BIG CROWDS OF A LIFETIME

Big crowds signal over population?

Not when it’s an Olympic crowd in Paris.

Did I feel like part of the crowd watching on TV?

Yes, I did, and it felt close enough.

The viewing crowd where I was included my wife. And me.

So it was a small crowd with a few problems.

She thinks she’s not a sports fan, but she is a sports fan.

You are a sports fan if you have had two kids play season after season after season from kindergarten through graduation.

She didn’t miss a game. Call me surprised.

Did she expect to transition into a sports fan before she married to me?

What was the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat to her?

It was listening to me explain what it feels like.

It was listening to me explain the benefits of team sports like a two year old.

Maybe I was a little too much for her?

Not by a long shot. She picked things up fast and did it the right way.

As the years passed we all went from the backyard to the high school stadium, from the family room carpet to the state championship wrestling mats.

We went from gatherings of other parents in camp chairs, to the bleachers and big crowds.

It was a great run and a warm up to the rest of our lives together.

 

Before The Family Crowd Started

I’ve been on football teams, North Bend Bulldog football teams.

Back then, the early 70’s, we played every away game at Autzen Stadium at the University of Oregon.

It wasn’t the big Autzen we see today, more of a baby Autzen with a small crowd watching two schools go at it.

I’ve been on wrestling teams, North Bend Bulldog wrestling teams.

Some of the guys were sports travelers.

Our high school wrestling trips included runs to Oklahoma State in Stillwater, Colorado State in Fort Collins, and University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Wrestling was the only sport I knew that included the possibility of domestic and international travel.

Like any travel anywhere, it was a learning experience.

We stayed at the Cockroach Inn in Oklahoma with crawling bugs in the beds and winged bugs flying around the lights inside the room.

It was a motel with two sections, one on the right, one on the left, with parking in between.

The units on the right were paneled and clean; the unit on the left was stained walls and dirty.

In this case it was adults on the right, kids on the left.

We complained to the owner in the office to no avail.

He treated us like second class citizens like he’d had practice.

 

After freshman year in college I dropped out and joined the Army.

If you join the Army you can expect big crowds.

It was a lot of people in the receiving station at three in the morning listening to a sergeant’s orders to drop all drugs and weapons in the box on the way out of our first official gathering.

Who brings weapons and drugs to boot camp?

Sergeant: I’m talking to you shit-heels from LA. Put it in the box. If you don’t and we find out, you’ll be in a box.

I served two years like a draftee, but I wasn’t drafted.

I also wasn’t deployed, but getting stationed in mid-70’s Philadelphia felt like a deployment.

The highlight was being in the big crowds on July 4, 1976 listening to Gerald Ford speak from Independence Hall while on active duty.

It was a “USA, USA, USA” moment.

It was so crowded that parents held their babies over their head to avoid the crush.

 

Big Crowds Create Pressure To Do Something 

If you live a purposeful life you may find yourself one of many.

How many relatives can find Uncle Bob in that picture?

The purpose of this crowd was to drive the crowd below out of every country they occupied and back to where they belong.

And that’s what happened, but the heavy toll is still with us.

Go anywhere in Europe and you’ll meet people who were alive during WWII.

Go to London and there are people who still remember the bombs, the rockets, and the fear.

The ranks are thinning daily.

Both my in-laws were raised in England, both were in the Royal Navy during the war.

They understood what it meant to take orders, to do things you may or may not agree with but do it either way.

If you find yourself in a crowd, associated with a crowd, and you’re uncertain of their motivation, then that’s not your crowd.

If you join big crowds on your own volition, leave before things take a turn and grow out of hand.

The crowd in Jan. 6 was just such a crowd.

Check yourself before going on a raid.

What are the goals?

Who is giving the orders?

Have you trained for success?

Do you have confidence in your group?

 

The Sports Crowd Is A Good Crowd

The sports crowd is even better when you’re standing on the podium in the top spot with a gold medal.

I’m on the left side.

I will never have an Olympic moment, but this will do.

What makes it even better? My kid stood in the same place thirty-three years later.

I get a good feeling about that.

I think his grandparents would have liked it too.

My plan is to join the big crowds and little crowds for my own grandkids.

It’s already started with early soccer practice.

I show up, berate the coaches, question their decisions on playing time like Jason Tatum’s mom, and tell the kid they need to grind if they’re going to be special.

Sound fun? But it’s the opposite of what to do, the opposite of what I do.

What I do do is look for the joy the kids experience by being together.

That’s what sports are supposed to do.

Now get out there and behave yourself.

Bring the happiness, bring the joy, and bring water.

Do that and you’ll be a champion too.