Messing around before training the other day, I rattled off a movie line from "Major League". When some of the younger athletes had no idea what I was joking about, I asked them if they had ever seen the movie. To my dismay they had not. I proceeded to ask them about several sport movies, to which they had seen only one, "Money Ball" because it was a new release.
We started laughing about it and I later decided to post about this. All kidding aside, sport has been a major part of my life, often giving me an outlet and most certainly keeping me out of trouble. It has afforded me the opportunity to get a college education and travel. Some of the most important lessons I have learned I did so from having participated in sports. Teamwork, hard work, perseverance, sticking to a long term goal by staying committed to short term tasks (practice and training).
My entire career has evolved around sports, whether coaching, training, teaching or managing. Sports makes us look past cultural, religious, socio-economic and sexual preference differences and work together toward a common goal with people we may otherwise have never interacted with. This is particularly so at the college level, where you come into a team and essentially inherit one another, for 4 years. It's truly a melting pot and it's a beautiful display of how we are all truly connected, all a part of one team and just one race; the human race.
Looking back over my career, I realized I have coached kids from a mixture of races; African-American, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian. I've coached Mormons, Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Atheists, Baptists and Jewish. I've coached gays, straights and bi's. I've coached kids with no parents, 2 parents, 4 parents and one parent. Kids with two moms, one mom, one dad, one mom and one dad. I've coached rich kids, poor kids and middle class kids. I've coached smart kids and kids with learning disabilities. The opportunity to work with that much diversity has been a blessing. Even more a blessing is that none of that mattered. Not to me and not to them. Their coaches and teammates were like their family. To me, they were all just my "kids", my players, my responsibility to teach, motivate, help to lean, grown, perform and succeed. These are the lessons that sport teaches us, often without us even knowing it. In a time where most of what we hear is negative, let us take time to reflect on the good stuff that is going on in the weight rooms, on the fields, courts and tracks. With upcoming presidential election, there seems to be more focus on our differences, than our common goals. With that said, here are a few of the all time sport movie favorites. Encourage your young kids and athletes to watch them and educate them on all the cool stuff that comes with being an athlete and part of sports. I'm sure there are tons more than those listed, so enjoy creating your own Must See List!
Coach Carter
Bend it Like Beckham
Remember the Titans
Rudy
Cool Runnings
Vision Quest
Rocky
Radio
Blind Side
Million Dollar Baby
All the Right Movies
Basketball Diaries
Eight Men Out
Chariots of Fire
Raging Bull
The Natural
Hoosiers
Miracle on Ice
A League of Their Own
Quite Warrior
Hoop Dreams
Field of Dreams
Bull Durham
