When the Reunion Gets Complicated

That game brought up some things.

Maybe it was seeing them again and realizing you miss it. Maybe it was old resentments that the competition surfaced in ways you weren’t expecting. Maybe the result — winning or losing — felt more loaded than a normal game because of what it meant in the context of the history.

Whatever came up, it’s worth sitting with rather than just moving past it.

Read this passage slowly.

Let that sit for a second before you move.

Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. The instruction has a time component — don’t let the emotional residue of the conflict sit unaddressed indefinitely. It festers. It becomes more entrenched. What was a feeling that deserved honest attention becomes a story that hardens into a position.

The emotional complexity of facing a former team often surfaces things that need attention beyond the game itself. Old wounds that weren’t fully healed. Relationships that ended badly or ambiguously and never got the direct conversation they deserved. A sense of how things went that has been carrying without ever being examined honestly.

This is not primarily a team matter — it’s a personal one. The work is to name what the game surfaced honestly, to yourself first and then to the appropriate person if the situation calls for it. Not in the heat of the post-game, but when you can be honest without being reactive.

What came up today that deserves more honest attention than just moving on? That question is worth sitting with. And if there’s a conversation that needs to happen — with a former teammate, a former coach, a person from that chapter of your life — the sun is not going to wait forever.

Personal and private. Give athletes space for private reflection. Don’t require public disclosure of specific relationships.