Life is risky business, always has been, always will be
I am one of those baby boomers, born in 1952. We were the first kids to see television on a regular basis, small portable radios were cheap and plentiful, and we were young when rock and roll began to dominate the air waves.
We did a lot of things that would horrify the average parent today. We rode bikes without helmets, we rode in the back of pickups, never saw or used a bottle of sun screen, and we often drank water out of a water hose laying in the back yard. We climbed way up into the top of tall trees to build something, and we often left home on a summer morning and were gone all day but since we were back by dark, it was always OK.
Not that I am advocating for any of the above to be the norm today, but I am mentioning it as a way to demonstrate that life is a risky business, always has been, always will be.
It is knowing when the risks are greater than the freedom gained from such an activity that one might need to change things.
When I was a kid, none of the above activities ever led to a crisis or disaster, at least in my community. Today, those activities are riskier due to the change in demographics (the people living among us) and decline in overall physical fitness among people of all ages.
Sports were also riskier in those days. I played little league baseball without helmets, and the football little league helmets were not nearly as protective as today. I have swollen knuckles today from not being taught the right way to catch a basketball pass. You jam enough fingers, and you will figure it out, the hard way.
Now it is 2020, and kids are much safer though not nearly as fit. We have better equipment for kids, better facilities, better coaching and better ancillary staff to safeguard kids’ health, especially in the upper school grades. However, there is still risk. There will always be risk.
Chicago hospitals did a study years ago and discovered that nearly half the kids brought into the emergency room for being hurt in an accident, were involved in sports related accidents. A big one was eye injuries from baseballs hitting kids’ faces. Other than resorting to using Nerf balls, that’s a risk that will always be there.
In addition to head injuries like the aforementioned, kids get hurt from collisions in the contact sports, they get injuries from overusing muscle groups, and the scariest one is the concussions that can occur in any contact sport. The scary part is not the first concussion. The scary part is the second concussion if you haven’t healed from the first one, which compounds the first.
Youths have a risk from damaging growth plates from lifting weights too heavy for their skeletal structure to manage safely. Of course, anyone who has a poor diet is at risk for injuries. Calcium is needed by muscles to work, and if the diet doesn’t provide said calcium, the body takes it from the bones, elevating the risk of bone breakage.
Whew — with all the risk — are sports worth it? Well — yeah!
It is all about weighing the risk versus benefit. Kids would be “safer” if we wrapped them in Charmin and kept them in their rooms except for feeding and bathroom breaks. However, that would make them weak, sluggish and it would eventually shorten their life span.
I had a student in my PE (physical education) class in Batesville years ago who was not overweight but who was exceptionally weak. He came to school, then sat down on a bench to read until the bell, then did the same for all his recess periods. I got to meet his mom, and I inquired what activities her son did at home. He watched TV, read books, or sat in front of his computer.
In PE class, he just kind of stood there, couldn’t do a single sit up or pull up or even stretch. We had a half mile test where the students just had to go two laps. I encouraged them to do their best, and not to worry about the clock. This particular boy walked the two laps in in just over 20 minutes. Shockingly, he had a heart rate of 160 beats a minute, the highest of the group after a five-minute rest. The kids who ran the whole way got their beats up to 180 at the finish but they quickly dropped below 100 when they stopped for 5 minutes.
He was so physically unfit, he could barely move his body. I encouraged his mother to help with getting him an exercise program in place to get his strength up. She responded by forbidding the school to exercise him at all, believing his weakness would be something he would outgrow. Now that is risky behavior.
Sports, while a little risky for the unprepared or poorly led, is a boon for the development of young people in their interpersonal relationships, their experiences with teamwork, and the huge health benefits that participating entails.
Modern society abhors risk.
However, if there weren’t those willing to risk something, there would have never been a United States of America. Risk taking led to Americans being the difference in two world wars, and risk taking was involved with sending a man to the moon. Free markets always involve economic risk, which is the price of freedom.
It is risky to get up in the morning and head out the door. While there may be a big down turn lately of the heading-out-the-door, the crazy times we are all living through now will pass, on to a different risk. Life is a risky business.
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Editor’s note: John McGee, an award-winning columnist, sports writer and art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, writes a regular sports column for The Times. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@nwadg.com.