Some of the most important friendships in my life began on a basketball court, baseball field, or inside a locker room.
More than 30 years have passed since my own high school and college playing days ended, yet many of the relationships created during those years remain among the strongest in my life.
As I watched one daughter play college volleyball and prepared for another to begin her college basketball career, I found myself thinking more about my own experience.
What really lasts after the games are over?
The wins?
The losses?
The statistics?
The trophies?
Those things certainly matter while you are playing.
But looking back now, I believe one of the greatest gifts athletics gave me was something much bigger:
Relationships.
Lifelong Bonds
It has been more than three decades since I took my final three-point shot or swung a bat in a competitive baseball game.
But I don’t have to look very far to see the impact athletics has had on virtually every part of my life.
The most important example is my wife.
During my senior year of high school, our basketball team was making a run toward the state tournament. Somewhere in the middle of all that excitement, I worked up the courage to ask Tara out.
Eventually, I asked her to prom.
She has joked that part of the initial attraction may have been the excitement of dating the senior basketball player.
I choose to believe it was entirely my charm and good looks.
Either way, basketball helped put us in the same place at the same time.
That relationship eventually became a marriage, a family, and two daughters.
It is impossible for me to measure how profoundly that decision changed my life.
A teenage basketball player asking a girl to prom didn’t seem particularly significant at the time.
Looking back, it became one of the most important decisions I ever made.
Athletics also gave me many of my closest male friendships.
In fact, friends may not be the best word.
Some of these people feel more like brothers.
Picking Up Where We Left Off
I recently spent a weekend with two former high school basketball teammates.
We don’t see one another regularly.
Months can pass without speaking.
In some cases, years.
But something remarkable happens when we are together again.
There is very little awkwardness.
No need to rebuild the relationship.
Within minutes, it feels as though we were together the previous week instead of decades earlier.
During that weekend, one former teammate whom I had not spoken with in years surprised me.
He told me he had been following my daughter Grace’s basketball career.
He had never even met her.
Yet because of the experiences he and I shared many years ago, he felt connected to what was happening in her life.
He took genuine joy in seeing her succeed.
That meant a great deal to me.
And it made me wonder:
What is it about athletics that creates relationships capable of surviving that much time and distance?
Growing Up Together
I think there are two major reasons.
First, many of these relationships are formed during some of the most formative years of our lives.
As teenagers and young adults, we are beginning to discover who we are.
We experience independence.
Success.
Failure.
Pressure.
Confidence.
Embarrassment.
Heartbreak.
Competition.
And often, we experience those things alongside the same group of teammates.
We are growing up together.
The second reason is that teammates work toward something bigger than themselves.
A team has a shared objective.
Win the game.
Win the conference.
Reach the tournament.
Win a championship.
Everyone has a role.
You depend on the person beside you.
Sometimes she succeeds.
Sometimes she fails.
Sometimes you succeed.
Sometimes you fail.
And then everyone comes back the next day and works together again.
There is something powerful about going through those experiences as a group.
You don’t simply learn about your teammates as basketball players.
You learn who they are when things become difficult.
And they learn the same thing about you.
That creates a bond.
Helping My Daughters See the Bigger Picture
Athletics has played an enormous role in our family’s life.
For many years, our calendar revolved around practices, tournaments, workouts, games, recruiting trips, and travel.
Many of our conversations involved sports.
When my daughters were younger, friends and relatives occasionally looked at our schedule and thought we were crazy.
Maybe sometimes we were.
My wife and I both competed in college athletics, so we also understood something our daughters probably could not fully appreciate when they were young:
It eventually ends.
Every athletic career has a final game.
For almost everyone, there eventually comes a day when nobody is keeping score anymore.
No coach is creating the starting lineup.
No tournament is scheduled for next weekend.
No practice begins tomorrow afternoon.
That realization changes your perspective.
Years later, I don’t spend much time thinking about how many points I scored in a particular game.
I don’t remember every win.
I certainly don’t remember every loss.
But I remember the people.
I remember teammates.
I remember bus rides.
Locker rooms.
Practices.
Jokes.
Celebrations.
Disappointments.
And the feeling of working together toward something we all cared about.
Those relationships are what survived.
Watching My Oldest Daughter Find Her People
My oldest daughter attended Presbyterian College, and one of the things that made me happiest was seeing the friendships she developed there.
I watched her become part of a group.
I saw teammates turn into close friends.
And I became increasingly convinced that several of those relationships would continue long after her final volleyball match.
That mattered to me tremendously.
Of course I wanted her to play well.
I wanted her team to win.
I wanted her college athletic experience to be successful.
But as the end of her playing career approached, those things became less important to me than knowing she had found people she could trust and relationships she could carry into adulthood.
Regardless of what happened during her final season, nobody could take those friendships away from her.
What I Hope for My Younger Daughter
As my younger daughter prepared to leave for college, I found myself hoping for something very similar.
Of course I wanted her to have a great basketball career.
I hoped she would play meaningful minutes.
I hoped her team would win.
I hoped she would experience big games and memorable moments.
But increasingly, I realized that one of my greatest hopes had nothing to do with basketball statistics.
I hoped she found her people.
I hoped she joined a program with a culture that encouraged teammates to genuinely care about one another.
I hoped she found friends who would celebrate with her when things went well and sit beside her when they didn’t.
I hoped someday—30 years later—she could meet up with former teammates and feel as though almost no time had passed.
Because I know what that feels like.
And it is one of the greatest gifts athletics gave me.
More Than Teammates
Parents naturally focus on the visible parts of youth and college sports.
Playing time.
Statistics.
Rankings.
Scholarship offers.
Wins.
Losses.
Those things can become incredibly important while we are living through them.
But perhaps we should occasionally ask our children about something else.
Who are you becoming close to?
Who makes you laugh?
Who encourages you?
Who can you trust?
Who will still answer your phone call long after basketball is over?
Those may ultimately be some of the most important questions.
A teammate today may someday become the person standing beside your child at her wedding.
The person she calls when something wonderful happens.
Or the person she calls when life becomes difficult.
Sports can create those relationships because teammates experience so much together.
They don’t merely play games together.
They grow up together.
The Real Legacy of Athletics
Ultimately, life is built around relationships.
Jobs change.
People move.
Athletic careers end.
Trophies collect dust.
Statistics become numbers in an old record book.
But people remain.
That is something I continually try to communicate to my daughters.
Put yourself around good people.
Be a good teammate.
Invest in relationships.
Celebrate other people’s success.
Be there when they struggle.
Find people who make you better and try to do the same for them.
Someday the final buzzer will sound.
The uniform will be put away.
And the game that once seemed like the most important thing in the world will become a collection of memories.
When that happens, I hope my daughters can look around and realize that some of the people standing beside them were there all along.
That may be the greatest championship sports can give us.