Sports Dad

This week, my firstborn son Vincent turned 22. Begging your indulgence, I always get sentimental and reflective around this time of the year. Seeing how your children have been helped by being athletic gives you a deep satisfaction that you’re doing something right. Paradoxically, it also gives them the strength and independence to explore the world and be independent earlier than other kids. It’s been tough to let them go and trust the world, but I can’t help but be proud of them.

Strangely, it takes so little to make a parent happy. When Vincent was nine months old, he picked up his tiny basketball,  waddled over to his plywood NBA goal, dunked, and promptly tore off the little plastic rim. I can’t tell you the Jordanesque visions that went off in my head. I was through the roof with excitement. Check ‘future NBA All-Star’ off my bucket list. But I never had the heart to force him or his brother Daniel to do anything that they didn’t really want to do. Oh, well. 

Sometimes, they think that when they’re mad at you, the bridge between you is broken; they don’t comprehend that that could never possibly happen, that you, as a parent, will always be there. They sometimes don’t realize what it took to work hard and provide through the years, and how much it hurt to be away from them, just as they don’t realize that each day they choose to spend away from you is a glass sliver in your heart. And children may not realize how good they’ve had it until we’re gone, and the safety net disappears. I know what I’m talking about: in 2011 my mother died from a rare disease that caused the blood vessels in her brain to explode.

So now I have to get used to not being able to call her to say hi. I have to remember that there won’t be any more apple pie or chocolate cake or hot dog waiting for me when I ‘happen’ to drop by the house in Cubao. Hopefully my kids will realize that I won’t live forever, much as I would want to, and maybe they’ll sit down and chat with me more often. They don’t know that I used to stay up all night just to watch them breathe, and thank my lucky stars. Nowadays, it’s not cool to hang around your parents, and Dad is probably out of touch with my word, anyway. Now when I don’t see them, I’m afraid I’m the one who might stop breathing. And how do you tell them?

Sometimes, children may act as if it’s just a case of ‘what have you done for me lately’. Of course, they won’t understand that the economy flags, you may have been fired or swindled. All they see is sometimes, things are harder for them to get, and they get scared. When they get scared, it appears as if you’re not doing enough. Even though you can’t control the world, your kids have set expectations, and you’d do anything not to disappoint them. It’s like being a referee: the only time you’ve apparently done a good job is when nobody complains. They look up to us, and put us on a pedestal. So we have higher to fall. But that is one challenge of having children, mitigating their disappointment.

Before the holidays, I found my father again. I have’t seen him or heard from him since 1989. I only met him in 1988. I learned his new phone number and called him in the US. He hung up on me. Though I never met him until I was 23, he put me on the path to both sports and the media. He was a heavyweight boxer in college, and set up his own advertising agency. That’s the one thing I can thank him for. It also taught me to not have expectations and be more compassionate of my elders.

Honestly, as my boys grew up, there have been times when I’ve felt like some sort of genie, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. Food magically appears on the table; new basketball shoes and training gear show up on their beds, all the obligatory (and satisfying) Dad stuff, the hard-won ability to constantly provide even as they got bigger, ate more, wore things out, developed increasing needs. It’s also frustrating not to be able to support them the way you want to when times get rough. I wonder if they noticed all that, and ever wonder what it took to get it for them. That’s probably a question I will never know the answer to.

Ironically, it doesn’t seem to bother children to not see their parents, who are much closer to the end of the road than they are. But it’s maddening for a parent – to not be that close to watching them unfold as I used to be. And sometimes,the divide was caused by something small. Parents can forgive their children everything. Children have forgiven their parents in their own time. That’s the way of the world.

That’s why I will always be thankful for sports. It saved my life, and saved my children’s lives. I have so many beautiful memories of them growing up learning, discovering, becoming, through sports. We’ve swum together, climbed walls, run, played ball together. I’ve watched them try baseball, aikido, and a variety of other sports, and was always proud (and a referee’s worst nightmare).

Yes, I wear my heart on my sleeves for my children. Always will. And I don’t give a damn what other people say.

* * * *

Liga Dabaw, Inc. will have its first meeting on Jan. 30 at 2 p.m. at ots DCIPC Magsaysayoffice. Agenda is the election of its board of trustees, the Araw ng Dabaw Invitational Open and other matters. This is just one of the important projects of Ateneo de Davao Athletics under former Philippine Sports Commission chairman Butch Ramirez.

“One month after the Pablo disaster, Ateneo Athletics initiated a Play Therapy through varsity coaches for the survivor children,” adds Ramirez. “This is a psycho-social intervention and acts as a first-aid intervention.”

The project, given the go-signal by university president Joel Tabora, SJ, has helped close to a thousand children affected by typhoon Pablo.