What kind of athleticism are we after?

A reorientation towards sports

Sep 10, 2024

This summer was the summer of glorious amounts of televised sports, and we partook, heavily. First, there was the Tour de France, which was intriguing enough for us to subscribe to Peacock. If you follow cycling on the Tour de France level, it would be hard not to admit this is actually the world’s most grueling popular sports competition. It is truly insane to witness the stamina, day after day, through hundreds of miles in the mountain, dive-bombing down hairpin turns, with fans dangerously up in the riders’ faces, as they carve a narrow path through often treacherous terrain. When you understand the mechanics of the race — how they work in teams, the self-sacrifice, the degree of luck (crashes, etc.), their various skills as sprinters, climbers, etc, it only seems more superhuman that these creatures of bird-like physique can conduct such a feat, let alone win it.

Next, there was the Olympics, with all its nationalistic fanfare. I grew up in a family that adored the Olympics — both winter and summer — and consumed it voraciously. As far as sports-watching traditions go, the Olympics rank far above the Super Bowl or even the World Cup in my hierarchy. The kids watched us watching hours of Olympics a day: beloved pommel horse guy, Katie Ledecky, Tom Daley the crocheting, gay, British diver, Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles, the graceful striding of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Raygun — ridiculous Raygun doing whatever it was she was doing. There are so many names that became household names for a few weeks, when the kids had name recognition for niche Olympians and all their various backstories. One could see in real time, the reverence and mythology for athletes being churned up to the highest level during this brief and enthralling moment. But, part of the portrayal makes it seem that anyone anywhere — perhaps if you just set up your super-8 camera and a DIY pole vault for your toddler — could also become the next Armand Duplantis. It’s effective and delicious propaganda of possibility.

Young Mondo Duplantis setting a world record at age 8

Next, there was the US Open, and because tennis is the sport I’m most fiendish for, and play myself, we watched a lot of matches. We checked the app multiple times a day, and the kids would see that if you made it to Round 4, you earned $325k, but if you made it to the Quarterfinals, you earned $530k. The kids found this unbelievable, this prize money — the amounts, and that playing a sport allows you to acquire it.

The kids have each only played tennis a handful of times apiece and show little proclivity for anything that requires hand-eye coordination. At her first lesson, Ada came sprinting over with a scowl 8 minutes in, angry that I hadn’t told her that tennis also involved … running, “which you know I hate.” Julian, after seeing the prize sums, declared that he, too, was planning to be a professional tennis player, “like Carlos Alcaraz.” On Sunday, at his lesson, however, he kept interrupting the instructor to talk about Rubik’s Cubes, and they ended 10 minutes early. Their general attitude towards playing competitive sports is indifference, to the degree that we still need to clarify which is soccer, which is football, and which is basketball. In social games that require motor skills, like mini golf or bocce, they cheat, rampantly, particularly Ada, but she does like thinking about her attire for the occasion.

On one day, early during the two week run where the US Open takes over Queens, I got a grounds pass, which gives you access to all matches at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center, outside of the main stadium. It’s up close that you can see how outlandish the level of skill is — the agility, the speed, the stamina, the technique — and this is for even players who don’t come close to advancing to the further level rounds. There is something truly beautiful about seeing a professional athlete performing at the highest level at close range.

Watching world no. 10 Alex DiMinaur from up close

These sporting events are the place where work ethic, skill, and the ability to perform come to a head. There’s the physical strength and the mental strength. There’s body sense, focus, luck, and x-factor. It makes sense why athletes are studied, adored, and revered. But I also can’t help but look at these athletes and see the ones who are elite but didn’t qualify, who go to the Olympics but have other full-time jobs, who chose a path for this particular set of excellence and bypassed any standard education or college. Most of these players are between 18 - 30 year olds and have been doing this day-in and day-out since they were very small children, often at the expense of everything else — which is what any highly specialized pursuit often requires. There’s almost zero route to financial stability in the aspiration to become a professional athelete (Freakonomics has a great podcast about this, Here’s Why You’re Not an Elite Athlete), and much like the gap between being Taylor Swift vs a moderately popular indie band on Spotify, the earning potential cliff is steep, with the top handful of players being payed just to show up, rich with sponsorships, and most others barely scraping by. (Think: Patrick in “Challengers.”)

Elite athletes also bypass developing other skills, like the opportunity to socialize or date people who don’t also do exactly what they do, and like the world of celebs only dating other celebs, it suddenly seems so deeply lonely to be this kind of athlete, a kind of lonely you would really never want for your child, despite the profoundly high highs you see when they’re raising the trophy or the Olympic medal is placed around their neck.

A few months ago, Anne Helen Petersen wrote a piece about “the quiet glory of aging into athleticism,” a phrase that’s stuck with me in my re-emergent life as a mid-level tennis player.

She wrote,

“How is it, at age 41, that I feel like my body can do more — and that I can take more joy in it — than ever before? I’m not faster, but I’m more resilient. I’m not doing as many overall miles, but I feel stronger. I love it more, and more feels possible. Sure, my knees are slightly more creaky, and I have to be keenly attentive to stretching and Theragunning and hydrating in a way I never was before. But exercise just generally no longer feels punitive or disciplinary. Instead, I feel something far more akin to curiosity. If part of me feels weak or tweaky, what’s struggling in other parts of my body and needs strengthening? And if I’m attentive to my body, if I’m legitimately kind to it, can it do more than I thought it could?”

Through geographic serendipity, I live near two places where I can play tennis and now play 3-4 times a week. I will admit I have a desire, at 41, and as a person who played sports continuously but at an extremely low level my entire life, to be coached and trained into the best potential athlete I could be, just to know what is even possible. This is not what is actually happening, but by sheer will, frequency, and by prioritizing tennis over many other things (cooking, reading, writing, my children, lol) for the last few months, I’ve seen myself improve dramatically. I can hit a solid cross-court short winner. I can hit a consistent down-the-line forehand passing shot. I can get deep running baseline backhands on a high bounce that I couldn’t have returned a few months ago. I can hit a slice forehand. I can play hard for 2 hours where I previously was winded after one. It’s a modest-but-tangible gain, where you see yourself become capable of things you previously weren’t, and in that is the low-key glory.

Much has been written about youth sports: what we perceive kids get from youth sports — the value of teams and collaboration, the elusive building of grit, and so on. 99.9% of kids who play sports don’t get into it to be professional, but this is still the visible reference and narrative for success, amplified and amplified. What if instead, the aspiration for athletics was actually just to know your body’s potential, and recognizing any degree of new capability, and to be able to partake in whatever physical activities enabled that. Basically, is there some way to also ingrain in our mindset of youth sports, which is so oriented towards performance and becoming elite, the conclusion that many of us seem to reach when we’re past the age where being elite ceases to be the point?

My kids enjoy a host of highly recreational activities that have proven fruitful in this regard — ice and rollerskating, learning to ride a bike, endlessly going back and forth on the monkey bars, learning how to move one’s body to walk down a crowded NYC sidewalk at a quick clip. These are arguably not “sports” in the traditional sense, but all of it is physical sensibility, and in the end, for just about all of us who will never be Olympians, ease in one’s own body seems very much like a prize.

Related to above:

The great Freakonomics episode I mentioned above: Here’s why you’re not an elite athlete
Also a reshare of this great article, “The loneliness of the low-ranked tennis player” from The Guardian by Conor Niland

Recommendations:

To eat: my unofficial breakfast club met at Thea in Ft. Greene this morning, the new-ish bakery from the restaurateurs behind Theodora, Miss Ada, etc and this mango labneh maritozzi bun was A+
To eat: Finally made it to Taqueria Ramirez last week and it’s the ideal solo sit-by-the-window-on-a-nice-day taco experience.
To make: Every recipe in Hetty McKinnon’s newsletter this week which is the kind of easy, one-pot, veggie-forward cooking I love. Also, re-upping the rec for her cookbook Tenderheart. It’s the best!
To listen: Ezra Klein and Jia Tolentino talk Cocomelon, screens, raising kids, and psychedelics.
To watch: We went to see Didi the other night, the coming-of-age film by the young, Taiwanese-American director Sean Wang, and it does such a good job of creating nostalgia for late 2000s instant messenger/early social media.
To read: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray was the kind of epic, dysfunctional family novel that I love, and is now out in paperback in the US.
To read: Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso (whose newer book Liars came out recently), who crafts perfectly cutting observational sentences that make me envious of her writing.

For the kiddos:

Ada is getting into thrifting and Parachute Brooklyn in Greenpoint has great stuff (mix of resale / vintage / new accessories) up to kids size 12. We scooped up neon vans, some gingham ballet flats, and a great tiered skirt for back-to-school.
Julian is extremely into the five-book 5 Worlds graphic novel series, which brings 3 unlikely heroes together on an epic quest to save the Five Worlds.
We are reading aloud The Wild Robot by Peter Brown in anticipation of the movie coming out at the end of the month. Firmly in the camp of “you can watch the movie after you’ve read the book” on all accounts.
Like many others, recently, we watched the original “Beetlejuice” last weekend, and the Day-o dinner scene is perfect.

Recs, pls: I need some new podcasts to listen to. I like longform interviews, book pods, any deep dives into culture, or a good serial.

Making it Work

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