An ode to my favorite athlete
Like many of you guys, I’ve been waking up the last few mornings and tuning into the Olympics as I drink my morning coffee and get the day started.
I don’t have to know the rules of the sport – though it is fun to see parallels between, say team handball and basketball – to enjoy watching it. I’m mostly just a fan of athletic competition, especially at the highest levels of sport.
This past weekend, I lost my first favorite athlete, my cousin Tim.
I’ve mentioned him on the blog before, but he played football and baseball at the University of Illinois before a minor league baseball career was cut short by injuries.
Tim made being an athlete seem cool, not just because we got to go see him in person against our local minor league team, the Kane County Cougars. It was his ability to tell stories about the life of an athlete; the camaraderie of a team, the shenanigans they got up to on road trips, and of course, brushes with greatness.
He played with and against elite athletes in both football and baseball, but always humanized them in his recollections of them. Timmy never told a story without a punchline, so he made it seem like all those guys we saw on TV were just normal dudes. Hanging out and playing sports.
After Tim’s career, all of the boys born in my family have gone on to play sports in college. I played club lacrosse at Indiana, something I’ve written about before for the way it helped me navigate one of the most tumultuous periods of my life.
Beyond that, my college teammates are my best friends to this day. Every time we see each other, we find ourselves either reminiscing on the highs and lows of our careers, or watching the newer generations take up the mantle, in awe of how they’re advancing the sport.
My younger cousin Callahan also played club sports in college, leading Ole Miss Hockey to its first and second conference titles during his time there. Like I have, he’s created lifelong relationships with the guys he’s played with through various levels of hockey. He still plays in men’s leagues to this day.
Our youngest cousin Logan is a rising junior at Saint Louis University, where he seems to just be scratching the surface of his great potential through his first two seasons on the varsity swimming team. When it’s all said and done, he could end up being the most decorated athlete in the family.
Tim wasn’t the first person to play sports in my family, but it’s hard to imagine that the rest of us would have taken our careers so far without having him as an inspiration.
Even being a backup player for a club team in college, like I was, demanded a lot of sacrifices and summers spent practicing while my non-athlete friends were not being hit with metal sticks.
This is why I can and will always be able to appreciate any sport. The stakes of any game, Olympics or not, are tied up in everything that was given up to make it to that stage.
It can be heartbreaking. I’m sure every athlete that even played high school varsity has shed a tear over their sport before. But thanks to Timmy, I know that you can appreciate sports beyond wins and losses.
There are stories, there are relationships, and there are bonds across generations all tied up in this thing we call “sports”. That’s why we tune into watch Indiana every week, and why a group of alumni was able to draw a crowd in Hinkle Arena playing against former pros.
Personally, I owe my dedication to this life of sports to my cousin Tim. He was my favorite player before I knew what a Hoosier was and will be for the rest of my life.
While we’re on the topic of Indiana, by the way, Tim said Antwaan Randle El was the best quarterback he saw in college. Better than Drew Brees.