Two Stories; Giving and Taking

This is a story about two stories.  Both are typically American.  Both reflect values.  One story is about values cherished.  The other is about values gone awry.  The stories tell a story; about what is good in America and what is wrong with America.  Each story is about responsibility; accepted and denied. Both stories were on the recent nightly news and were broadcast within minutes of each other.  One story can warm the heart and bring a tear.  The other story is a groin kick that makes you wonder about the double dealing we often think pervades our society.    

U. S. Marine Jared Heine was a K-9 handler in Afghanistan.  His canine partner Spike sniffed out bombs.  Heine said of Spike, “He was like my brother, my kid. He slept with me every day like we were inseparable."

While in Afghanistan, Heine suffered a series of brain injuries and now, back home, he suffers from PTSD.  His mom Mary noticed her son’s behavioral difficulties.  She also noted that her son often talked about Spike who he hadn't seen in three years. 

"It just hit me if I could find Spike it would make a huge difference in his life," said Mary Heine.

And so through the magic of Facebook she located Spike in Virginia where he had embarked on his new career working as a police dog with Officer Laura Taylor. 

When Officer Taylor learned about Jared Heine she realized that she might have to give up her friend.

"He is more important to me than anybody can know, but we have to do what is right for the whole situation," said Taylor. 

And so, a few days ago, Spike and Jared Heine were reunited and Officer Taylor did what her heart told her was right.

"Take good care of him," Taylor told Jared Heine. "He means everything to me."

"I promise I will," answered Heine.

CBS Evening News. 

The second story has become all too common in America.  Sports gone off the rails.

A little league team of 11 and 12 year olds, Jackie Robinson West, from Chicago had its national title vacated for cheating.  No they didn't use corked bats or throw spit balls.  They weren't going into corners of the locker room and injecting each other with PED’s.  In fact the kids themselves did nothing wrong.  They went out and hustled, played good ball and did what their coaches told them to do.  It was the adults who hatched the scandal. 

It seems that Darold Butler the team manager and a district administrator, Michael Kelly were complicit in some hocus pocus with team boundaries so that the team could secure players from adjoining districts in order to build an all-star team.  After winning the national title they were feted with a parade, greeted by the President at the White House and became the leading characters in a heartwarming story of a team of black kids from Chicago’s South Side rising to a national title.  The vacated title has been awarded to the team that lost in the title game; Mountain Ridge, a team from Las Vegas.

There are no winners here; none at all.  All of the teams involved will wonder how games might have played out had the JRW team not been outfitted with ringers; yes, even the JRW team will wonder.  The Mountain Ridge team gets its title without winning it on the field and without enjoying the adulation that would have gone with it and the JRW team gets to live with the knowledge that they were screwed by the adults who they counted on to do things the right way. 

Should the title have been vacated?  Hell, I don’t know.  It’s one of those situations without a right answer.  On the one hand, you don’t reward cheating yet on the other you wonder if it’s right to shoulder the kids with a punishment for the deeds of adult jerks; and that’s what they are, jerks.  But they aren't the only jerks in sport. 

Sport itself has become a perversion in America.  We’re so obsessed with sports and with winning that the notion that sports “build character” long ago became an American fable; an athletic version of Washington and the cherry tree.  John Wooden had it right when he said, “Sports don’t build character, they reveal it.”  And that is so true when it comes to youth sports in America.

Let’s start with the notion that ESPN finds it necessary to televise the Little League World Series.  They’re children.  Can’t we just let them play without bringing international attention to their adult coaches and handlers?  The kids will go out and play but it’s the adults that will be blinded by the spotlights and do something stupid – which of course they did.  

As we've seen for decades adults have an amazing talent for fucking up youth sports whether it’s on the large stage of ESPN or a small one in Podunk, USA.  Adults just can’t seem to help themselves.  Whether it’s for the hope of getting on the coattails of a pro contract or the coveted D1 scholarship or just being able to brag at the company Christmas party adults too often manage to use children to puff themselves up.  They can’t just let kids play without blowing sport completely out of proportion.  

And why is that?  Because such a premium is put on winning and whatever profit comes from victory  Take the lionization of Vince Lombardi, the raving sideline lunatic whose most famous quote is, “Winning isn't everything, it’s the only thing.”  Lombardi treated his players (who at the time were actually underpaid) like shit, but old fools from my generation think he was a really great guy because he won.  And believe me; I've seen youth coaches take their cue from Lombardi and drive the kids in their charge mercilessly and imbue them with the notion that “winning is the only thing.” Less notable but just as appropriate is UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, "Nine out of 10 schools are cheating. The other one is in last place.”

I've seen it all personally starting with my then 7 year old daughter’s first soccer season.  A little cabal of parents got the coach (one of the dads) cashiered.  He was a kind, patient man who didn't do a damn thing wrong.  His only crime was volunteering to coach when nobody else stepped up.  He didn't know that much about soccer but at least he filled the void that avoided a team not being formed.  And so when he didn't seem up to standard the parents looked high and low for another coach and then railroaded the poor man out of his position.  And so some 7 year olds learned how to dribble the ball a little less clumsily with the collateral damage that a dad and his little girl were humiliated.  I remember sitting in the bleachers watching practice, listening to the moms behind me sharpen the dagger.  Hell hath no fury like a soccer mom who thinks her 7 year old will be the second coming of Mia Hamm.

And so now we have another Little League scandal that may just get worse before it goes away.  The attorneys are probably just now starting to climb out from under their wet rocks and a possible civil battle may commence and rage on and on.  And to make matters even worse, Jesse Jackson, who treats the race card like an AMEX and never leaves home without it has added another bit of drama with charges of racism. The kids are probably tuning up for another season, playing at catch and taking swings in the cages; moving on while the adults will keep the pot at a rolling boil.

So why two stories that are such poles apart?  Because they’re both about giving.  Or they should be.  Certainly the first story is about the unconditional gift. 

When I heard Officer Taylor’s story I was reminded of Reinhold Neibuhr’s quote, “From the viewpoint of the author of an action, unselfishness must remain the criterion of the highest morality."  Giving should be the reward unrealized.  How often do we give till it hurts?  Certainly Officer Taylor did.  She gave up her best friend to a complete stranger.  It was an act of unconditional love and of trust that the man who took Spike would do right by the act.

It’s long been my belief that the giving of time is the most valuable.  How often are we asked to volunteer only to stammer and stall and try to conjure up something that’s already on the calendar that season or that day or hell, that hour?  Time; it’s something that we don’t get back and something that takes more effort than writing a check.  Time is something we don’t get a tax break for.  That’s what youth sports are about.  Giving of time, of energy, of your talent and of the valuable lessons of your life experience (both positive and negative) that provide teaching moments for youngsters.  It isn't about giving so that in the end you can take.  Yet that's what the JRW adults did; they took. By their actions they may have taken victories from other teams; they certainly took the title away from the JRW kids; they took pride and joy from the JRW kids and they replaced it with cynicism and disappointment and they took some well deserved hope from a community and replaced it with turmoil. Just what in the hell goes through the minds of adults to actually sit down and think this sort of fraud through?  Maybe in the beginning the adults who end up failing the kids start out with the best of intentions until ego takes over. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it.  You've got to have a big time character flaw to use kids for your own self promotion. Sadly there seems to be a lot of that flaw going around.  I've personally seen it in youth coaches and in some of the coaches at the high school that my kids went to. 

Isn't it a shame to devote more of a post to the knave than the benefactor? Maybe it’s just because the beauty of the good speaks for itself and requires no enrichment.  It is rich in its own merit.  Maybe it’s because we like to spend too much time dwelling on the frauds, the lowlifes and the morally bankrupt.  The latter story carries more drama than the former.  It’s the traffic accident that we slow down to take a glimpse of.  In the end though we need stories like the Marine, the dog and the officer to cleanse ourselves of the filth.