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.
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