• Columnists

The journey, not the finale, is the memory-maker

• col-dave-mast
• November 8, 2023
• 379

I think the movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation” is a very appropriate description of what makes up the purpose high school athletics play in young people’s lives.

In the movie Clark Griswold takes his wife and two children on a cross-country adventure, driving from Chicago to California to visit the famed Wally World amusement park.

In the process they experience all kinds of strange and unfortunate events, many of them of Clark’s own making.

The family finally reaches its destination, only to find the park closed, so they force their way into the park to experience the many rides, but throughout the trek, all of these little moments they went through in getting to their final destination added up to what really made the vacation memorable.

Once the vacation was done, they had all of these little snapshots they could one day look back on and laugh at, remember fondly and cringe at, depending on what happened.

But the nice thing is they could do it together forever, as they basked in those memories.

That is what makes up the experience of a high school athletics team.

It’s usually not the grand finale of a season that makes the memories; it’s the many little snapshots of a season that kids tend to remember when it’s all said and done.

For instance, my senior year at Hiland our basketball team wasn’t great, finishing at .500 on the season. The games are muddled together like an ever-flowing stream where the water rushes on, making it difficult to remember many of them, but the other parts of the game are what still stand out for me.

In completing their final game of what was a record-setting campaign, the West Holmes Lady Knights fought all the way to the state semifinal, the first soccer team at West Holmes to accomplish that feat.

Following a 5-0 loss to an insanely awesome Cincinnati Summit Country Day squad, there was heartache, especially for a senior group that is big and talented. It was their final game, and unless your team wins a state title, the season always ends in defeat somewhere along the line.

So yes, there is a time to mourn the finality of something you’ve poured yourself into for many years.

It is the last time you’ll be on the pitch with one another as a team, and this group epitomized the word team. It was one of those groups that understood its individual roles well.

But much like the Griswolds, eventually the final pain from the final loss will give way to the joyful memories of their travel through the program. Once the sting of the loss wears off and the sudden finality of a playing career dissipates, eventually the girls will look back on everything they accomplished and bask in the glow of not only setting a school record, but also all of those little moments along the way that made it all worthwhile.

The friendships and the bonds that will last for many years, the funny things coach Schuyler Snyder did or said, or those humorous missteps that teammates made fun of, all in good humor of course, the kind of playful banter sisters develop will be remembered fondly.

There are so many reasons to rejoice in the journey rather than the end result.

If coaches drill their teams to believe that if they don’t win a title, they have fallen short and should be massively disappointed in their season, they are missing the point.

Without question winning is loads of fun. It beats the heck out of losing — that’s for sure.

However, coaches can’t make playing high school sports a job because frankly the kids aren’t getting paid. And who wants to work for nothing?

Instead, the rewards should be focused on the incredible qualities young people can gain from the sport: teamwork, unity, work ethic, finding joy in what they are doing rather than playing for a title.

If a title comes along for the ride, that’s a bonus.

As a baseball coach, I always told my kids the same thing. I had so much joy playing the game the right way that I wanted to relay that sense of joy to the kids. I always told them I wanted them to have fun, but part of having fun is winning, and part of winning is working hard to learn the fundamentals and playing the game the right way.

That takes a commitment to your craft, it takes desire to remain focused to details and it takes an understanding that sometimes you have to endure mundane tasks to get to the fun part.

If teams do that together, with the understanding everything you do is not just for yourself, but also for each of your teammates, there becomes this unique bond of respect and friendship that makes the journey through any season memorable, regardless of the ultimate final contest.

The Lady Knights did that, and much like the Griswolds, their reward will be a lifetime of memories they can store away to share with their friends, children and grandchildren in the future.