Triumph Comes in Small Doses

Kickin’ It with Nick, September 29, 2008

Triumph in Small Doses, by Nick Lowery

When we think we have it so rough, sports teaches us lessons; but like life, only if we let it. Sharing success is one thing. We are all proud teammates and fans when our team wins, and when things go well. We jump on that bandwagon, or at least stand a mite taller if we are already on it. However, only if we permit ourselves, do we reach out to witness the parallels we share from stories of pain, tragedy and failure. Those literally hurt more. They echo more deeply in us. They touch raw nerves, and unhealed wounds.

When Tony Dungy’s 18 year old son James (who I met and played with when he was barely 3 when Tony was a Kansas City Chiefs coach) committed suicide in the midst of what could have been the Colts’ run to a Super Bowl, there was Tony Dungy thanking the Tampa Bucs Owner at the funeral, who had fired him a few years earlier, for how kind he had been to his son when he was Tampa’s coach.

Perspective. That’s what sports – and the theater of life’s stage – can help us achieve. Can we get to the balcony to view the jumbled and even bruising dance floor that usually pervades our life? Can we hear over the music what is really happening? Can we see the connections? Better still, can we see the connections to our own lives clearly enough to share them with our children, and those that might understand us better by experiencing compassion through this common drama?

Coaches are often the teachers who best make those painful lessons more plain. I spoke with Valley Center Athletic Director and Cross Country coach Mike Cummings about the darker side of the sports stage. Darker stories bring light to tragic outcomes for young people who need to be prepared to meet the tough times, Cumming said. Tampa Bay Bucs kicker Matt Bryant’s infant son Tryson died in his sleep this week; Bryant flew to Texas to bury his son Friday. He flew back Saturday night in time to play in Sunday’s game. After kicking 3 field goals and the game-winner yesterday, he said, "I wanted to go out there and honor Tryson’s name…I didn’t think it was very fair for his life to end so short."

As David Whitley of the Orlando Sentinel said, “Unfair is having a ref blow a call that cost your team a game. Tragic is going in to kiss your baby good morning and finding he won’t move.”

Sports is teaching kids how to win on a daily basis, said Cummings. “It teaches us that the lessons come through life’s struggles. I teach math, and I often say to my students that the mistakes always happen; its those who struggle through the mistakes that get better….My daughter Rebecca, seven, who I coach in Pee Wee soccer, thought I was mad because she didn’t score this week like she did last week. I told her – you didn’t run as hard as you did last week…if you give your best, it doesn’t matter if you score.”
So there was Matt Bryant, knowing he had to honor his son Tryson because “it’s not fair for his life to end so short.” And the rest of us can feel for him knowing that the worst of days can be re-written by the gentle tug of a little hand or the smallest smile. “I don’t know if we can ever be successful unless we learn to overcome our fear of failure.” Said Cummings. How about overcome our fear of the pain of life?

Because it will come sooner, or later. Ever the coach, Mike Cummings boiled it down to terms we might shy from but understand when the light is not so bright.
“I tell my Cross Crountry runners, it’s who is willing to hurt longer than the other.” Triumph for us, and for Matt Bryant, sometimes comes in short and overwhelming doses.

And I am not talking about penicillin.