Sports have always been an important part of my life. I’ve followed my hometown sports teams religiously since I was a kid, and continue to do so despite living hundreds of miles away. My family is also composed of sports fans, from the rabid (my brother) to the fair-weather (my sister). Some of my best childhood memories come from spending Sunday afternoons with my family, watching the Buffalo Bills beat our hated rivals, the Miami Dolphins.
But that’s where my involvement with sports ends — as a spectator. I never participated in team sports as a kid. Sure, I took swim lessons and sporadically played lacrosse for a few years throughout middle school and high school, but I never became an extremely involved player. For me, there was no climbing the ranks to team captain or making lifelong bonds with teammates. Part of the reason was my sheer laziness as a kid, but another reason stemmed from my parents.
A senior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase H.S. in Maryland has piqued some interest from sports media lately for not only breaking the gender barrier in the male-dominated sport of wrestling, but also defying the cultural barriers enforced by her parents. Carla Amaya’s father and mother immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador and Colombia, respectively, and both were concerned about her interest in what can be considered a violent sport where she could get injured for participating.
My parents also had hesitations when I requested to pursue lacrosse in high school, but for a different reason. My parents immigrated from Taiwan to pursue post-graduate education and to them, academics have always, and will always, come first. They allowed me to play my sophomore year, but when I entered junior year, academic obligations took center stage and my parents balked when I asked about participating again. Similar looks of shock occurred when my brother wanted to play on our high school ice hockey team.
Both Amaya’s and my parents focused on a narrow view of sports, whether it was its violence or its potential distraction, and allowed that to detract from the positive influence sports can have on teens. The lessons of hard work, camaraderie and achievement are best taught and realized through sports. It’s a rare experience, to play sports for the love of the game and to be part of something bigger, but it’s also a refreshing one.
Amaya’s dedication and passion for the sport eventually won her parents over, and they recently joined her on the wrestling floor during her Senior Night ceremony. By allowing her to take part in this experience, they’ve provided her with the foundation for future success, whether it involves wrestling or not. Unfortunately, I acquiesced to my parents’ concerns, and although I have since built a solid foundation of teamwork skills through other extracurriculars, I do sometimes wonder how things would’ve turned out differently if I were allowed to pursue sports in place of my academics. Who knows? Maybe I could’ve been accepted to Northwestern on a lacrosse scholarship. But based on my hand-eye coordination skills, probably not.