Thursday, December 16, 2010

We were skiers once, and young...

Last night I was watching “We were Soldiers” for the umpteenth time. If you haven’t watched this movie, you must. It’s a classic, embracing family, leaders, and soldiers as they navigate the emotional swamp that is combat. The central thesis of the movie is that soldiers fight and die for each other, not for the patriotic words in a speech. After the movie, my thoughts drifted to all the young athletes here at the NORAM and I saw some parallels.

Each of these kids (at age 60 they’re all kids) is enormously talented and has high aspirations. They each arise in the morning with goals and hopes and through the day do everything possible to achieve them. In the course of the day they encounter barriers such as soft snow, late start numbers, difficult course sets and uber-fast competitors that stand in the way of success. They begin the day as focused individuals, they end it as brothers. I watched from a corner of the lodge as racers came in from their first run. Some looked confident and satisfied. It was immediately apparent in others that they were disappointed with their performance. But the preponderance of athletes came in uncertain. Perhaps they’d skied well but their times didn’t reflect it. Perhaps they’d skied great, but had one mistake which yielded a disappointing result. No matter what their circumstances, I watched as this group of individual athletes buoyed and sustained each other. They listened intently to each other’s descriptions of their runs . They smiled and nodded knowingly. There were lots of self-effacing “Me too’s” rendered to sooth the wounds. By the end of lunch, as they were preparing to inspect for the second run -- they were renewed warriors heading to the next battle.

So why, in an individual sport where everyone is gunning for each other, do these guys provide each other the support to survive? Why do they invest in each other’s emotional well being and encourage each other to press on? I suspect it’s the shared experience -- the feeling that they’re the only ones that really understand each other and the pressures they face in this mentally challenging sport. It’s a great thing to watch… from a distance.

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