back to top11 Comments to “Sports: … with Dad”

1. BY mumsee 06.14.08 AT 9:35 AM

   Does backpacking count as a sport? Backpacking with dad and brothers every summer for a week.

   Tennis as a family every Sunday morning when weather permitted. The rare trip afterward to A&W for a mug of root beer brought to the car window. Anytime with dad was/is very special.

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2. BY Kristin Chapman 06.14.08 AT 9:47 AM

   My dad affectionately called me sports-challenged, but tennis was one sport we could enjoy together. We spent many Saturday mornings at the tennis court–always stopping by the corner donut shop on our way home. Good memories!

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3. BY Sawgunner 06.14.08 AT 10:04 AM

   How sad that a man who loved his own father enough to write the splendid memoir “Big Russ and Me” will not be with his son Luke this father’s day.
   RIP, Tim Russert

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4. BY kBells 06.14.08 AT 10:15 AM

   I was going to ask if camping counted. We used to spend our vacations at camp grounds as we visistied every battleground, fort and old house in a particularly area. I got my love of history from my Dad. It took me a long time after he died to stop picking up the phone to call him every time I saw a cool historical documentary on TV. He would have loved the History Channel.

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5. BY michelle 06.14.08 AT 11:31 AM

   My dad took a whiffle ball and bat and three ragtag kids. We played “baseball” in the tiny front lawn–a home run (always hit by dad) was when the holey ball made it all the way to the street. We even played when the uncles came to visit and the excitement made us spin in circles on the scruffy grass. (Which didn’t help our batting).

   Years later I brought a whiffle ball and bat to a wardroom party. Even seasoned nuclear sub officers took to the simple game in yet another tiny front yard with several kids, including my own boys. Their dad hit the home run that day.

   My adorable grandson will be moving in soon . . . maybe it’s time for another plastic bat and ball.

   Thanks for the memory. Sitting here this morning, I can feel the exhilaration course through my legs–which want to jump and dance. It’s my turn to pitch and dad’s up to bat.

   But it’s hard to see the post through the tears–Dad’s been gone six years.

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6. BY krm 06.14.08 AT 2:51 PM

   My dad taught me to play hockey. Not just the basic fundmentals and mechanics of the sport, but the associated disciplines and mental attitudes and skills needed to excel at it.

   The things that have really done me good in gettting ahead in the “real world” consisted more of the things I learned from him in hockey than anything I learned in school. SOme of the most important things were the things I learned from him that ‘unlearned’ me things I had learned in school.

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7. BY Pauline 06.14.08 AT 3:15 PM

   The only sports matches I remember watching with my father were at the yearly “Kingswood Day” at the private high school he had graduated from. I didn’t understand the rules behind either soccer or football, but I loved going because I always got a hot dog, chips, and an ice cream sandwich. Plus they had movies (Looney Toons cartoons) for the kids.

   I told in a thread earlier this week about climbing Mt. Katahdin with my father. At the time I found it so difficult and so scary (on Knife Edge, where there was nothing but your own hands and feet and balance to keep you from falling – and my father had told me the statistics about climbers who died there, though that was generally in bad weather) that I didn’t want to ever do anything like that again. But now it is a very fond memory.

   He took us (my sister and me – though she didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I did, I think) hiking on trails around Connecticut and Massachusetts quite a bit. I don’t remember if we got lost often, but my clearest memories are of the times we did, trying to find our way back to the car in the dark, or emerging from the trail to the road miles from where we left the car. One such time it had started raining, and my father put out his thumb to try to get a ride. I was very surprised, because I knew you weren’t supposed to hitchhike. But when someone did stop and give us a ride, I certainly appreciated it.

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8. BY opinionated teen 06.14.08 AT 7:31 PM

   My dad plays softball with the church team, and some of my favorite memories are sitting out on the bleachers watching him play. “Hit it out of the park, Papa!”

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9. BY Cheryl D. 06.14.08 AT 9:29 PM

   I just tried to post the most brilliant post of the thread, but was told I had to be logged in. Sigh. OK, I’ll start over.

   We weren’t really a sports family, though I have five brothers. Dad had little to no interest, I think. We did go camping (which I hated), hiking (which I enjoyed), and biking–probably my favorite, the family bike rides. We went from time to time to try to fly a kite, but I don’t think we ever succeeded. Nor do I think Dad ever caught a fish in my lifetime, though he tried a few times.

   We went to one and only one ball game that I recall. I don’t know who was playing (though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t professionals), or how we got the tickets, or why we went. But it was a baseball game, and what I most remember is this: At some point in the game, everyone stood and proved they were as bored as I was by singing a song I’d never heard before: “Take me out of the ball game.” Once I caught on to the words and the tune, I sang along, though I did wonder why our family and all the other bored people didn’t simply go home.

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10. BY donna j 06.14.08 AT 11:59 PM

    My dad taught me to play baseball. Except I was a GIRL and girls didn’t really do those things so much when I was growing up before the Title IX days.

    I’ll never forget my mom’s horror when my father walked in the front door one Saturday morning carrying a big, mysterious shopping bag. Inside was the baseball glove I’d seen several weeks earlier in the local sporting goods store. Mom = NOT happy. Me? I think I literally shrieked when he pulled the burnished, red-brown leather glove out of the bag.

    It all led to many happy times together with my dad playing catch in the backyard, taking in a Dodger or Angel game from time to time (the “cheap” seats in the outfield). Every weekend, we’d check the baseball standings together in the morning newspaper. I absolutely loved baseball.

    Alas, it all came to a rather abrupt end when I turned 12 and the Beatles arrived on the U.S. scene, catapulting me into teenage girl weirdness.

    But I’ll always cherish those days of playing ball in the backyard with my dad.

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11. BY Peter L 06.15.08 AT 5:20 PM

    My dad was not into sports. We did a lot of hiking though. He loved hiking so much he still does it in his 80s!

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