No Risk, No Glory

Like mother, like son? We look alike, we share the same sense of humor and enjoy doing the same things. But my 11 year old dynamo is an athletic wonder the likes of which this girl surely never was. Now, we do have one more thing in common—he’s lightning fast and I was also a fast runner at his age. I remember that most glorious of all days in elementary school, Field Day. It was the relay races—my son’s favorite activity because he smokes everybody, the show-off. But at my own baton race, my three teammates wanted me to run last since you put your fastest runner last, right? I refused. There was no way I was running last because if we lost, it’d be viewed as my fault. Doesn’t matter that there are four runners on the team—if your fanny doesn’t bust through that finish line ribbon, you cost the team. I ran third instead. We won, and sure enough, the winner of the last leg got the lion's share of the spotlight. It was then that I realized that without risk, there’s no glory.

Fast or not, I didn’t play any sort of sports. In that regard, my son is the absolute opposite of me. If there’s a ball involved, count him in. Soccer, baseball, football, lacrosse…he loves it all. And he’s played it all. Well. Clearly, the hand-eye coordination gene mysteriously lacking in me managed to find its way to him.

Lacrosse is on his current agenda; it's a very aggressive, very physical sport. Chase dons pads, helmet, gloves and stamina, grabs his stick and hits the field for 60 minutes of body checking, stick checking, nonstop running, lots of hitting the ground, blood, sweat, tears and in the end, hopefully, glory.

The teams are comprised of fifth grade boys and last weekend we played the best team in the league. They have a distinct advantage of having played as a team for at least three seasons as well as being considerably bigger than our boys. I think I saw five o’clock shadows on some. It was cold, windy, and wet. We knew it'd be a tough game.

The coach put Chase in as a defender, a position he’s never played in lacrosse before. Because of his speed, he usually plays as a midfielder and is a blur running up and down the field, stealing the ball and trying to rack up goals. But I knew the coach was expecting the ball and the action to be at our end of the field a whole lot more than it wasn’t.

He was right. For 55 minutes, Chase was a defensive dervish. All 70 pounds of him was in their business every time they were on our end of the field. He stole the ball, he outran them, faked them out, attacked them. He launched himself at them and though he usually bounced off the other players who boasted such charming nicknames as Tank and Thunder, he was messing them up. They might not have hit the ground, but he threw them off balance, blocked their shots, tripped them, shoved them out of bounds. It was a tremendously hard fought game.

With only five minutes to go in a game he'd played the entire time, he stole the ball away began his trek toward midfield, picking through the muddy players as smoothly as if he were tip-toe’ing through tulips.

And then there he was: Tank.

Running full speed toward Chase, he was twice the weight and twice as angry. As Chase slowed up to consider a path around this charging bull, another of the opposing team gained on him from behind. The ensuing collision among the three is burned in my mind, a mass of tangled legs, arms, helmets, and sticks. As usual after hard hits in lacrosse, the players jumped up and scrambled after the ball that had plopped hopelessly from Chase’s net. But one player did not get up. Guess who? I’tweren’t the Tank.

I perched on the end of my chair, breath held, a voice in my head screaming: “Don’t do it. Don’t go out there. Don’t make him look like a big old baby whose mom charged the field.” Out trotted the coach who inspected the site of the injury: his ankle. After a few moments, both of them stood up and my muddy, sweaty, spectacular player walked off the field, gingerly, to a round of applause. That’s when my heart started beating again.

Turns out, Tank’s stick had delivered a nasty gash to the inside of Chase’s ankle, topped off by a bruise that only someone who weighs…oh, about what I do…could leave. The ankle smarted but I knew he’d loved that game. And afterwards, the icing on the cake: the coach highlighted two players: one, our goalie, who thwarted that team’s usual double digit scoring and held them to a mere four goals; and two, Chase, who he said played the best lacrosse game he’d ever seen any player play, ever, at this level.

I looked at Chase's face and knew that he knew what I hadn’t at that age. To get the glory, you take the risk. And man is it ever sweet.