What is an athlete?

 

I live on a small farm where I grow a lot of things. Blueberries, blackberries, cherries, apples, pears. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, asparagus, cucumbers, pumpkins. I love it.

I have raised beds, trough beds, and open rows. I grow far more than my family can consume. Come blueberry picking time, I can put headphones on and pick until dark-thirty. It is a place of peace for me.

My son seems to have inherited that love of growing things. In a couple of small raised beds, he raises a bounty of vegetables and seems to have a green thumb.

I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I did grow up farming. We lived out in the “country” and from a very young age, I helped surrounding farmers with their hay. “Hauling hay” might even have been a career aspiration for me if there was an option there.

My dad always had a big garden—our family depended on it. We had cherry trees and strawberries and honey bees. From about 10 on, it was my responsibility to “rob” the bees of their honey and then sell it out our front door on Highway 11, a busy thoroughfare for those going south through Tennessee before the days of the interstates.

I’ve helped slaughter hogs, render lard, prep hams for curing, gathered eggs, built fence, and inoculated cattle.  (Actually, my job was to tackle them and hold them down for the real farmer to give them their shots and ear tags.)

Does that make me a farmer? I don’t know. Maybe. Does growing things make one a farmer? Do you have to gather and sell crops or raise stock to be a real farmer? I’m not sure. But I think so. And if someone wants to call me a farmer, I’ll be proud of it.

Just this week, I saw a 43 year old with some knee issues that wanted to know what to do about them. That’s not unusual—my day is filled with that sort of thing. But what made this one a little different is that he wanted help to make him a better basketball player.

Basketball isn’t a job for him, it’s just something he loves to do. And it sounds like he’s pretty good at it.

He almost apologized for being 43 and still playing, competing against people 20 years younger than himself. I assured him it was OK, as I had played until I was 59, and would still be playing if I had the knees for it.

Does that make him an athlete? Absolutely. You don’t have to be a teenager and on a team to be an athlete. You don’t have to get paid for playing a sport to be considered an athlete.

You don’t have to keep score, pursue a championship, or be in a league to be considered an athlete. All you have to do is to pursue a physical activity to be considered an athlete.

“Pursue a physical activity.” That’s my final answer. You jog the Greenbelt for your health? You’re an athlete. You’re 70 and ride a bicycle? You’re an athlete.

There are no age limits on who can be an athlete. Sure, our first exposure to the world of sports is on a team, maybe a T Ball team at the local little league park or the swim team at the country club, but that alone is not what makes someone an athlete.

An active lifestyle is an essential component to good health. And to pursue good health, you’ve got to exercise, eat healthy foods, and avoid sedentary activities.

And if you’re pursuing good health, whether it’s walking in the park of hiking to Mount LeConte, You’re an athlete. Plain and simple.

So, make no apologies for basketball at 43 or tennis at 50 or pickleball at 75. You’re an athlete and can chase whatever dream you want to, whether it is to dunk again, win at doubles, or enjoy a long rally.

You’re an athlete.

Growing Old with Grace

 

I had a nice chat with a couple the other day.  I’m not going to mention names because one of them might be a patient and, well, I wouldn’t want to run the risk of breaking any federal laws. 

But this is the absolute cutest couple ever!  They’ve been dating for about nine years (he said 8, she said 9—I’m going with what she said) and really don’t seem to have any intention of marrying.

They’re just spending their lives together. They do everything together.

I’m not going to pull a Paul Harvey and wait to the end to tell you “the rest of the story.” The story is this—he’s 92 and she will be 93 next month.

They’re healthy, happy, and have no problem sharing their lives together, and their story with me.

So I asked them, what their secret was. Like any long-term couple, their answers completed each other. One would offer something and the other would nod in agreement. One would think of something and the other would heartily agree.

They quickly agreed that you’ve got to keep moving.  Newton declared that “a body in motion tends to stay in motion—a body at rest tends to stay at rest.”

Sir Isaac was talking about physics but I believe that it pertains to the human experience as well. If we stay active, we will be active.  

They said that doing things together was a big part of it. I’ve been married 48 years and my wife will tell you that I don’t do “alone” well at all. She and I enjoy lots of things together. Hiking. Travel. Good restaurants. And of course, those blessed creatures that we share called grandchildren.

This couple also noted that simply being around people is important in staying young. I’ve spent a good part of my career around teenagers, particularly teenage athletes. I think I understand that creature pretty well.

I don’t always embrace their music but I can tolerate most of it (most of the time). I don’t always get their fashion trends but then I’m reminded that it was my generation that wore dickies and bangs. Our parents didn’t like our music either.

Going to church together is important to this couple. A church community can be a wonderful thing and I can tell you that some of the best friends we have today were from a Sunday School class we joined when we first moved to Maryville in 1977.

Although not gainfully employed, this couple in their 10^th decade of life still works. Housework.  Yard work. Helping others. Making a garden. Fixing whatever needs to be fixed.

You might not expect them to be spontaneous sorts of people, but they find that taking opportunities to just pick up and go is part of what keeps them young. 

So here’s the formula:  Keep moving, be around people, build a community, never stop, be spontaneous. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Reunions

I had a college reunion of sorts a couple of weeks ago.  A bunch of guys that lived in Reese Hall on UT’s campus in the early 70’s got together for a couple of days of food and fellowship.

You can do the math—that was roughly 50 years ago. Goodness gracious, I don’t even think that I should be 50 years old, much less 50 years from early college days.

It all started when one of my buddies lost his wife. Leesa was really one of the old Reese Hall gang, and everyone’s favorite. Unfortunately, she got Glioblastoma and died shortly after diagnosis, almost two years ago. At her funeral, a group of us decided a reunion was long overdue.

I’ve never been one much for reunions. High school reunions don’t interest me although I did join a small group of high school classmates last month for dinner back in my hometown. It was nice.

I guess part of it is that I’m not the same person I was back then. In high school, I was interested only in football and one girl. My best friend about as far back as I can remember was Ronnie McNabb and we’ve stayed close to this day.

In a culture that didn’t seem to favor higher education, I left and went off to college. And I guess I never looked back. I made friends with the most diverse bunch of people you can imagine.

Polish, Jewish, Irish, Californian, Yankee. Straight, gay, hippies, ROTC guys.  Long hair, short hair, every color imaginable. Worked for the first Pakistani I ever met. Wrestled with Freddie from Iraq. Met professors who didn’t care if you were there or not and professors that might call you if you missed class.

People from all around the globe. People with very different ideas about the world than I had, growing up in a tiny, rural town in East Tennessee.

Don’t get me wrong—I love where I grew up and loved the people. But I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I had never left.

We’ve got a lot of kids that are about to head out to college and careers, maybe the military. I would tell them all to not be afraid. Embrace the change. See the world. And keep an open mind about everything you encounter.

But keep what you picked up while you were here.

From your teachers, take the ability to learn. If a subject seems a waste of time to you, that’s OK. In learning something that you don’t like, you learn how to learn. Believe me—that will come in handy one day.

From your parents, take your character with you. Maybe you didn’t grow up in the best of circumstances. Maybe family life was hard. That’s OK. You can learn from that too. Hopefully, your parents were great role models, showing you what integrity is all about. Maybe they weren’t, and you learned how you didn’t want to be.

Learn from your coaches how to compete. And work as a team. You will be competing the rest of your life. Competing for a great job. Competing to be the best you can be. Sometimes competing just to survive. And, at some time, you will be part of a team. Maybe that team is your family. You have to learn how to work together as a family too.

It won’t be easy. You have a lot more to learn. But you are well equipped to take on the world, to live your dreams.