Life Beyond the Sport
There are people in your life who have given more to your athletic career than you have ever fully acknowledged.
They didn’t compete. They didn’t get the scholarship. Their name isn’t in the box score. But without them, the athlete in this room wouldn’t be here.
Today I want to talk about those people.
Read this passage slowly.
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.
Proverbs 17:17 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
A friend loves at all times. The people who have loved you through the athletic journey — the early mornings when you were seven, the disappointments when you didn’t make the team, the seasons that went badly, the decisions that were hard — have demonstrated something that the competitive environment doesn’t always teach: that consistent, unconditional investment in another person is one of the most significant things one human being can offer another.
Your family and closest relationships have organized parts of their lives around your athletic career. Schedules adjusted, finances stretched, time invested in watching and driving and supporting and recovering and celebrating and consoling. That investment has compounded over years into something whose value is genuinely difficult to calculate.
And it’s possible that the demands of the athletic career have made you less present in those relationships than you should be. The schedule leaves little room. The mental and emotional energy that competition consumes doesn’t always leave much for the people outside the sport. And the people who love you most are often the ones who get the least of what you have.
Name them. Thank them. Not at the awards banquet as a performance — directly, personally, with their name and the specific thing they did. The investment they made deserves acknowledgment in proportion to what it actually cost them.
The people who have given most to your athletic career are often the ones who get the least of what you have. That imbalance deserves attention.
Who is one person outside this sport who has invested significantly in your athletic career? What did they give? Have you told them what it meant?
Specific and personal. The named person and the specific thing they gave is the work.
Name them. Thank them. Directly, personally, with their name and the specific thing. That’s what the investment deserves.
This devotional works especially well before a holiday break or a period when athletes will be with family. It sets the frame for how they engage with the people who have supported them.