When Sporting Events are More

It’s now into the second week of our activity reduction due to the Coronavirus that is spreading rapidly.  Diane and I are semi self quarantined in our home.  Our schedules have been emptied primarily due to the cancellations of sporting events that we anticipated would take up so much of our time this spring.  Emma’s softball games, Colton’s flag football games, and Vanderbilt baseball games…all cancelled or at least suspended for the foreseeable future.

One of the benefits of having my schedule wiped clean has been the additional time for reflection.  The loss of sporting events has hit me hard, and as I think about why, I am drawn back to the reason I write this blog in the first place.  For me, although I truly love most sporting events, the action on the field is not always “What’s Really Going On”.

Let me share with you an example: It happened on December 31, 2012.  My Vanderbilt Commodores were playing North Carolina State in The Music City Bowl. A bowl game is, in itself, an unusual happening for the Commodore faithful.  But this is what I wrote in a letter to my family after that experience.

A Time to Remember Forever…To My Family:

There are some days, some experiences that your heart places in your personal memory’s Top Ten. Most only make it there after years of reflection allow them to rise to the top. A few really special ones rush like unstoppable ocean waves to take their places there immediately. Such was The Game!

I am writing this to you to thank you for allowing me this incredibly special day…highlighted by our whole family (except little CBS) together to witness the greatest moment in VU football in my lifetime. After over forty-five years of various levels of disappointment, the experience at LP field was incredible. I know it was not the National Championship, or even a major bowl, but for me it was a sporting event like no other. Mostly because I was able to share it with all of you…with my girls and their men decked out in black and gold, even though that might not be their first choice.

But the capstone of the game and of my day was the special walk with Colton and Emma to find “candy cotton”. From the time we walked up the aisle through a parting sea of the black clad Commodore faithful, many of whom were high-fiving us and complimenting my two little Commodores in tow, I was in a special zone with my little buddies. We made it almost halfway around the stadium searching for the cotton candy man. Colton was watching everything…looking at the big screens to try to see his Daddy.

Emma was so lovingly looking out for Colton. When we could not find the cotton candy, and I stopped to line up to get popcorn for her, Colton wanted to continue the cotton candy search. Emma’s response? “Pop, I think we should go on and find the cotton candy for Colton before we get anything else.” And we did….unbelievable that one so small could be so selfless.

Then finally, after the long hike and several stops, we made the return to our seats with pizza, water, a jumbo tub of popcorn, and a super jumbo cotton candy. I am not sure how we made it back with the load. But that trip, and the love I shared with them as I held those little hands so tightly for fifteen or twenty minutes, have inextricably inscribed those memories in my heart and mind.

Forgive me for yelling too loud, if I stayed out with Emma and Colton too long, or at the game too long, or bought too much cotton candy and popcorn.

Thank you for a great memory. I love you all.

I do remember that the Commodores won the game that day. I don’t remember the score. But the memory of that event will never be forgotten, and the photos from that day will forever hang on my office wall.

Whether it’s sharing a blanket with Diane at a February Vandyboys baseball game, or making an out of state trip to watch Emma in a softball tournament, I always try to be mindful that it’s not just the sporting event that’s really going on.

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