I will spare you the embarrassing details, but when I was in school, it was not uncommon for me to tease and make fun of others. It was usually behind their back, and nobody was really off limits. Most likely, this regrettable behavior and treatment of others stemmed from a lack of self-confidence on my part; I wanted to put others down so that I could feel better about myself. Unfortunately, some of this was modeled and reinforced by coaches that I played for. They probably had self-esteem issues similar to mine.
Very gradually, I have outgrown all this, and while I’m certainly not perfect, I do have a real soft place in my heart for the same type of kids I would have made fun of in the past. I now view children who have unique challenges to overcome as precious, and I want to teach my own children to stick up for those who are challenged or marginalized in any way. Somebody may have been trying to teach me the same, but I wasn’t listening back then.
So this week was a huge victory in my own family. One of my sons is in elementary school, and there is a boy in his class with a disability (we’ll call him Derek, not his real name), and I can imagine myself making fun of him if I’d been in that class thirty years ago. Knowing that, I talked with my son about how it would be great if he went out of his way to make sure that Derek always had a friend to play with at recess. After each of the first couple days of school I asked my son who Derek played with and ate lunch with.
On Monday, as I pulled into the driveway and got out of my car, my son came out of the house and began telling me about his day. Without any prompting on my part, he told me that they’d played kickball at recess and that Derek played too. Not only that, but Derek was actually pretty good at kickball. Last night, my wife told me that apparently the boys in the class have taught Derek to play four-square and that he’s become one of the guys.
Maybe all this would have happened anyway, and I’m certainly not trying to take credit for any of it. But when I think about how many years I spent ignoring or making of fun of kids who struggle through no fault of their own, and then how much different the world will look to people like Derek and my own son when we can teach our children to look out for and include others, it is a powerfully good feeling.
In book one of the Legacy Builders Series for coaches, Rod Olson writes about how one purpose of sports is to teach our children to demonstrate great character and to “champion the weak”. That one sentence, which I first read nearly five years ago, has stuck with me as my thought process has matured and developed. As coaches, we can teach our players and our own children to champion the weak, to stick up for those who have obstacles in their lives. And when children develop a sense of responsibility to look out for people who are marginalized in some way, we are helping them develop a strength of character that will dramatically change lives for the better. Of course, it works out better for those with the challenges as well, as they feel loved and valued. Win-win.