OutTakes
by Edd Merritt

Conversations with Myself

Sports controversy is a hot topic for slow news days. And this spring has been no exception.
On the local front, UVM’s administration decided not to field intercollegiate baseball and softball teams, much to the chagrin of players, coaches, and parents.
Nationally, March Madness returned with its usual wealth of stupid comments.
Sports is what we wish the world looked like, but doesn’t. On the real stage, unlike at the Krispie Kreme Center, there aren’t winners and losers. Terrorists don’t wear home uniforms. They do, however, trade themselves from team to team, depending on the compensation. And they do point to the heavens when their IED lands on the police station.
I try to judge sports using only my own subjectivity. Yes, I want to see UVM hockey make it through the Frozen Four. Yes, I enjoyed immensely watching CVU’s hockey team nail Essex in the state title game. In my sons’ days, families actually moved to Essex so their kids could play on a Division I high school team without paying tuition. Conceivably, CVU could have become a one-sport school in those days – Soccer Central, Peter Coffey, deity in charge.
But we, kids and parents alike, clung tough to the cliff. We invoked Hinesburg exchange student scout, Jan Bedard, to recruit only those who could skate backwards and stick handle simultaneously. She did so, and the school lived out the athletic depression with help from the Fins.
No, I couldn’t care less what happens to Kansas. Let the tornado drop Dorothy and her basketball team where it will. And take most of the other final 16 teams with them. Oh, and you can easily throw the Tennessee women into the maelstrom. A TV clip showing the Vol’s coach, Pat Summitt, replete with scowl, running a regular practice – I assume regular includes chewing out one of her players – the day after the team was eliminated from the national tournament. Were I her player, I hate to think of the language I would have used to say, “No thank you, my season’s over; we made it to the national tournament, gave it our best but lost; and, by the way, get a life, Pat.”
I recall a conversation I had with a close friend whose sons devoted much time and energy to organized athletics, K through grade 12. The father did, also, like many parents during this period of their children’s lives. And, frankly, if it’s not sports, it’s probably a similarly taxing activity such as music, drama, drag racing, mudbogging or spelling. So don’t blame everything on Little League.
But this friend of mine coached his sons spring, summer and winter. The guys were good enough to require travel, and he hated Route 11 between here and Canton, New York, in mid January. Icy jackets and noses from riding the ferry to Plattsburgh in February was not his cup of tea either, nor was traveling all the way to Rhode Island for a Thanksgiving hockey tournament that opened against Essex Junction.
A road trip to nowhere.
He was pleased that both sons played at the same level so that he would not have to split his allegiances between rinks and double the family’s gas bill.
He also breathed a sigh of relief when they reached the point when the school provided both coaching and transportation.
I asked him once how it felt when this period of parenthood stopped abruptly. And I was thinking of his answer as I watched the UVM baseball and softball parents deal with the fact that they were losing a chunk of themselves, a piece they assumed would remain tied to their kids in perpetuity. After all, what are kids for if not to provide parents with fodder for pride? Oh, yeah, and all the accoutrements, such as team mugs and glasses and special emblems that you can’t buy on Church Street.
True to form, the people complaining loudest about losing sports at the university were parents. I’m not sure that the one who called a press briefing for a frigid February day in a dugout at Centennial Field fully appreciated the picture he painted with six inches of snow coating the infield behind him. He didn’t convince me to hold on to a Division I program that played outdoors in March. Vermont springs don’t mesh with baseball, certainly not like those of the south whose schools traditionally host 20 games by Valentine’s Day.
The belief that sports can serve as both a diversion from society’s foibles and as a metaphor for life is lunacy. The first purpose I accept. The second is wishful thinking, and our enemies understand it better than we. The next thing you know, they’ll be planting IEDs under second base at Citi Field.
My friend’s kids both tested sports at the intercollegiate level. They attended colleges in the northeast. Dad looked forward to his continued participation in their activities. He acknowledged that he may have been trying to make up for his own disavowal of intercollegiate sporting activity. Push the kids toward what you didn’t do – not uncommon among parents, right?
Both kids balked at the notion of sticking with their sport. They had the skills but not the desire. Their reasoning was similar: “I’m in college now, and I want to expand, not limit, my horizons. The coaches want us to commit to sports year-around. That’s fine for them, not for me.”
Dad was hurt at first. There went his dreams of vicarious glory.
But, surprisingly, he found himself recovering – rather rapidly. Interest in arts and music, travel to learn foreign cultures and outdoor leadership took the place of daily practice. And sports didn’t disappear for the kids. They played for the fun of it in clubs. They skated on outdoor rinks and threw Frisbees on football fields. They even wore uniforms of sorts. Although, the ultimate Frisbee short looked more like a diaper.
They talked about their choices openly, and low and behold, Dad began to understand, moreover to accept, their points of view. In other words, he was teachable – not too old and set in bronze to learn. Hallelujiah!
Well, I spoke to him again recently. He’s a grandfather now with a set of twins who went skating for the first time the other day. It sent quivers up Gramps’ spine and pumped his 66-year-old blood. He wanted to drop the puck immediately.
Just reminds us, it’s the recent memory that goes first, isn’t it, Gramps?

sometimes you’re the Louisville Slugger
sometimes you’re the ball
sometimes it all comes together baby
sometimes you’re going to lose it all
Dire Straits