A number of years ago, I recall one Full-Year All Star season in particular where my oldest daughter would often end practice in a puddled mess.
My guess is she could not have been more than 9 or 10 years old, and it certainly seemed to me that I could bank on 50% of the time of me having to peel her off the mat at the end of practice, place her in my truck, get her situated at home, tuck her in bed, and then the next morning she would be fine.
My specific case may or may not be a bit extreme and I am sure that this description resonates with any number of fellow All Star cheer parents.
So, why all the tears??
In my daughter’s case it is because she was being pushed to do things from an athletic standpoint, that were not only physically exhausting, but well beyond the realm of what she thought she could do when pushing through a workout or Full-Out at any given practice.
Although this may be more often than usual, in developing into gym ownership over the years, I certainly have seen my share of tears.
Whether it is at practice and something similar to my daughter’s situation was occurring or at a major competition where someone is extraordinarily upset because their stunt just fell, tears definitely go hand in hand with sports.
One does not have to look too far to see this be the case for virtually any sport that is shown on TV.
Sports are highly, emotionally charged.
As the casual observer, while we may only see the tears of someone who lost a major college basketball tournament game, a huge soccer match, etc., there are enormously more tears that we do not see in all of the grueling practices leading up to these moments in time.
In fact, I would even venture to say that the more passionate an athlete is about the sport they are participating in, the more a chance for the tears to come flowing at one point in time or another.
I have witnessed athletes whom many look up to and view as infallible be brought to their knees with their eyes gushing over an occurrence that happened on the floor, mat, or field.
Tears – whether happy, sad, angry, frustrated, or head over heels jubilant – are very much synonymous with all of sports.
Clearly All Star cheer is no exception.
The pain, energy, and effort that often accompanies prep for competition is challenging to put into words.
Even pushing through a routine at competition when one may not be 100% on top of their game presents its own emotional hurdles.
Tears serve as a type of tremendous physical release of all of these various emotions.
Tears can come out when we least expect it, and often do.
Although I tend to hide it, watching a performance (or a practice for that matter!) where I know an athlete has just given their all and lay exhausted can even make my eyes water!
If there ever were a negative connotation associated with tears and sports, that truly is unfortunate.
For tears serve a unique purpose and more often than not are directly attached in some way, shape, or form to how much an athlete truly cares about the sport they are participating in.