Growing up in a small town

I grew up in a small town.  As a matter of fact, I got my first college degree alongside more people than lived in my hometown. 

It was a great place to grow up.  Slower, simpler, safer, almost idyllic.  Summers were my favorite.  I always knew how many days it was until school was out.    I was actually well into college before I liked school.

 Most of my friends lived in town.  I lived "out in the country," about a mile from them.  Most summer mornings, I would get up, have breakfast, and hop my bicycle to head into town.   The basic rule was to be home in time for supper.  

There were a bunch of us kids that would spend pretty much all day, all summer together.   Ronnie, Bill, Teddy, Tony, Gary.   Sometimes joined by Freddie or Lonnie.  We played everything and made up what we didn't know.  We had Boy Scout leaders to teach about the outdoors but we didn't have anybody to teach us about sports.

The city didn't really have a recreation department but they would hire teachers for the summer to do things like crafts and organize games.  Coach Ratledge might organize a game and help us get started but mostly we had neither coaches nor referees.  There was no little league baseball but we would choose sides and play for hours.

For lunch, we would drop by somebody's house and their mother would fix us lunch, usually PB&J.   Granny Miller was a favorite but sometimes she would serve souse meat sandwiches so we looked elsewhere on those days.

There was no public swimming pool so if you wanted to swim you had to go to the river.   Occasionally we would catch a ride in the back of a pickup truck to the next town where they had a public swimming pool but the only reason to do that was the diving board and the girls.

We discovered tennis at about 10.   There were no public tennis courts but there were two private courts.   My buddies and I got the homeowners to agree to let us play if we would sweep the courts when we were finished and not cuss.   I don't think they knew how obsessed we would be with a game that was so far out of our socioeconomic status as to be absurd.

Nobody took lessons for anything and the only organized sport was youth league football (which we all played).  We taught ourselves how to do things.   Our athletic development was more dependent on backyard basketball and Red Rover games.

I look at today's organized leagues and traveling teams for 7 year olds and personal trainers and position coaches and on and on and on and I long for those simpler times. 

Are athletes better today?  No doubt.  But at what price?  Are they enjoying the games and the competition?  

This whole topic started when I asked a couple of young adults what they remembered about the AAU basketball games that they played when they were young.  I was their coach.  Their memories were not the games or the sport or the teams but the travels and the friends.  About the time that we went for ribs at The Rendezvous in Memphis.    About the friends that they made and driving down the interstate singing 80's hits.

My memories are about playing tennis at the Greer's court under the lights and swimming in the Tennessee River, about street football and catching a Pinky Russell curveball.   About Jackie Lefler dribbling between his legs and Gordo Watson outrunning everyone, regardless of distance and even when encumbered by a potato sack or tied to another kid in a 3 leg race.

So what's my point?   Just that sports are all about building memories and they're not always about the games we play nor the outcome of those games.