siblings went off to college social media didn't really exist. Maybe a bit of Myspace, I don't remember. My younger brother got a partial scholarship offer from a school he didn't attend and my younger sister didn't get any. The family had kind of moved on at that point because although both my younger siblings were really good, they didn't rise all the way to the top and while I can't say for sure, I think that they were kind of intimidated by the fact that older brother and sister had already been to the top of the mountain and maybe they should pursue another path.

At no point in time were they ever pressured to be the "best" like their older siblings were. My parents were always supportive, no matter what we wanted to do as long as it wasn't something stupid or illegal.

I look at some of the real legacy families and wonder how it is that this worked out for them. Did they have a nice upbringing or was it rather brutal? I have to imagine that the Mannings for example, were probably forced to play American football but did they really want to?

I know what it is like to live in another person's shadow and feel as though that could have been a factor for my younger siblings: A great deal was expected of me on the basketball team because of my older sister. When I wasn't automatically one of the best out there (I was pretty good, but at 6 foot, you have to be REALLY good) people kind of started to turn on me. I think this was rather instrumental in me departing from basketball and focusing on soccer. Perhaps the presence of two shadows lingering over my younger brother and sister encouraged them to bow out early as well. We never really talked about it because every one of us kids are reasonably successful. I am likely the least successful of the bunch of us and I did pretty damn well.

I will forever be grateful for having great parents. They pushed us just enough to encourage greatness but never poured on the pressure too hard to make the sport something we didn't already love to do. I don't know many young people these days. I wonder what it is like for them now?