Senior Athletes

I often address the young athlete here. The high school or younger person. Quite often, I will preach to the parents of those younger athletes.

But what about the old folks—those people that are still athletes yet burn a lot of birthday candles? What about them?

Caroline Haynes comes to mind. I’ve written about her before. Still an internationally competitive tennis player when most of those her age have long ago given it up.  She turned 85 this week. She looks 60 and plays like she’s 40.

Dr. Charlie Raper—still running. I have no idea how many miles he has run in his adult years. He turns 86 in August and is still running 5 days a week.

I knew a group of folks that were playing basketball 2-3 days a week, most in their 50’s. I’ve seen several senior citizens on local tennis courts. And then there’s pickleball.

Go by the courts at John Sevier and you’re likely to find a crowd. And it’s all ages. Someone a bit less mobile and a bit slower can compete at pickleball and have fun.

So, what does it take to play a sport when you leave your 20’s?

Basically, it’s the same things that allow you to be competitive in the first place. Strength. Agility. Flexibility. Endurance.

Before you go out and join an adult volleyball league or tackle a marathon, let me make one thing perfectly clear—you need medical clearance first.

If you don’t have a Primary Care Physician (PCP), then get one. Do not rely on the internet for medical advice. Let me repeat that: Do no rely on the internet for medical advice.

It’s OK to ask your PCP questions. Medical care should make sense to the consumer (you). If your PCP can’t explain the logic behind what they recommend for you, then maybe you should look elsewhere. But then do what they say.

The next step is to train for your sport. Sound familiar? You’ve got to spend the time in strength training. You need to make endurance activities that are not your sport a part of your regular exercise regimen.

Starting in our 30’s, we lose muscle mass at a rate of about ½% a year unless you do something about it. You work at a physical job? Doesn’t matter. You still need sport specific exercises.

You need to work on flexibility. Every. Single. Day. I’m a huge advocate of yoga but in a class, with a real yoga instructor. A video just won’t do it. Yoga will not only provide you with flexibility but will also teach you correct movement patterns and develop balance and agility.

As we age, balance and agility diminish. You’ve got to spend time every day to minimize the impact that your age imposes on you. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Talk to your physical therapist about that.

Just like all athletes, you need to eat well. The nutritional component to sports performance is huge. Ginormous. Garbage in, garbage out.

Sleep is huge. (And yes, I’m doing much better—sleep has never been one of my vices but I’m doing well now.) It is definitely more important to listen to your body as you get older. If your body is telling you to back off, you should listen. But if it’s your head doing the talking, you might ignore that. That could just be laziness speaking.

Train for it and there should be no reason why you can’t continue to participate in your sport of choice for a very long time. Just ask Caroline and Dr. Raper.

 

Danny's Song

I talked about time last week.  Our most precious commodity. You think you have plenty of it until you don’t.

Time ran out for a great friend of mine this week. A two plus year battle with cancer ended on Monday. Danny Smith was his name. He was a physical therapist and athletic trainer in Elizabethton.

The second best compliment I have ever had was being described once as the “Danny Smith of Maryville.” (The first is being told that I was a Don Story-kind of person by Jim Campbell.)

On Tuesday, friends from all across the country will converge on Elizabethton to celebrate our friend. We will love on the family but mostly will sit around and tell Danny stories.

Don’t worry—this is not about to turn dark and maudlin. That wouldn’t honor Danny at all. His smile would light up a room.  His laugh was huge and his stories were memorable. We will all laugh until our sides hurt when rehashing those memories.

It’s all about life and the pursuit of happiness. The life of the athlete and the pursuit of good health. What I write about most every week.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that an athlete that loves their sport is going to be better at it. They will work harder, remain focused, and pour all they have into that sport.

In my long (really long) career, I’ve seen lots of little guys that loved football. Loved everything about it.

Five foot five and a buck and a quarter-there shouldn’t be a place for them on a sport that seems designed for big people—right? That didn’t matter. They loved the sport and so they stuck it out and got good at it. Some really good.

They told Mugsy Bogues he was too little for basketball at 5’6”. He didn’t listen. His NBA career is legendary.

Lesson #1: Follow your passions. Lesson #2: Don’t listen to the naysayers.

I’ve told you about my tennis playing grandson. Loves the game. Will always go out and hit. He loves it.

That is the life you have to live if you want to be good. When it stops being fun, when you lose the love, move on.

Just a couple of months ago, one of my best friends realized that he didn’t love the bicycle anymore. This is somebody that I’ve spent 10-15 hours a week biking with for 30 years. We’ve done the equivalent of crossing the country several times together.

But when he didn’t love it, he quit. Sold all his bikes. Isn’t even tempted anymore. Although I miss him, I respect his decision. Biking should be fun. When it’s not, do something else.

Didn’t make the team? Work harder. Something is standing in front of you and your dreams? Conquer that something. Somebody tell you you’re not good enough? Prove them wrong.

I’m not saying that any high school athlete can play for the Lady Vols or make it to the Olympics, but you can be the absolute best you that you can be. You can play. You can compete.

Love the process.  Love the practice. Love the preparation. Love doing the little things. One day you might even surprise yourself.

Where did the time go?

Time. Where does it go? When I was a teenager, it seemed like time stood still.

I can remember knowing how many days, hours, and minutes until I turned 16 and could get my driver’s license. Had a chart in my room. It seemed like it would never get here.

Back then, when I would go to bed at night, it seemed like it would take forever to get to sleep. At the factory where I worked in the summer during college, an 8 hour shift felt like 8 days.

When I got to UT-Memphis for physical therapy school, things started speeding up a bit. Classes, labs, work, being a newlywed, clinics, student government…there didn’t seem to be enough hours in the day.

Then…whoosh…it was over and I moved to Maryville with my pregnant wife, starting a new job in a new city. I’m certain that those 9 months of pregnancy slowed things down for my wife, but not for me. She was in labor for like a year (not really).

And then, blink, I’m old with grandchildren and a new knee and life is hurtling breakneck speed toward something else. Where did the time go?

Many times, I’ve heard coaches tell their freshmen athletes that before they looked around twice, they would be seniors and looking at their final year.

I’ve heard George Quarles many times tell senior football players to savor each moment, enjoy every game, that before they would know it, their season would be over.

When it’s hot and you’re tired and practice is hard, it’s quite difficult to understand that but it is true. I’ve heard senior class after senior class bemoan that their final season was almost over. “Where did it go?”

Maybe it played out with success and wins, but did you enjoy the process? Did you enjoy the pageantry and the competition? Did you enjoy your teammates? Did you even enjoy the practices, where your real effort lies, and the wins, where your effort was rewarded?

So here’s the thing—you don’t have time to waste. Take a day off from training? Is your competitor? You think you have plenty of time but you don’t. In football, you’ve got 10 games. Make the playoffs and a few more.

Other sports? Usually double that or more but still a finite number. You have only “X” number of games or events to play the game that you love, to be the player you dreamed you could be.

Your family is going on a vacation this summer? Great! You don’t have to stop training (and you shouldn’t). You can find a gym to work out in. You can run. You can do body weight exercises if stuck in a hotel room.

We took a volleyball into the Canadian wilderness one time and put a strap up for a net and played volleyball on the shores of a remote lake. We took a basketball to a Caribbean island and somehow found a game or two. You find a way.

You’re tired and want to take a day off from your workouts? If you’re getting enough sleep then it’s OK to back off on your workout, but don’t abandon it. Rest is essential but don’t make excuses.

Then maybe one day you’ll be standing on the podium or hoisting that trophy, and then it will all be worthwhile. All the blood, sweat, and tears. The hot August workouts and the stadium steps until you think your legs will never move again.

But if you’re not the champion, you will still be the best you that you can be. And you will have learned incredibly valuable lessons about what it takes to get there that you will hopefully go on and apply to life.

But whatever you do, don’t you quit!

Time to get out on the water!

It occurred to me that I’ve never talked about what a great place this is for watersports. For the most part, I’m not talking about motorized watersports but I do believe it’s a great place for that too.  We even used to own a couple of personal watercraft that were both a nuisance and a joy.

No, I’m talking about human powered vehicles. Canoes. Kayaks. Paddleboards. Even sailboats. We have everything. Or if we don’t, it’s not far away.

Have you ever rafted the Ocoee? We’ve been going down there for years. I think my son was 10 the first time he did it (there are rules against that now). He was a strong swimmer and a big boy and I had no doubt he could do it safely.

Last summer, I took my two oldest granddaughters on an Ocoee rafting trip. I wasn’t sure how they would do, but they loved it. I couldn’t get either of them to ride the bow of the boat through Hell Hole but they were immediately ready to go again.

The good folks at Adventures Unlimited and our barefoot guide took great care of us and now the rest of the grandchildren are chomping at the bit to get down there. The Ocoee is truly a world class whitewater stream but there is lesser but still worthy whitewater to be found closer by.

The upper reaches of the Little River, as you enter the park, have numerous short runs for the expert paddler. I guess I don’t count the tubers—you sit, you float, you get out.

On the Ocoee, you will see whitewater kayakers toying with rapids. It’s fun to watch them flip and cavort on waves that the rest of us hold our breath on as we safely glide by on rafts. You will also occasionally see a whitewater canoe.

Even closer to us, you can often find whitewater enthusiasts on the Tellico River. Shorter and choppier, folks tell me it can be a blast there.

A bit over an hour away is the Nantahala Outdoor Center, the center of whitewater in the southeast. They have it all. If you haven’t seen the now closed Olympic Whitewater Center on the upper Ocoee, you will find it interesting. It’s hard to imagine the throngs of crowds there in 1996 but it was quite a spectacle.

There are two main types of kayaks, whitewater and flatwater. Our nearby lakes are perfect for flatwater kayaking. A local group that calls themselves the Pungo Paddlers head to area lakes on a regular basis. I prefer my old Grumman canoe but my wife and I will join them from time to time. They don’t seem to mind.

Paddleboards look like surfboards but you stand up on them and paddle with a long handled paddle. A couple of my friends are into whitewater paddleboarding. It looks hard (and I suspect it is). They travel all over to find the best water, sharing many of those rapids with the kayaks. 

Again, our lakes around here are perfect for paddleboarding. My own paddleboarding is confined to the week our family spends at the beach each year. It is heavenly to get up well before everyone else, carry my paddleboard down to the ocean, and get in a couple of miles.

The ocean is quieter, the water is clearer, and the peace surmounts all the troubles in my world. I glide along almost silently which means that you get a great view of rays and turtles in the water below.

I’ve always thought I would enjoy sailing and when I see the occasional sailboat crossing the lake just about the Fort Loudoun Dam, I’m envious. My own sailing is confined to an infrequent bout with a Hobie Cat.

Whatever floats your boat, it’s about time to get out there. And if you don’t really care for all the motors on the lakes, keep looking—I bet you can find a bit of solitude just out your back door.

Parents as the Support System

I can be pretty critical of parents of athletes. I’ve seen the worst. I’ve seen kids quit sports they love because of their parents. These days, I’m witness to a whole new set of parents—tennis parents. That’s another story.

But I know that there are far more good parents than bad. I don’t talk about them enough. Parents that run a taxi service to get their kids to whatever practice or game they might have, then sit quietly, patiently.

Taking them places. Buying the equipment that they need. Cheering them on when they do well. Consoling them when they fail. Good parents are a support system to their kids.

You need to be there for everything--their concerts, their games, their recitals. What you don’t need to do is to coach them from the sidelines. Chances are, they’ve got a coach. 

That’s something that really bugs me. At times, it seems as though there are two kinds of parents: Those that coach from the sidelines and those that officiate from the sidelines.

I’ve talked about this before—officials make mistakes, all of them will admit that, but none go in with a bias against one team or another. They aren’t trying to help one team win or one team to lose. They may even be terrible at it, they may be inconsistent, but they aren’t favoring one team or another.

You’ve got to believe me on that one. I’ve seen more games and events in my career than just about anybody. The late great Galen Johnson and I used to compare notes about who might have seen more games.

Good parents are helping their kids with their homework, making sure they eat healthy food (plenty of vegetables and fruits), and get enough sleep. Support system.

Good parents pick their kids up when they fall and help them understand that winning a championship can never be the best thing they ever do. Support System.

That’s something that I’ve heard now departed coaches George Quarles and Gary Rankin say many, many times. With tons of championships between them, they’ve been there and done that. Got the t-shirt. But they never failed to tell their young charges to take those lessons, take what got them there, and turn them into a life.

It’s OK for your kids to celebrate winning a game. It feels great. It’s OK for you to celebrate with them.  But celebrate the effort too. Celebrate improvement. Even celebrate the participation.

I’ve got one grandchild who one day will figure out all this sports stuff. I think he’ll be good one day. But what’s most important right now is that he gets out there and moves. He participates. He pays attention. He’s part of a team. He celebrates the success of a teammate.

He probably won’t be a professional athlete (very, very few reach that point) but he will most definitely be a successful adult. A good man. That’s what he’s learning right now. That his team wins a game is important—it gives structure and meaning to the games. But right now, at this point in his life, all those other things are far more important.

Parents everywhere need to understand that. Somebody tells you that your 12 year old child is going to be a superstar one day? Hogwash! My volleyball playing daughter never touched a volleyball until she was 15 and she was good. Her sport sort of found her.

Remember too that we never stop being a support system to our children. My kids are 41 and 43 and I like to think that we’re still their support system. Not just a taxi service for my kids but there for whatever they might need.

Right now, my son Nick is running for Chancellor. The hard part is the job covers 5 counties, so his campaign goes from Grainger to Jefferson to Cocke and Sevier Counties. Plus Blount County. It’s daunting.

I’ve put a lot of things on hold to help him with his campaign. I’m not biking much, not hiking, not farming. I work and then help him. Because I’m his support system.

Because that’s what good parents do. And that’s what I aspire to be.

Small Holes Sink Big Ships

“Small holes sink big ships.” I couldn’t find who to attribute that quote to but a friend who works out in our gym was the one that told me about it. He said it might make a good topic for a column.

What are your “small holes?” What is it that’s keeping you from your best health, your best self?

Time? OK…there are 168 hours in a week. Let’s say you spend 45 of those either working or traveling to work. And another 56 hours a week sleeping. That leaves 67 hours.

Let’s generously say that you spend 3 hours a day eating or snacking, that’s 21. It takes me 15 minutes to shave and shower but let’s say you take an hour a day. That still leaves 39 hours a week.

You belong to a club? Maybe an hour a week. Attend church? Another 3 hours for most. What else? Mowing the yard? 2 hours. Cleaning the house? 3 hours, maybe. We’re down to 30 hours a week.

30 hours of time that you can call your own. Hobbies, gardening, visiting, running errands, parenting. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s just say that you spend 20 hours a week on all that. Now we’re down to 10 hours a week.

10 hours every week that you can spend taking care of yourself. Exercising. Getting outside. Going for a walk.

But don’t take my word for it: Do your own math. If your health is a priority, you’ll find the time.

Opportunity? Well, for the getting outside part, that’s really easy around here. Our Greenbelt system is amazing and somehow keeps growing. It is a wonderful oasis in the middle of where we live. Haven’t been to the new Craig Jarvis Park yet? Oh, my. It is amazing and thank you Dr. Jarvis.

Have you looked to the east lately? One of the things that I brag about to visitors is that a huge part of our county lies within the boundaries of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  It’s right there! Everything you could possibly want.

There’s a gym on every corner so that’s not an excuse either. But you don’t need a gym to work out. A couple of kettle bells, a space in your garage or basement, maybe a jumping rope, a box to use for step-ups.

Eating better? That one does take some effort but not much. It all depends on what you put in your grocery cart. Put in the effort at the grocery store, a little more food prep, a little less fast food.

If you’re playing a sport or on a team, what are the Small Holes there? If an offensive lineman on a football team takes the wrong steps, the play could be over. If the running back hits the wrong hole, even by a little bit, it just won’t work. You’ve got to do the little things right. Small holes.

Little things might be preparation. If you expect to hit the majority of your free throws, you’ve got to put in the effort. I’ve never met anyone that was “naturally” good at shooting free throws. Maybe more than anything on a basketball court, the charity stripe requires effort.

It might be adequate sleep. Or eating right. Whatever it is that keeps you from being your best. Those are small holes that will sink big ships.

And here’s the thing about those small holes. Once the ship starts leaking a little bit, it doesn’t stop. Those small holes keep getting bigger. The excuses multiply. Your health or your performance starts to sink.

What are your small holes?

Sport Specific Exercises

My wife can be my biggest supporter and my best critic. So, every Sunday morning when she sits down to read the newspaper, I anxiously await her opinion of this column.

It’s usually “good column, Joesie.” After I wrote that piece a couple of weeks ago about sport-specific exercises for performance and injury prevention, she immediately said “good column, but now you need to tell people what to do.”

OK. Good point. Go back to that column and you will see that I told throwing athletes that they need to focus more on the deceleration of their arm and to work on trunk rotation strength. I told basketball and soccer athletes to work on ankle stability.  I told baseball pitchers to focus on their hips.

But how? What does that mean?

Let’s look at the deceleration of the arm during the throwing motion. Remember that the throwing motion is utilized in a variety of sports. Hitting in volleyball. Serving in tennis.

If you watch someone warming up to throw, hit, or serve, they might fasten an elastic band behind them and pull forward on it. I’ve seen that happen a thousand times.

Either that or they just throw (or spike or serve). But if you want to prevent injuries, you’ve got to work on those muscles on the back of the shoulder that slow your arm down after release.

To do that, you should take that same elastic band and fasten in front of you and pull backwards against it. Work on the muscles that pull your shoulder blades toward each other.

As for making those ankles more stable—run in sand, hop from one foot to another, hop up and down on one leg. There are all kinds of reaction devices which use lights to send you in one direction or the other. Old-fashioned shuttle runs help with this.

Pull an old couch cushion or pillow out (with permission) and walk on it. Then hop on and off of it. Now do it with one foot.

Take a yoga class or look at a video to learn good ways to stretch out your hips. Take that elastic band and fasten it around your ankle while seated, anchoring it under your other foot. Pull you lower leg to the outside. Do it slow and steady and then quick and fast.

Probably my favorite piece of gym equipment is the leg press machine. You can work everything from your ankles to your knees to your hips to your core.  I’m not a big fan of a full squat with heavy weight but squat jumps can develop explosive power.

I’m not a big fan of the bench press either—I understand that it can be important for some sports but it often leads to shoulder problems if you don’t pay equal attention to developing the back side of the shoulder.

And let me throw in my bias against dropping weights. Put simply…don’t! It really seems like the “thing to do” right now. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, visit a gym that allows it. You’ll find people repeatedly picking up a weight and immediately dropping it. Time after time after time.

What these folks don’t realize is that they are missing out on what may be the most important part of the lift, the eccentric unloading that comes from setting the weights down. You will develop better body control and more functional strength if you lower the weight to the floor instead of dropping it.

And if you need more ideas or better advice, consult a personal trainer, strength coach, Athletic Trainer, or Physical Therapist. 

 

The Best Teammate

I’ve decided that nobody looks out the window on airplanes anymore.

I’ve been on an airplane a couple of times in the last month but I just realized that everyone keeps their windows shut. All the time.

On one of those flights, I was seated by the window, instead of the aisle, which is my usual place, a concession to my bum right knee now healthy because it has been replaced by a new one. I’ve always liked the window seat ause it allowed me to look at the landscape from above. I’ve seen tiny islands in the ocean, the Grand Canyon, New York skyscrapers…all from 20,000 feet.

I watch that little map tracker thing on the back of the seat in front of me, keeping up with where I am in relation to the ground below. That lets me try and figure out what I’m seeing below. I am fascinated by travel and intrigued by adventure, still a kid who wonders where those people inside that amazing flying machine are going.

I’ve been fortunate to get out and see a lot of the world. I’d like to think it has made me more tolerant, more accepting of a world that can be quite different from my rural roots.

I went bike riding on the Greenbelt with one of my grandsons last weekend, on a beautiful Sunny afternoon. We had done this before, but it was usually my idea.  This time it was his idea, and he knew where he wanted to go.

First, all the way to the bubbling spring at the Ft. Craig monument. But he’s there just to see the map that shows the location of Fort Black, which was out near Chilhowee View School and was founded by Joseph N. Black. Maybe a relative, maybe not. He likes that maybe it is.

Then back to the upper end where the trail makes a loop, above Pearson Springs Park. There we can find the tree and plaque placed there to honor my dad, Carl H. Black.

He wanted to know more about my dad. Was he big and strong? Was he smart? What was he like?

This is my little Social Chair, more like me than any of the others. When he walks into a room, he wants to get to know everybody there. On this day, he spoke to every single person we encountered. 

Because that’s who he is. He played basketball this year and got the “Best Teammate” award. How could we want more than that?

The world is a big, beautiful place. People are generally wonderful if you look for that in them, if you give them the space to be wonderful.

I want my grandchildren to know the world yet not become worldly. I want them to fly in an airplane and wonder about the people down there.

I never want them to stop looking for the good in people, to stop being kind to everyone they meet. If it’s in them, I never want them to stop walking into a room and wanting to know everyone’s story.

And I want them to always be the Best Teammate.

 

Best Exercise by Sport

I was in a discussion on sports performance and training programs this week when the conversation turned to the best exercises for different sports. 

In other words, if you play softball, what are the most important exercises for you to do? Or baseball, or football, or pretty much anything out there. It was a pretty high level discussion so there were a lot of really great ideas thrown about. 

I took notes but the discussion was fast and furious so I didn’t get everything but I did get the basics. For the most part, you can divide the discussion into two parts—performance and prevention. The two go hand in hand.

From a performance perspective, prevention of injuries can be huge. If you’re injured, you can’t perform, you can’t practice, you can’t work on those things that translate to performance.

Let’s start with baseball/softball. You might think that they’re about the same thing but there are some important differences.

With any sport that involves throwing, those muscles that rotate the trunk, mostly what we think about when we consider our core muscles, are the single most important thing to consider from a performance standpoint.

And throwing is not just baseball and softball. Think about the volleyball serve or spike—those are both basically a throwing motion. Quarterbacks, discus throwers, shot putters, the tennis serve…all those involve a throwing motion and require strong trunk rotators to be effective.

For baseball pitchers, the hips are key.  The lead leg needs to have really good hip external rotation motion and really good trail leg hip internal rotation strength. In a huge study done by a friend of mine, these two factors were the best predictors of pitching success, not the shoulder nor the trunk.

In preventing injuries in the throwing athlete, the single most important exercises are those strengthen the “decelerators” of the arm. Think about the back of the shoulder and the muscles that pull back on your shoulder blade. Those are often neglected and that’s when you see me with an injury.

Swimmer’s Shoulder is a very real entity and is related to that same thing. So much of what swimmers do develops the front of the shoulder and ignores the back of the shoulder. It is absolutely necessary for swimmers to work on muscular balance at the shoulders.

Basketball and soccer players change direction a lot so their injuries tend to be more at the lower leg and ankle. Dynamic strengthening of those muscles that stabilize the ankle are essential.  Think planting your foot and suddenly changing direction—that’s where the importance of strong ankles comes into play. Same thing for running backs and receivers on a football team.

Working on sudden changes of direction in the gym can get you ready for practice and games. Hopping from one side to the other, plyometrics off of a box, jumping onto an unstable surface, all those will help develop the strength necessary for performance and prevention.

It just makes sense that if you’re a soccer player that heads the ball that you need strong neck muscles. Don’t forget that the foundation that those neck muscles depend are on the rest of the spine (core strength).

Training for performance is not all bench press and hamstring stretching. It’s more about focusing on what you need for your body to do in space—controlling motion and reacting to outside forces. 

Headaches: Not to be ignored

Headaches are something I know well. Beginning in my early teen years, I had frequent and often severe headaches. Somewhere along the way, those evolved into migraines.

My 20’s and 30’s were marred by frequent and sometimes debilitating headaches. Being self-employed for most of that time, I had to work. No choice. 

There were days when I would hide in a dark room, come out long enough to see a patient, and then retreat to my darkened sanctuary. For years, you would never find me far away from Excedrin. I always (always) had several in my pocket.

I tried other medicines. I saw several specialists. Nothing stopped my headaches. I learned to deal with them. Most of the time, they would hit in the middle of the night. My routine became to get up, take an Excedrin, get in a very hot shower, get out, eat something, take 2 more Excedrin, and go back to bed.

That usually helped enough that I could eventually get back to sleep.

Here’s the problem with headaches—they’re invisible. There is no outward sign that someone has a headache. More than once, I was told that they were “all in my head.”

Yeah…they were. My left temple to be exact. Almost always.

About the time I turned 45, my headaches began to subside. Some decided it must be male menopause. Maybe. We know that men undergo hormonal changes about that age too. Certainly not as drastic as women but still there.

I’m just thankful that I very rarely have those really bad headaches any more. I still have headaches from time to time but milder and far less frequent. I still always have Excedrin within reach but I haven’t emptied the hot water heater from my hot showers in a long time.

What about headaches in athletics? What does it mean?

A lot of people get “exertional” headaches. A really hard physical effort that results later in a headache. We see those often in sports. It is likely that those have to do with blood vessels dilating and constricting in your head and usually respond to anti-inflammatories.

Still, no headache needs to be ignored. Especially in a teenager or an athlete. If headaches are severe, persistent, or frequent, athletes should see a sports physician, and in Blount County, that is Dr. Ben England at ETMG.

And don’t forget hydration. Being dehydrated can also lead to or at least contribute to headaches.  Not to mention the sports performance side of hydration.

If a headache happens after a blow to the head, it cannot be ignored. Any blow to the head that results in symptoms (headache, dizziness, blurred vision, confusion) is a concussion until proven differently.

We don’t play around with those things. I have a friend that had a concussion in a car wreck that was still having headaches from that concussion two years later.

The long term effects of improper care following a concussion can be catastrophic. It used to be that if you got your “bell rung” that once you were coherent, you were back in the game.

Not so, anymore. That’s because we know better. We know what can happen. That means that if you have a headache after being hit in the head, it is incredibly important not to get hit in the head again. It’s that simple.

New Beginnings

One morning early this week, I fell in behind a U-Haul truck pulling a car, going somewhere. I can only imagine where. A new town. A new home. A new job. Somewhere.

I remember those days. In 1977, my U-Haul truck was filled with all we owned and parked outside the MidSouth Coliseum in Memphis where I was graduating. We walked out of graduation and drove to our new home in Maryville.

We made a couple more of those U-Haul truck moves, to Bluefield, West Virginia then back home to Maryville to stay. Each time, the trip was filled with change and adventure.

Now this is how my brain works—I wondered how that could become a column, a lesson for this space.

And I thought about high school juniors at the end of their season. The next time they are in games, it will be their senior season. They will be the leaders. This will be the year that they always dreamed of.

The best of those start immediately. I can remember when you worked out in the summer before school started in the fall and that was about it. Not anymore.

When the season is over, take a day, maybe two. At most a week. And then get started in preparation for the next go-round. That’s where success is bred.

It’s a new journey. A new adventure. Just like that U-Haul truck headed out.

A new opportunity to get things right. I can remember retired MHS football coach David Ellis telling his young charges in the last week of the season, usually the week of the state championship game, that they had one more chance to get it right.

They would then go through the same drills that they had been doing for weeks, months even. It was still all about footwork and execution.

What a lot of people don’t see is all the time and effort that happens when people aren’t looking. The practices. The many hours in the weight room. Early mornings on the track. A thousand free throws in an empty gym.

It didn’t used to be that way. Back in the dark ages, when I was a teenager, a few of us lifted weights but most depended on farm work to get strong. Shoveling grain and lifting bales of hay. We called it “country strong” and it worked pretty well.

But anybody that thinks we were bigger, stronger, faster, and better trained back then is merely foolish. Kids today have better training, better nutrition, and greater opportunities than we ever had.

Take my tennis playing grandson for example. I played a lot of tennis growing up but there weren’t even public courts in my hometown. The owners of the two private courts in town allowed us to play in their backyards.

All we had to do is keep the noise down and sweep the courts from time to time. We could only dream of an actual tennis lesson. We were our own teachers.

My tennis player has played all winter, going to Knoxville for practice in indoor courts there. He has the benefit of excellent coaches and a granddad that will take him out a couple of times a week just to hit a hopper of balls.

Others have travel teams and position coaches and opportunities that we never even dreamed of. They are on a journey that hopefully leads to happiness and success. Just like those folks in that U-Haul truck.

Parents parent/Coaches coach

Sometimes I get an idea just out of the blue and build a column from that. It can be a single word or phrase. Sometimes people suggest topics (always welcome). Sometimes I struggle to decide on a topic. After 35 years, that should be no surprise.

And then sometimes it falls in my lap. Such was the case this week. I was sitting in the stands at a game when it all came together. All I had to do was sit down at the keyboard and let it out.

Despite my best efforts, I do repeat myself. I’ve talked about movement and exercise many times. I don’t seem to be able to shut up about concussions and dealing with the heat. And I talk about being the parent to an athlete a lot. I’m back there this week.

I want to get to the point of this column right away—There are two purposes for youth sports: Movement education and developing active lifestyles.

We need to teach children how to move. How to run. How to throw. To develop athleticism. To learn the joy of moving their body. We need sports to make movement fun.

We know with certainty that active children become active adults. We know with certainty that an active lifestyle takes care of many of the chronic health problems that plague us. Obesity. Heart disease. Diabetes. And on.

Let me make this very, very clear—the purpose of youth sports is not to win championships. Let me repeat that.  The purpose of youth sports is not to win championships. It should always be to help children grow.

I find the thought of an undefeated season in youth sports disgusting. If it is a local league, then it means that most of the talent is on one team. It usually means that one or more teams in that league never wins.

If it is a travel league, then you’re not pursuing good enough competition.

Don’t get me wrong, keeping score is important.  Trying to win is necessary, not for the trophy but for what it should mean. It should mean that you work harder, are better prepared. Winning by a large margin helps no one.

The genesis of this column actually started last weekend, watching youth sports. I’ll be vague to protect the good folks in this story. And let me say that there are far more good folks in youth sports than bad.

Take Joey Winders for example. Still coaching youth sports after all these years. But, more profoundly, he can be found on Saturdays refereeing Parks & Rec basketball. Alongside his son. Could Joey find a better way to spend his Saturdays? Probably. That he chooses refereeing the most basic of sports speaks to his commitment.

Then a parent in the stand yells at him for a (correct) call that he makes. And then does it again. I’m sitting behind that parent and silently seething. They just don’t get it. I didn’t say anything. Until now.

Or the coach that plays their bench players the bare minimum required by the league. Or not at all. Or the coach that coaches a Saturday morning game of 8 year olds like they’re playing for the NBA championship.

Those people have so completely lost the “why” of youth sports as to be pitied. And vilified.

Folks, no one knows who will be the next Lebron James or Patrick Mahones at age 10. No one knows for sure that their kid will be a star. No one. No coach. No parent. No one.

Coach, your job is to promote movement and active lifestyle in everyone on your team. Every. Single. One. The end of the bench needs your coaching more than the most gifted. Your job is player development—not win championships

Parent, your job is to provide your child with opportunities for movement, to work with them at home, and to support them. Always.

Do you remember what it was like?

How good is your memory? Mine? Eh, it’s OK. I’m terrible with names but I can tell you what surgery you had on your shoulder 20 years ago. I can remember football scores from games that I played in 50 years ago but might forget milk at the grocery store unless I have a list.

I used to ask my kids what they had for lunch at school. More often than not, they couldn’t remember. Sure, as we get older, remembering things seems harder. So, it’s not just an old person thing.

I preach a lot in this space. It’s definitely my pulpit and I take the responsibility seriously. My target for a lot of sermons is the parent of young athletes. I try not to be self-righteous about it—goodness knows I made every mistake in the book.

But I think I learned from those mistakes and now I’m recycling some of those lessons on behalf of grandchildren. The runners. The soccer players. The lone basketball player. The one that will be a football player. And the tennis player.

One of the things that helped me along the way and still helps me now is that I remember what it was like to be 15. And 16. And 17.

I can tell you the play that MHS ran against my Loudon Redskins to win the football game 35-28 in 1970. I can tell you who ran that touchdown and what defense we were in. I can tell you the name of half of that team because my coach, Gary Dutton, had coached them in Junior High.

I can tell you what it felt like after that game. I can remember the fatigue as I walked off. I remember how disappointed I was to lose that game. I wanted to win it so much for Coach Dutton.

I remember the effort that it took to compete at that level. I can remember the smell of the locker room. I can hear the banter in practice. I can recall the taste of the sports drink that we got during practice (one small cup, half-way through practice).

I can remember walking on the field for a game. I remember the bus rides. I remember the taste of the ham and cheese sandwiches that were waiting for us when we returned from a road game. Theyff were so cold and so good.

Do you remember what it felt like? Do you remember the practices? Do you remember what it felt like to lose a game? Did you have a parent that would tell you what you did wrong as soon as you got home?

I didn’t have that. My mom was the president of my fan club, always in the stands with Sammy Alexander watching Ricky and I play alongside each other after years of being great friends.

My dad was disabled with heart problems. Back then, you were told to avoid stressful situations so he never got to see me play football beyond pee-wee’s. He would listen to the high school broadcasts though. And he would never ever criticize me for doing something that he was never able to do.

He had to drop out of school after the 6^th grade and go to work in a factory to support his family. Imagine that. Seems bizarre today. It IS bizarre today. He was just proud of me. My mom would tell me about coming home after games and finding him sitting by the radio crying—such was the level of pride he had.

My message today is pretty simple: Parents, try and remember what it was like when you were growing up. Try and remember what you WANTED to hear from your parents. And then go out and be that parent. They don’t need another coach.

Hope Never Dies

One of my all-time favorite movies is Shawshank Redemption. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s timeless—as good today as when it was released.

I’ll not get into the details, but near the end of the movie, Morgan Freeman’s character Red is reading a letter from his buddy Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins. At the end of the letter is the take home message from the movie:  “Hope never dies.”

Hope never dies…I love that phrase.

When the days are the darkest, when the path is hardest, we hang on to the hope of better days, of easier paths. Hope sustains us. Hope keeps us going. Sometimes hope is all we have left.

If your team makes the playoffs, you soon realize that only one team finishes the season with a win. Maybe your season didn’t end up like you wanted it to. It’s OK.

I watched from a distance as probably the best volleyball team in MHS history lost in the state tournament. Were they disappointed? Sure. Can they look back on all they accomplished and realize that their body of work was incredible? I hope so.

I would definitely be considered “old school,” if for no other reason than the number of candles on my birthday cake. I remember a lot of cliches from back in the day. “2^nd place is 1^st loser.” Another one that had broad acceptance: “Winners win, losers lose.”

To me, phrases like those reduce sports to a totally irrelevant role. In other words, the life lessons that can be learned from sports participation are worth nothing with that mindset.

If you read my column often enough, you know that I do not agree with that at all. Sports participation is valuable, even essential. Life lessons are there to be learned regardless of the score of any game.

Let’s look at that for a moment. The opportunities to learn from playing a game or being on a team are everywhere. The opportunity to learn how to be a good teammate. How to be a leader. How to work toward a goal.

And what it takes to be successful. Is the scoreboard important? Sure it is. It gives our games structure and focus. The scoreboard gives us a goal to work toward. But is the scoreboard an appropriate measuring stick for our success? No, not at all.

I had a discussion with a grandchild recently. This one asked “do you think I will be a success when I’m an adult?” Of course! “Do you think I’ll own a Lamborghini?”

Oh my. Success has nothing to do with material goods. Are you happy? Are you in a good relationship? Is your day filled with opportunities to be of service to others? Does your life have meaning?

Those are the things that you should use to judge a successful life. Not how big your house is or what car you drive.

Same with sports. Are you learning those lessons? Are you enjoying the challenges that keeping score in a game provides you?

Our success comes from working hard and learning the value of hard work. It comes from being our best selves. If you work hard, prepare well, give it your all, and still come out on the short end of the scoreboard, you are still successful. You are still a winner, regardless of the score.

Hope never dies…unless you let it.