Sports is my therapy
By
Stephen Forsha-sforsha@gmail.com
What can I say about sports that I haven't already said in the past five years?
That I love sports. Check.
That sports means more to me than most. Check.
That sports is like therapy for me. The answer is a simple yes.
OK, I haven't talked about that yet, and maybe I didn't realize it until the past six or seven months, but all I can say is I'm lucky to be able to do what I do for a living because without covering sports, especially in the past half year, I don't know how I would have handled "real life."
First off, let me say though I spend many hours away from friends and family with my job, I don't consider it work. Trust me, I've done manual labor, worked retail, picked up road kill in 95-degree weather and mowed ditches to make a couple bucks, and what I do now isn't work in the sense of my definition of work.
OK, now I am blabbering … where was I?
Well, to get back to my point, sports has been my outlet these past several months as I've learned a lot about myself, my family, death, faith and exactly who I am and what I want out of this life.
None of that hit me harder than last month when my uncle passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer's.
Not being a person who openly talks about his feelings (I don't think I do, anyway; I might, maybe I am now … who knows), I've realized watching and writing about sports was my outlet.
To some, it is just a game; to me, it can be more than just a game … at the right times.
For me, high school sports is just a game, to a certain extent. One of my biggest pet peeves is the blame game that comes with high school athletics … let's face it, nobody is going to be perfect when it comes to high school sports, so we might as well just have fun with the season because before we know it, the season will be over.
I'm getting off my soapbox now.
Now I'm back on level ground.
In the time that I realized I needed sports or sports was my "therapy," I didn't even have an idea that it was. It started during the high school basketball tournament, and little did I know all of those long drives to Athens, Waverly or wherever they had tournament games were a way for me to get my mind off "real life."
As the spring and summer seasons came and went, I hit the road for football previews, and I can't lie, a lot more was on my mind at the time, but there was football to save my days and nights.
Reporting about the football preseason and building the preview edition really allowed me to get away from things as I concentrated a few hours a day on my task at hand.
Though thinking about it now, that three-week span allowed me to get my thoughts together for what I knew what was waiting in the future at some unannounced date.
When that day arrived in late August, I didn't stay away from the high school sports scene … I looked for it. I needed to watch a game more than anything because days off and sitting around would only have made things worse. (That's just how I am wired.) As God as my witness, covering two soccer matches at Miami Trace High School (they were hosting Hillsboro) that night was the best thing I could have done that day.
Those two games (or matches, however you prefer it) allowed me the "quiet" time I needed for myself to just "relax." Trust me, I'm not one to relax when it comes to sports (in fact, I learned from my uncle it was OK to yell at my team if they deserved it), but that night was what the doctor ordered, so to speak.
Sometimes we all get a little overemotional over sporting events (that's the great thing about sports), myself included.
Sometimes that is good … sometimes it is bad, but when it is all said and done, we won't remember most of the scores, or who won or who lost.
We will remember what sports has done for us, good and bad. We'll remember what we learned from sports, and we might be even lucky enough to use lessons gained in sport and transfer them into our daily life. I have.
I still use sports as therapy … and for myself, spending a few hours a day at a football stadium, basketball gym or baseball diamond is and will always be the best cure of all.
Stephen Forsha is the sports editor of The Highland County Press. He can be reached at sforsha@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @hcpsportseditor.[[In-content Ad]]
That I love sports. Check.
That sports means more to me than most. Check.
That sports is like therapy for me. The answer is a simple yes.
OK, I haven't talked about that yet, and maybe I didn't realize it until the past six or seven months, but all I can say is I'm lucky to be able to do what I do for a living because without covering sports, especially in the past half year, I don't know how I would have handled "real life."
First off, let me say though I spend many hours away from friends and family with my job, I don't consider it work. Trust me, I've done manual labor, worked retail, picked up road kill in 95-degree weather and mowed ditches to make a couple bucks, and what I do now isn't work in the sense of my definition of work.
OK, now I am blabbering … where was I?
Well, to get back to my point, sports has been my outlet these past several months as I've learned a lot about myself, my family, death, faith and exactly who I am and what I want out of this life.
None of that hit me harder than last month when my uncle passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer's.
Not being a person who openly talks about his feelings (I don't think I do, anyway; I might, maybe I am now … who knows), I've realized watching and writing about sports was my outlet.
To some, it is just a game; to me, it can be more than just a game … at the right times.
For me, high school sports is just a game, to a certain extent. One of my biggest pet peeves is the blame game that comes with high school athletics … let's face it, nobody is going to be perfect when it comes to high school sports, so we might as well just have fun with the season because before we know it, the season will be over.
I'm getting off my soapbox now.
Now I'm back on level ground.
In the time that I realized I needed sports or sports was my "therapy," I didn't even have an idea that it was. It started during the high school basketball tournament, and little did I know all of those long drives to Athens, Waverly or wherever they had tournament games were a way for me to get my mind off "real life."
As the spring and summer seasons came and went, I hit the road for football previews, and I can't lie, a lot more was on my mind at the time, but there was football to save my days and nights.
Reporting about the football preseason and building the preview edition really allowed me to get away from things as I concentrated a few hours a day on my task at hand.
Though thinking about it now, that three-week span allowed me to get my thoughts together for what I knew what was waiting in the future at some unannounced date.
When that day arrived in late August, I didn't stay away from the high school sports scene … I looked for it. I needed to watch a game more than anything because days off and sitting around would only have made things worse. (That's just how I am wired.) As God as my witness, covering two soccer matches at Miami Trace High School (they were hosting Hillsboro) that night was the best thing I could have done that day.
Those two games (or matches, however you prefer it) allowed me the "quiet" time I needed for myself to just "relax." Trust me, I'm not one to relax when it comes to sports (in fact, I learned from my uncle it was OK to yell at my team if they deserved it), but that night was what the doctor ordered, so to speak.
Sometimes we all get a little overemotional over sporting events (that's the great thing about sports), myself included.
Sometimes that is good … sometimes it is bad, but when it is all said and done, we won't remember most of the scores, or who won or who lost.
We will remember what sports has done for us, good and bad. We'll remember what we learned from sports, and we might be even lucky enough to use lessons gained in sport and transfer them into our daily life. I have.
I still use sports as therapy … and for myself, spending a few hours a day at a football stadium, basketball gym or baseball diamond is and will always be the best cure of all.
Stephen Forsha is the sports editor of The Highland County Press. He can be reached at sforsha@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @hcpsportseditor.[[In-content Ad]]