The Beauty of Sport

I don't know where I'd be without sports. I love all aspects of it, from competing, to officiating, to spectating, to coaching, etc. some might even say I'm obsessed. Now, it's very hard to be a Canucks fan living in Ontario, especially without cable. Or a good team... But anyway, that's not even my favourite team.

I absolutely LOVE following our national teams in all sports, and not just during the Olympics. The one I've followed closest thee last couple years is tennis. The men made it to the Davis cup semifinals, and the women were promoted to world group II of the Fed cup. And I don't mean to brag, but I know who Vasek Pospisil was before he beat Isner in the Rogers Cup. I made sports my life when I was younger, and now they comsume me.

I am also a referee, for soccer, and now futsal. It's a lot of pressure, especially at the higher levels, but I love it. I'm not the best soccer player, but reffing allows me to stay involved, and in my eyes, when I officiate a youth game, I am helping train the national team of the future. At that level, the referee is a teacher of the game as well as an enforcer. Oh, and before you try to tell me that the chances of one of the players I ref making the national team, I'll just tell you that it's already happened. Junior national team, but she'll be a start in a few years if she keeps up the way she's going. 

And then there's coaching. All my coaching experience so far has been with volleyball, when I coached a grade 8 team, and now helping with the video analysis at UW. With the younger kids, I really challenged myself to remember all the skills I learned. I mean, I know how to do all the motions, but I don't have to think about it anymore because I've done it so often. To go from setting full time on my high school team to teaching 13 year olds how to hold their hands when they pass a ball was a big jump, and an awesome challenge. I reminded myself of some of the subtleties, and bad habits that I had picked up, so as I was teaching, I was also relearning. Correcting my faults. Clearly I'm not perfect, but I believe I'm a Bette player because of it. 

I think what I'm trying to get at here is that if you want to truly be one of the elite in your sport, it really helps to be involved at all levels. Take a reffing course, follow a professional team, coach a youth team. Even play other sports. It all helps. Not to mention you can get some awesome scholarships! I'm not sure how to bring this to an eloquent end, so I'm just going to stop talking right here.