Finishing my final dance competition in the July before my freshman year of college, I faced a catastrophe. I didn’t know what to put on my Instagram bio. Tragic, I know.
My bio, since the beginning of my Instagram so many years ago, was “dancer, runner, and twin.” I was no longer a dancer, and my cross country career had ended the previous fall. As someone who had always been defined by the discipline and hard work of the various activities I signed up for, reaching the finish line of these parts of my life drew me to ask, “What am I?”
I remembered back to the last time I had asked this. It was the summer before 7th grade. I had recently been declined a spot on the cheer team (even though my twin with the same awkward personality and awkwardly enlarged buck teeth was allowed a spot). Later, I did not make volleyball (this didn’t come as much of a shock in retrospect since I was small and had always been terrible at any activity resembling hand-eye coordination).
Contemplating my failures, I had to learn much earlier than others that I was not special. So when my dad told me I still should try a school sport so I didn't just dance, I laughed. What sport was left? Turns out, the answer was cross country.
I joined the team two weeks before the first meet. And while that would have terrified other 7th graders who didn’t want to make a fool of themselves, I simply laughed. And I ran.
Through running I learned I was a lot tougher than I had previously thought. More importantly, I learned to work hard to beat myself every single race, instead of trying to beat everyone else (because honestly, I couldn’t beat many).
Throughout the rest of my 7th-grade season, instead of dwelling on all of my failures, I worked on everything else joining such an inclusive yet difficult sport can teach you.
I learned to not complain even though I was in two sports at the same time. I learned that being nice is something you need to work on as much, if not more, than my grades, my dance routines, my workouts, and every other aspect I was working on.
A year later I found myself receiving an award for being the “best female scholar-athlete” in my middle school. And I didn’t win it because I set records and was a phenomenal athlete; I won it because I was an average athlete and a nice person. That’s it.
The fact that I tried anyway, enjoyed myself, and always tried to be nice is the true importance of sports that seems to be forgotten for the sake of travel teams and elite practices.
Kids should never be defined by their talent in sports alone because it creates an atmosphere where kids become hostile to those who are awesome people but aren’t “talented.” Especially as children, our worth is more than what we’ve “accomplished” by how many goals we’ve scored or medals we’ve won.
While success can be an awesome addition to your ego, it doesn’t define who you were before you succeeded at anything.
After I received that eighth-grade award a “pretty girl” told me she thought that “someone popular or athletic should have gotten the award” instead of congratulating me, and all I did was laugh.
Laugh. That’s something I learned from sports. Do not take yourself too seriously. Your mediocrity is okay as long as you are improving. And most importantly, it isn’t what you do on the field that is important; it’s who you are off the field that matters to people and your future success.
Maybe talented people would say that this something only untalented people say. And maybe they’re right.
Maybe I missed out on something because I was never “great” at anything. But being “good” at something is not as important as being “great” in life. In 30 years, I'd rather have worked hard and become a nice person than won a few races or mastered a skill like a quadruple turn.
Thinking back this past summer on my middle school memories, I remembered who I was and changed my bio to my recent greatest achievement:
“This one time I ate 15 pancakes.”
Because sometimes success doesn’t mean anything, but joy and making others laugh does.
