The cost of going for gold

THIS COLUMN WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN WRITER’S BLOCK IN THE February 21, 2018 EDITION OF THE CHRONOTYPE, RICE LAKE, WISCONSIN.

Olympic gold medal winner Chloe Kim’s father quit his job to help his daughter pursue a passion for snowboarding, and it paid off. After moving to Switzerland for 2 years to train in the Alps, the 17-year-old Californian and her parents will seemingly be set for life between endorsements and the serendipitous promotion that preceded and will no doubt follow the Korean-American from her Olympic debut in PyeongChang. And during an interview afterward, she above all thanked her dad.

As a mom and coach to young athletes and a former student-athlete myself, I understand the deep dedication that takes hold in a coach and parent when your child or player presents an athletic aptitude.

Recently, my 8-year-old medaled in all of her events in a conference swim meet, achieving a goal she set at the end of last season. After a 4-day overnight swim camp last summer, she came back invigorated, and not surprisingly she wants to attend it again.

This commitment comes on the heels of a vigorous swim season with meets almost every weekend (many more than 2 hours away) coupled with her sister’s dual participation in traveler’s and middle school basketball programs with their own tournaments all over Wisconsin and Minnesota.

It’s a story so many parents tell. It’s just part of the life. My parents did it also, running me almost 2 hours in one direction twice a week in California traffic to practice club soccer, not even a game. And I thank the sport and my parents everyday for who I am.

And yet through it all, I wonder if that depth of dedication was necessary. I received a partial scholarship to play soccer at Viterbo University, at the time a Midwest Classic Conference school, not even a blip on the map as far as collegiate athletics programs go.

And of the nearly 8 million students currently participating in high school athletics in the United States, only 480,000 of them will go on to compete at NCAA schools. And of that group, only a very small fraction will realize their goal of becoming a professional or Olympic athlete.

Seems bleak for parents to possibly get their financial investment back out of their child-athlete, but that’s not really why we do it, is it?

We understand that being part of something larger than yourself and working toward a common goal is always good, always. Teams succeed and fail together and the value of group effort is reinforced every day, translating to the workplace, families and communities at large. But at what cost?

After the most recent school shooting last week that took 17 lives and rightfully reignited fury and outrage, there were many comments and articles I read that said we as a society are too busy. Our good intentions of “supporting” our youth with intense schedules might actually be etching away at the family structure and making kids feel insecure in relationships, and not necessarily secure in the success of excelling in sports or music or even school. And for those kids who don’t have that support either in family or sports, the void becomes even more pronounced.

There’s a balance to everything, and sometimes a conflict arises that makes us stop and think about the cost of carving out athletes. One of my high school soccer player’s parents was very concerned about her daughter’s chances of making the soccer team due to a family vacation that interferes with two practices and a game early in the season. She was so worried that she postponed purchasing plane tickets until she talked to the entire coaching staff.

That swim camp I mentioned earlier, directly conflicted with family vacation time this year. So where does pursuit of greatness cease and time with family become precedent again?

Someone I admire and who I have the honor of leading student-athletes with put it perfectly. The order of priorities he subscribes to is this: faith, family, school, soccer—in that order.

So when I look at the smiling picture of my third-grader draped in medals that seem too big to be around her small neck, I’m not projecting an Olympic podium in her future (and not discounting it either). I’m hoping someday for a well-balanced intrinsically motivated adult, who understands how to have fun, work hard and stand up for others amidst chasing success. And most importantly, knows how to have full, loving relationships in the process.