Sports became the barometer of competition in our community. I was athletic but not as good at sports as some of the other boys in the school. We played sports in one of three places. One was our neighborhood and another was a new sports facility that was built in our small community, The Fellowship House. It is still there today. When competing for our school, we used a field that was off site.
The town in which I lived was ingrained with all sports. It really didn’t matter how bad or good one was. Sports were a platform for my friends and I to meet. I was aware that I was not as good as some of my peers were at a particular sport, but it didn’t bother me. However, the older I got, the more competitive I became.
For me it was a time of innocence, we played sports for pure fun, something that has changed in our culture. Today parents scream from the sidelines of their son or daughter’s little league or grade school soccer games where winning becomes the dominant reason for a game. I later became like many who favor the opportunity to win. To me, competition is an indicator that you have left the Garden of Eden, where innocence reigns; outside the Garden, it is survival of the fittest.
An example of the importance of sports can be found in an exchange that I had with my recently deceased friend, Dr. John Kelly, who became a professor and consultant at Villanova University. The way competitions were arranged in Conshohocken often put the public school students, of which I was one, against our parochial school peers like John. I felt like I competed against him all of my young life sometimes at the Fellowship House which contained a basketball court where some legendary players have played in various tournaments. There were times when I felt that this location was misnamed as the competitions had nothing to do with fellowship as much as they did with the seriousness of purpose of going to war. Once we left the court or field we became good friends again, but not a moment before. I think that must be the way of most communities, whether blue collar or not.
Years ago when I lost track of John, I was walking down a hallway in a hospital. I saw someone with a beard walking toward me with a smile on his face. It was clear that he knew who I was, but I couldn’t put a face with a name until he looked at me and said, “Jim Squire, left handed jump shot.” I immediately recognized John’s voice, but I could not think fast enough to reply, “John Kelly, deadly three pointer!”
We embraced, caught up with what we were doing in life, discussed our families, talked about the good old days and were reminded that perhaps sports really is a universal language. How did we both remember our signature shots after all those years that we didn’t encounter each other?
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