Just like swiping right for a person you don’t know. Would you swipe right for sport even though you know the highs and lows that it brings? It makes you think, doesn’t it?
Have you ever took a step back and thought what is it you love about sport and the relationship you have made with it? Why did you swipe right in the first place? Maybe it’s simply just the taking part or is it a good and safe environment for you, where you can feel at home or is it for the pride? The friendships that can last a lifetime? A way of money? Or is it the drug that is competition?
Is it all worth it though? Just on Sunday we saw the heartache and heartfelt emotions of the Irish rugby team as they fell short to the powerful pumas on a day where the hopes of a nation fell into the arms of 22 players in green. They were striving to take themselves and a nation to a place we had never been before. It just wasn’t meant to be! History repeated itself in the cruellest of ways. Sport swiped left and felt no remorse!
Sitting in the stands that day, were the men who had already fallen short before the final hurdle, be it through injury or human impulse that resulted in non-sportsmanship like behaviour from a game previous. To us as spectators that was ok, we still had every chance of entering unknown territory. No team involves just the starting numbers, there is a squad and group of staff members in the background no one sees. Just like the commitment of two people, it is the things in the background, the things people outside your relationship don’t see that holds it all together. To the players restricted to the stand who knew what goes on in the background, I’m sure the pain was running raw through their veins as they watched every play unfold.
These players’ lives have revolved around this rugby world cup for the last two years at least. The real hard work has been put in in the last three months before the competition commenced, but I’m sure if you were to ask any of those players, when it mentally started for them they would reply with a different answer. For some it could have started the minute the previous world cup finished. It wasn’t from an impulse liking that they swiped right. They stopped and judged the picture for a while before making the ultimate decision.
One has to respect sport and understand that sport is not just a physical rollercoaster it is an enormous emotional and mental tornado also. It doesn’t stop at the final whistle, like a lot of non-playing supporters may think. Do you really think the players of Sundays match are on their way home now thinking of their first meal? I beg to differ. Their mind will be spinning with questions that will mainly start with the words “What if?” What if I hadn’t given away that free, or if I had of found touch from that penalty, or what if that line out had of worked? The questions will be endless and will probably never really leave them, its more they learn how to deal with them overtime.
What if we hadn’t of swiped right to sport?
This has made the idea of playing sport very dull and bleak but this is not my intention. My intention is to show you, that just like tinder you can swipe right but it won’t always be plan sailing, but how do you overcome the obstacles and move forward to make memories you want to keep.
Parents may now think, well why would I put my child through such emotion and hurt, it’s off to the local ballet school they go, but in the future it will be the child who will make the ultimate decision of swiping left or right to the thing that catches there attention the most.
I could have written this and explained all the benefits of sport and how great it is for people, be it the psychological, physical or mental benefits, but you have to be realistic just like in life. The fact is that sport doesn’t always stick to its side of the relationship agreement. It will give you challenges that sometimes seem unreachable. It will more than once in any season make you ask yourself the question of why I am doing this. Take a moment and think back to the last time you asked yourself this. Now think of the feeling you felt next when things started going right again and your sport started giving you back what you were giving to it. Kind of makes the swipe right worthwhile don’t you think?
So would you still swipe right for sport?
Author: Susan Shirley - 4th year BB (Hons) in Recreation and Sport Management student.