My wide world of sports: four daughters teach a mother the lessons of life and sport

During prenatal classes before the birth of our first child, my husband, Mike, and I learned that children follow the nutrition habits of their father. That's unfortunate, I thought, since his food pyramid consists of just three food groups -- cheeseburgers, french fries and corn. Four daughters later, the prenatal facilitator's prediction came true.

Fortunately, to offset his bad food habit, Mike has a good habit his daughters have also followed -- fitness. Running, skiing, golfing, softball, racquetball and skiing, among other things, make his fitness menu much broader than his food menu. Sports ate his passion.

Every time I was pregnant, Mike waited with great anticipation for a son -- someone to coach, someone to play with. It never happened, but having all daughters didn't prevent him from making physical activity a central value in their lives.

Intentional fitness

What I call "intentional" fitness took hold in our home in 1982 when Mike read a newspaper story reporting that the average 13 year old in the United States could only do one pull-up. The next day he took Maggie, Casey and Molly, then 6, 4 and 2, to the local playground where he hoisted them up to the monkey bars and had them practice pull-ups. Our daughter, Jesse, born in 1985, never got an official pull-up initiation. Fitness already had a stronghold when she arrived.

Playing catch in the yard, shooting baskets in the driveway or taking a training run for a dad/daughter 5K became a normal routine for Mike and the girls. When they were old enough for community sports programs, the girls sampled them all -- t-ball, soccer, basketball -- to find out which they liked best. Swimming was the only activity I insisted on; not for their physical fitness, but for their safety, and my peace of mind, in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

In fourth grade, Molly captured the pull-up record at her elementary school. One day in the school hallway, a fifthgrade boy stopped me and asked, "Mrs. Miller, if boys are stronger than girls, how come Molly has the school record for pull-ups?" I explained that, physiologically, boys are stronger than girls but that active girls can be stronger than inactive or under-active boys.

At that time, Molly was a club gymnast and spent 15 to 20 hours a week in the gym. I'm convinced her record and my explanation shifted that boy's perception about females' physical strength and ability.

Our daughters have remained active throughout elementary school, junior high, high school, college and beyond. Their activity has affected my own. Today, I realize that everything I ever needed to know about sports, I learned from my daughters; everything I needed to know about life, I learned from sports. But it took almost 26 years to arrive at that "aha" experience.

From bleachers to biking

While Mike introduced our daughters to a myriad of activities, I offered my support from the sidelines. I had activity anxiety that grew out of running the slowest time in gym, striking out in softball and missing tee shots on the golf course. I could live without the public embarrassment. Reading and writing were my passions.

However, watching my daughters and their teammates inspired me to get active. Sitting in the bleachers, I observed their awkward movements -- not unlike my own -- that, after a season of practice and participation, were transformed into adept ability. And this gave me new insight. It was lack of expectation and opportunity while I was growing up -- not ability -- that caused my lack of dexterity.

I witnessed girls working hard to get better, not look better. Their patience and persistence paid off. I saw goals set and reset. They showed me little steps could lead to big improvement. By watching them, I redefined activity for myself.

A daily five-mile bike ride with my neighbor, Diane, soon stretched to 15 miles. It was good to have someone to bike with when I began. Not only did the social aspect of biking motivate me to get up each morning, but the fact that someone was expecting me to show up kept me biking even when I didn't feel like it.

That paralleled my daughters' experiences, too. I noticed the social aspects of sport, and the team expectation that they show up, kept the girls involved.

By the time Diane and I could no longer bike together, I was hooked. I didn't need a companion to motivate me. The activity itself was motivation enough. I began saying to myself, "Some year I'm going to go on the TRAM. ("The Ride Across Minnesota" is an annual five-day, 300-mile bike ride across Minnesota to raise funds for multiple sclerosis.) Then in 1998, a decade into biking, I announced, "I'm going on the TRAM this year."

Mike looked at me and said, "Well, I can't go."

At one time, that might have made me reconsider, but not now. I just shrugged and said, "Oh, well, I'm going anyway." He's joined me the last three years.

From activity to activism

My new understanding of the importance of activity, especially for girls, led me down a new path of activism. Although it was two decades post-Title IX when my oldest daughter, Maggie, entered high school in 1992, there were still blatant gender inequities.

She complained about the fitness test in her sophomore gym class. Girls were only allowed to do arm hangs, not pull-ups, even though qualifying for a fitness award required doing at least one pull-up. I brought her complaint to the principal at the next parents' meeting, pointing out that the rule excluded all girls from ever getting a fitness award and denied boys the choice of avoiding public embarrassment by doing arm hangs instead of pull-ups. The test was revised.

In junior high, Casey complained about the swimming unit in physical education. While boys were allowed to do freestyle races across the pool, girls were restricted to performing synchronized swim routines. The head of the physical education department explained the difference in the curriculum by saying that it was his goal to promote lifelong activity and to give students experiences to support that goal. I asked him how likely it would be for someone to go to a public pool or beach and include synchronized swimming skills as part of a workout. Synchronized swimming was dropped.

Despite my passions for reading and writing, watching my daughters and their classmates in athletics made it clear to me that, for many students, athletics was as important, and sometimes more important, than academics.

With that conviction, I took Jesse and a friend out of school early one afternoon to go to the first-ever Minnesota Girls State Hockey tournament. I thought witnessing that milestone was more important than anything they could have learned during the last two hours of a second-grade class.

When the school board made a budget proposal that would narrow the opportunity for students to participate in athletics, I wrote them a letter of protest, which read, in part:

I think many of us unintentionally diminish the value that athletics and other co-curricular activities have for area students. Perhaps it's because when we went to school they were called extra-curricular and we continue to view them as outside the curriculum. But co-curricular activities are no less important than math for many students. Each one of us takes a different journey to success and not one of us has traveled the same path. There are countless stories of students who credit their survival in school to their participation in athletics. For some students it bridges the gap that academics creates for them; for others it enhances and enriches their entire school experience.

Please consider that learning does not just happen in classrooms and find a way to preserve these activities.

They did, but the sports budget remained a concern. When Molly was in seventh grade, she quit club gymnastics to join the high school team. The difference in equipment astounded me. Floor routines at the club were performed on spring-loaded floors, which not only enhanced performance, but also protected gymnasts from injuries. The high school team used a carpet-covered wrestling mat on a cement floor. Even if a gymnast wasn't injured, the prospect of joint damage that could lead to problems later in life was daunting.

Other parents had the same concerns and we set our to raise $10,000 for equipment that would keep our daughters safe and competitive. One of the dads, a professional fund raiser, told us he would help outline a strategy, citing "story" as the most important aspect of a successful fund raiser. As a writer, I put together the story that other parents brought to local businesses and organizations to convince them to support girls' athletics. In three months we raised $12,000.

Redefining competition as competence

My aversion to sports--watching them and participating in them--was due to my aversion to competition. I didn't like it. I'm more collaborative than competitive and thought that competition was all that sports were about, until I started watching my daughters.

That's when I learned that sports were as much about competence as competition. Each team member worked hard, each developing her own skills to the fullest, to contribute what she could to her team and her own well-being.

They practiced more than they participated, and their competence, which grew our of practice, gave them the confidence to be successful participants. I learned that practice makes progress and applied that lesson to aspects of my own life. Biking practice increased my stamina; writing practice improved my style.

From fans to friends, from team to family

Despite the high-profile media coverage of "hockey parents," that sort of fanatic behavior is the exception, not the rule. There is a social dynamic that occurs in the stands and on the playing field that teaches fans and players 'alike about relationships. "Sports are a microcosm of life" is almost a cliche it's used so often. And like so many cliches; it's a concise way to sum it all up.

"The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat," coined by ABC'S Wide World of Sports, are the two ends of the sports spectrum. Teammates and parents are at both ends as well as all the places in between. They support each other through the disappointments and the disasters, and celebrate others' successes, even when they don't have their own.

I have formed friendships with other parents because, the minute we sit down in the stands together, we have something in common that creates an instant bond. When I can't be there to cheer for my daughters, I know the other parents will.

And my daughters have formed family ties with their teammates, who love each other like sisters. As a result of the loving support of their team, I've seen girls do what it takes to be successful in sports and in life - have the courage to be vulnerable, to try and to fail, knowing someone will catch them or help them up when they fall. It's the greatest lesson I've learned from them.

Mary Miller is a Twin Cities freelance writer who has a special interest in women s and girls' issues. As a member of Melpomene, she has written for the Journal, participated in the annual 5K Run/Walk and used the Institute as a resource for other articles.

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