This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Sports

Perserverence A Lesson Worth Learning From Youth Sports

This week the joy came by email from Windsor Locks, where the girls tennis team won a match, which doesn't seem remarkable until you read the post-script. The Raiders were 0-18 in 2010.

When it comes to sports, we are all losers.

Even those who have borrowed against this misfortune as much as possible, selecting the Yankees and Celtics as their favorite teams, are far more sent to the off-season on the end of stinging loss rather than a champagne-soaked celebration.

Sports seem designed to teach us about losing.

Find out what's happening in Windsorwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

And yet, somehow the games can be sustaining. Not just when a team makes an unexpected run to a championship the way the University of Connecticut did earlier this spring, surprising all of the suits at CBS and ESPN, who had them losing to San Diego State and then Arizona and then Kentucky. Those magical runs are the things we keep with us when a season tilts the other way – from promising to disaster - but there are other ways for a team to surprise us and make us unreasonably happy.

This week the joy came by email from Windsor Locks, where the girls tennis team won a match, which doesn't seem remarkable until you read the post-script.

Find out what's happening in Windsorwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“While first-year Windsor Locks coach Jon LeBlanc acknowledges former coach Brian Dube and volunteer coach Jim Nussbaum for helping to develop the team’s players, he mostly credits the commitment and dedication of the team’s players for the team’s first win since 2009,” it said.

Yes, 2009. The Raiders went 0-18 in 2010.

And yet, when LeBlanc sent in his information before the beginning of the season he was happy to count “numbers” among the program's strengths.

Somehow the kids in Windsor Locks are getting it right. Most likely, it's because parents and coaches have gotten it right, too.

For some time there has been a movement in youth sports to protect kids from the final score. Some youth leagues don't even keep score, which only serves to remind everyone playing of how important the score must be, that is to say, it's so important our children must be protected from acknowledging its existence.

Whatever happened to the idea of playing the game to win but understanding that it's just a game? You do your best. You win or you lose. You go home and do your homework.

Apparently, the concept moved to Windsor Locks where it has taken up residence.

The noise and fury of our modern world too often makes the idea of playing the game just to play it, or simply to get better, seem hopelessly naïve, but these should be the reasons we encourage our kids to play.

The pity is that such encouragement may not be enough in the future.

Windsor Locks is one of many towns investigating pay-for-play policies that will charge students for the privilege of sacrificing their time to represent their school and their town. Forget for a moment, the perverse nature of this concept, which seeks to punish students seeking to become more involved in their community, and focus instead on the potential ramifications. The top programs probably won't be impacted but it's difficult to imagine parents forking over $150 (a middle of the road figure in the pay-for-play world) so their kid can join an 0-18 team.

There are obvious benefits to high school sports. There is a demonstrated link between academic achievement and participation in athletics. There is a demonstrated link between obesity and sitting on the couch which, unlike school sports, remains an activity one can undertake free of charge.

This doesn't even include the more difficult to measure benefits. The camaraderie established among teammates. The way sports can help a student find a comfortable place in an uncomfortable world.

The desire to freeze taxes is understandable but passing the bill on to someone else's kids is loathsome. Americans have lived through the Great Depression and recessions and gas lines and somehow high school sports have always been free to play. The only thing different about the current economics crisis is the people who are facing it, that is to say, us. We are different.

We seem to be willing to take a little miracle like this win for Windsor Locks, which teaches all the right lessons to our kids, and stick a price tag on it.

If we do that, one thing will be true. We won't need sports to teach our kids about losing anymore.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?