{"id":750,"date":"2015-10-22T03:17:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-22T03:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=750"},"modified":"2015-10-22T03:23:16","modified_gmt":"2015-10-22T03:23:16","slug":"the-beauty-of-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=750","title":{"rendered":"The Beauty of Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whoever first made the statement, \u201cSticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me\u201d must have been made of steel. Because from my personal experience, words have the ability to hurt a whole lot more than anything physical could.<\/p>\n

Sportsmanship is defined as \u201can aspiration or ethos that a sport or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one\u2019s competitors.\u201d But from what I\u2019ve witnessed over the past week, from both sides of the fence, fairness, ethics, respect and fellowship all seem to be lacking from sports on many levels.\u00a0 Allow me to share some examples.<\/p>\n

I am a Cubs fan. Ok, ok, make your jokes, I\u2019ll wait\u2026but I promise that you won\u2019t come up with anything original that I haven\u2019t heard before.\u00a0 I mean seriously, I am a Cubs fan living in St. Louis, trust me when I say that some of the more personal attacks can actually hurt my feelings.\u00a0 The NLCS has been somewhat painful to watch, my Cubs going down in flames with a grandeur even the most loyal fans could not have anticipated.\u00a0 I\u2019m sitting here writing this because I can\u2019t stand the pain of watching the Mets destroy us any longer.\u00a0 However, last week, when we won the NLDS, it was glorious.\u00a0 But as is always the case with sports, there is a winner and a loser.\u00a0 After the final game of the series the other night, the kids asked if we could go up to Mobile On the Run for 50 cent slushies (there is a deal here that when the Cardinals score 6 runs, the next day you can get fountain drinks, coffee and slushies on the cheap)\u00a0 Anyway, we went up to the store, me in my Cubs shirt, Silas in his Cardinals shirt, and the cashier was teasing me, \u201cHey, we don\u2019t serve Cubs fans here!\u201d\u00a0 His teasing was light hearted, there is a difference.\u00a0 It’s a game.\u00a0 It’s supposed to be FUN!<\/p>\n

As I turned to leave with the kids, he said, \u201cActually, I hope they win it all.\u201d The man behind me, loudly and angrily said, \u201cI DON\u2019T.\u201d\u00a0 Everyone in the store was taken aback by his hostility.\u00a0 One woman said, \u201cWhy?\u201d\u00a0 He got right in my face, with my kids standing there watching, and practically spat the words on me, \u201cBecause I HATE Chicago\u201d.\u00a0 With my eyebrows raised, I made the Okay then face and we calmly left the building.\u00a0 When we got in the car, my kids asked why that man was so angry.\u00a0 I assured them it had more to do with his own life than it did with baseball. \u00a0The kids caught the tears in my eyes when the Cubs won and asked why I was crying.\u00a0 My response, \u201cBecause your Grandpa would have loved this.\u201d\u00a0 But they didn\u2019t see the tears I cried later for that man whose name I do not know, he has obviously been wounded and so he wounds.<\/p>\n

Skip forward a few days to Saturday when I got to watch my Spartans take on our biggest rival the University of Michigan wolverines. With a couple minutes left in the game, the Spartans were down by 2 with a chance to score. But they failed to convert at 4th <\/sup>down and 19, so the wolverines had the ball again.\u00a0 With only 10 seconds left their kicker, who had scored almost half of their 23 points for the day came out to punt, but the placement was wrong, UM fumbled the ball and the Spartans ran it back for a touchdown to win 23-27 with no time left on the clock.\u00a0 Despite my prediction to Brian that it was indeed possible, even I didn\u2019t really expect it to happen.\u00a0 It was a shocker to anyone watching.\u00a0 As a Spartan, I celebrated.\u00a0 As a human being, I was sad to learn that the young Australian kicker has since received death threats because of it.\u00a0 Sad.\u00a0 Just sad.\u00a0Where are the priorities?<\/p>\n

As a Spartan fan, I am used to winning. (March Madness anyone?)\u00a0 As a Cubs fan, I am used to losing.\u00a0 Sad, but true.\u00a0 As a Jacobs, I have learned to do both graciously, sportsmanship.\u00a0 And I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n

While I watched my Spartans win, and my Cubbies lose to the Mets in game 1 on Saturday, the best game I watched that day was my 10 year old\u2019s soccer game. Silas\u2019 game was great too, it ended in a tie.\u00a0 But there was something really special about Ethan\u2019s game.\u00a0 One of his best friends from school was on the other team and they played hard against each other.\u00a0 At the end of the 4-0 game, which team won is actually irrelevant, the boys found each other and Drew, the score forgotten,\u00a0immediately asked, \u201cCan Ethan come over to our house?\u201d\u00a0 Drew\u2019s dad and I worked out the details and they were off.\u00a0 Sportsmanship at it\u2019s finest.<\/p>\n

So why is it that when we grow up it becomes more acceptable, even expected, to talk smack? Especially among fans who aren\u2019t even in the lineup?\u00a0 Especially when the teasing pushes way past light hearted fun and becomes bitter and hurtful.\u00a0 The answer: It\u2019s NOT acceptable.\u00a0 If we really want our kids to remember to practice sportsmanship, we have to continue to practice it ourselves.<\/p>\n

Go on and celebrate when your team wins. Absolutely!\u00a0Cheer to your hearts content, but remember how to cross the field and shake hands with the other team.\u00a0\u00a0It’s reasonable to\u00a0feel sad when your team loses, but hang your head only for a moment and then raise it high again.\u00a0 And remember to congratulate the other team, and then try to learn something from the loss.\u00a0 Learning from our mistakes and our losses is a necessary part of life.<\/p>\n

In a press conference earlier today, that young college kicker said, \u201cPick yourself up, dust yourself off and go again. That\u2019s the beauty of sport.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, there is even beauty in losing.\u00a0 You can try again.<\/p>\n

And because of that, I will continue to love my teams. Even my Cubs.\u00a0 Being a Cubs fan is about so much more than baseball to me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about a legacy, I am a 6th<\/sup> generation Cubs fan.\u00a0 And I am more proud of being a Jacobs than I am almost anything else in my life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about loyalty, staying true through the good and the bad. Even if it\u2019s mostly bad.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about texts with my brother, my uncle, my cousins when Baez redeems himself by hitting a homerun or Schwarber hits a bomb that will remain on top of the Wrigley Field scoreboard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about learning to live in the moment and celebrate the victories we\u2019re given, because we are never guaranteed another opportunity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about learning to accept defeat. And knowing that winning isn\u2019t everything.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about being gracious in any and every situation. (If some other jerk Cubs fan has run his mouth to you, I am not responsible for his behavior, so please don\u2019t hold it against me.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about sportsmanship. One of my favorite quotes from my dad was this, \u201cDon\u2019t throw the equipment.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the equipment\u2019s fault.\u201d\u00a0 It’s also not your opponents fault.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about memories.\u00a0 So many memories. Some that make me laugh and some that make me cry.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about knowing that my 90 year old Grandma is watching the game too.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about tradition. It\u2019s about family.\u00a0 It\u2019s about hope.\u00a0 It’s about having a connection to a man that I loved dearly and I look forward to seeing again some day.<\/p>\n

My dad didn\u2019t get to see a Cubs World Series win in his lifetime. Neither did my Grandpa. \u00a0And there is a chance I won\u2019t either.\u00a0 If you want to throw your world series wins in my face or pick on my team for losing, I\u2019ll deal with that.\u00a0 But the personal attacks are the ones that bother me. You can call it \u201cteasing\u201d but putting someone down is bullying, plain and simple.\u00a0 I assure you my IQ is just fine and yeah, sometimes I am a \u201closer\u201d, but aren\u2019t we all on some occasions? I can\u2019t say that some of those things don\u2019t hurt, but I can say they still won\u2019t change who I am.\u00a0 After all is said and done, I\u2019m a Jacobs.\u00a0 And being a Cubs fan is just in my blood. I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way.<\/p>\n

And I hope that at the end of the day, or the end of the game, or the season, that Ethan gets his example of sportsmanship from me. And I really hope he doesn\u2019t grow out of that.\u00a0 Because just like that young kicker said, \u201cThat\u2019s the beauty of sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>

My cousin Chuck’s facebook post the other night. I love my family.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whoever first made the statement, \u201cSticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me\u201d must have been made of steel. Because from my personal experience, words have the ability to hurt a whole lot more than anything physical could. Sportsmanship is defined as \u201can aspiration or ethos that a sport or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-randomthoughts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-c6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=750"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":754,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750\/revisions\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}