Injuries are part of the risk of playing the games

My son is having surgery this week. He isn't worried or nervous about that, he told my wife and I; he's just annoyed. 

Now, we don't take surgery for granted. We do understand there's no such thing as a "simple" surgery, and there is always risk that something could go wrong. But this isn't some kind of experimental procedure, or anything; the orthopedic surgeon who will perform the operation has done it many times. We aren't overly worried about anything going wrong.

Instead, we are focused on what happens after the surgery. According to the surgeon (who we've been going to for years) the recovery period will be six months. That means he will miss the entire lacrosse season in the spring. Given the current circumstances, and the fact that, at this moment, the coronavirus still is affecting all of our lives, there is a chance the spring season in college sports may not happen, anyway. We certainly hope that isn't the case, of course, but regardless, he won't be able to play. That is what annoys him.

I don't want to lose perspective, here. This has been a tough year for all of us. COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world, sickened tens of millions, and caused countless to lose their livelihoods. Everyone has his or her own story.

But in the context of this blog, my son has his story, too. A freak injury during wrestling season ended his high school career in that sport, prematurely. And he lost his senior lacrosse season, his prom and the last three months of his senior year of high school due to the shutdown forced by COVID-19. Then, just before he went off to college, where he was supposed to play lacrosse, his school announced it was suspending its athletic program for at least two years, meaning if he wanted to play, he'd have to transfer to another school. 

And then, few weeks ago, he reinjured his shoulder. And now, he needs surgery.

In a way, the surgery -- and subsequent rehab -- has helped formalize his plans regarding transferring. Since he can't play this spring, he'll stay at his current school for one more semester and hold off on transferring until next fall. And while he will miss the spring season, he should be healthy in time to play in the Under-19 Lacrosse World Championships in the summer (he's set to play for Jamaica, the country where I was born). 

So his athletic career will go on. Injuries are part of the risk that goes along with playing sports, and sometimes, those injuries require surgery to repair them. Thankfully, we are in the position to allow him to have the operation he needs, and hopefully, his life will go back to normal afterward. In this case, there's no reason to overthink it.

Playing college sports? Make sure to put school first

One of my father's favorite sayings was, "Up to the lip, the cup can slip.'' It was what he said to warn us not to take anything for granted. He was telling us that no amount of preparation or planning was enough to safeguard us from some last-minute glitch that could derail all our plans, and work. In short, a thing is not done until it's done.

My son graduated high school this year and went to college. He was supposed to be playing lacrosse there. The school seemed like the perfect fit for him: It had a good academic reputation, lacrosse at an appropriate level where he would be able to play, and was close enough to home, but far enough away for him to feel independent. It was all good.

But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. People died. Businesses failed, and many, many people lost their jobs. Everything shut down for a time. Everything, everywhere, changed. 

My son's college lacrosse career got affected, too. Days after we signed a lease on an apartment (he was going to live off campus with a couple teammates) his school announced that, due to financial hardship as a consequence of the virus, it was forced to suspend its entire athletic program, for a minimum of two years.

So, three weeks before classes were to start, the cup was at the lip. And it slipped.

I have to say, my son handled the news quite well. The night the announcement was made he said he had no intention making a rushed, knee-jerk decision. His plan was to go to the school for a year and see how things were, he said. Maybe he would like it enough to stay, even without lacrosse. If he realized he missed the sport too much, well, then he would see about transferring to someplace where he could play, if not at the varsity level, then at the club level.

It was a mature attitude, which was nothing less than we expected from him. He has always been a problem-solver and a glass-half-full type of person. Presented with challenges, he accepts them, and works to meet them. He takes his time to research problems, figure out what went wrong and why, and takes corrective action. 

When he first got serious about setting himself up to try and play college sports, my wife and I spoke to several people who had gone through the process, so we could learn what we needed to do to help him. One of the things we heard often from parents whose children had gone on to play sports in college was they had told their kids not to go to a school just because of the sport. They all said they told their kids that the school needed to be a good fit without sports, because what would happen if, for some reason, they couldn't play sports?

We passed along the same message to our son, and he obviously heard it. Circumstances beyond his control have prevented him from playing lacrosse at the school he is attending, but he's attending classes -- almost exclusively online -- and trying to make the best of it. He does want to play again, and is actively looking to transfer. In the meantime, though, he and his teammates plan on playing lacrosse this fall in a local men's league, and right now, they hang out together and support each other. 

There's a lot more to college life than playing sports. My son gets that. 

When times are tough, sports become most important

I started writing these blog entries because I thought, as a dad who'd gone through the youth sports experience with three sports-loving kids, I had information I could share that might benefit other folks who would be going through the same stuff. And everything I wrote, I did because I thought it was a common everyday occurrence in the youth sports world, and my perspective might help someone else in some way.

But this entry is different, because it's not about something that happens to everyone, eventually, at some point in the youth sports journey. This one is just straight up venting, because I have to do something.

As I write this, the world is battling with the coronavirus pandemic. And all our lives have changed, in major, major ways. People are quarantined in their homes. Jobs have been lost, and businesses are going under. People are sick. People are dying. We don't know how long it will be before life returns to some semblance or normalcy.

And right now, I miss sports more than anything.

As a sportswriter, sports are my business, so that's part of it. But on a personal level, now that there are no games being played, I find myself truly understanding just how important sports are to our society. I turn on the television and I hear the grim news about the virus, and its spread; I hear all the daunting statistics, and the dire speculation about just how long we'll be forced to live under these "social distancing'' conditions.

And all I want is to get away from it all. I want to be able to turn on a game on television and not have to think about this awful virus for a while. But there are no games to watch that can serve as a distraction.

Look, I don't need to tell anyone just how awful things are these days. My family has it relatively good, actually. We're all home, we're all healthy, and we have food to eat and nice weather in which we can go walk around in for an hour or so to kill time.

We all believe we'll be OK -- that our social distancing efforts will help to stop the spread of the virus and we'll eventually be able to go back to our regular lives. But we also know it could be a while before that happens. And in the interim, it's going to hurt.

My three sons -- one in college, the other two in high school -- are all doing school from home now. And I find myself wishing, more than anything, that we'll get the good news soon that our kids will be able to go back to school. Most of all, I'm really hoping my two high schoolers will be able to play lacrosse this spring.

My middle son is a senior, and this will be his final chance to play sports with the kids he grew up with. He's signed to play in college, so he at least knows he'll play lacrosse again. But most of his classmates can't say the same. My heart breaks for those boys, knowing they won't get one last hurrah with their teammates before they leave to go away to college.

My youngest son is a freshman, so he's got more years to play. But losing an entire season is going to hurt him, too. And as a parent, this is the last chance I get to see two of my kids play together on a team (sort of, anyway, as one would be varsity and the other JV). I was really looking forward to that. Playing together really helped them get closer to each during football season, and I think, as brothers, it's something they really need.

It's something I really need.

The second sports heartbreak is easier to get over

I am watching, for the second time, a coach drive my son away from a sport he loves.

This time, it is basketball, a sport that my son has loved more than anything else over the last four or so years. Yesterday, he told me he doesn't like the sport at all.

I don't believe that, of course. He's 14, and his heart has been broken. Surely, it will be broken a few more times in his lifetime. He'll get over this and be fine. As a matter of fact, I'm sure he'll get over it before I will.

The story isn't special. My son isn't getting the playing time he believes he deserves on the freshman team at our high school. That's certainly not uncommon. Lots of kids, in every sport, and at all levels, think they should play more than they do. Most of them are not as good as they think they are, but sometimes the kids are right, and they really are getting screwed.

My son certainly is.

Yes, he's my son, so it's impossible for me to be objective here. I acknowledge that. But I'm not just any other loving, overprotective dad. I'm a professional sportswriter, which means my job for the last 30-plus years has centered around watching athletes perform, comparing athletes to other athletes, and making judgments based on my observations. So while I can't claim to be totally objective, my professional training and experience allows me to say, confidently, and without qualification, that my son is one of the team's better players.

In the game I saw last week, the team outscored its opponent by 11 points in the time when my son was in the game. Early in the second half, he came in with the team down 11, and when he came out, they were down by one. He came back in the fourth quarter, with the team down four, and came out about a minute later, with the team still down four, and four minutes to play. They lost the game by 12.

The next game, he played about three minutes.

To be sure, he hasn't played a mistake-free season. And he hasn't made every shot he's taken. My wife and I implored him to speak to the coach, face-to-face, and ask what he may be doing wrong, and what he needs to do better. But he's not interested. He's done the mental calculation and has decided it makes more sense to simply check out. At this point, he'll most likely finish the season, and he'll still show up to practice and work hard for the 90 minutes or whatever that he's there. He'll play tough defense when he gets in the game, because that's just who he is. And if he can cut to the basket for a backdoor layup now and again, he'll do that.

But he's no longer emotionally invested in the team. And as far as anything extra, like, "optional shooting practice,'' well, that's over.

Four years ago, it was a junior football coach who drove him away. Looking back on that, my wife and I always believed he'd return to football when he got to high school. And last fall, he did, and I've never seen him happier. He reconnected with friends he'd drifted away from, and by midseason, he was starting at receiver and defensive back on the freshman team. He ended up leading the team in receptions for the season, and his success on the field seemingly vindicated his decision to walk away from the game when he did. A good football experience made everything in his life seem better. He even started getting along with his older brother -- probably for the first time in their lives.

Now he's getting ready to walk away from a second sport. But it's easier this time. As sad, angry and confused as he was -- and my wife and I were -- the last week or so, we're already beginning to look ahead. The good thing about his current situation is that it'll be easier for him to play basketball somewhere next winter than it was to play football three years ago. Next winter, he'll play CYO basketball, or maybe he'll go back to his old club. Basketball will be fun again.

I'm looking forward to that.