Thinking Out Loud: The year in review, 2019

Part of the reason that I decided to start this podcast and blog is because I’ve noticed for a long time that the focus of most of our sports coverage around the world is focused heavily on wins and losses and competition and less on the type of stories that I’ve always felt are the true power of athletics. While I certainly love sports in all its forms and never shy away from competition myself, I’d like to focus mainly on the bigger picture of sports and how they can play such a powerful role in the lives of people all over the world. We will focus heavily on the impact that sport can have on our youth, but the premise of this blog is that sports are much more than wins and losses. It’s about bringing people together for a greater cause and allowing people to connect in meaningful ways that go far beyond our sidelines. We plan on writing articles that help support youth athletes, coaches, and athletic administrators; while providing the public with stories and information that talk about sports in a different way.

I wanted to start off this blog by sharing an example of an article that kind of exemplifies what I’m talking about. It's a nice recap and shares some of the stories that so many people (including myself) followed this past year. The problem, in my mind, is that it focuses so much on the wins and losses of it all and the competitive side of athletics. I cheer on my favorite team and athlete as much, if not more, than the next person and believe strongly in competition and working to improve as an athlete (and person); but the article is titled “best sports moments of 2019” and that is where I tend to differ in how I interpret that wording. To me, the “best” moment wasn’t the Nationals winning the world series, it was the fact that the teams' success helped bring people in the Washington D.C. community together.

Simone Biles, an incredible athlete and wonderful ambassador for her sport and for young girls all over the world, is no doubt a wonderful story from 2019 (and of course before that as well) and should be celebrated and admired, but should we focus mainly on her domination or should we look at the fact that she inspired people and brought them together to believe in something bigger? The hard work, perseverance, and dedication that it took to get to where she is at is absolutely inspiring and the success she has found is a result of those things; but is her personal and team victories what the focus should be on or is it what those victories represent and what they inspire? If she hadn’t been as dominant, would she not be one the “best sports moments of 2019”? I think she still would be because of the impact she had through the simple act of competing and how she carries herself. Now, many will argue that winning reaches more people, thus allowing for a greater impact and could point to numerous moments in time where winning helped spur specific popularity of the successful sport, i.e. soccer after the USWNT won the World Cup in 1999 on U.S. soil. While that certainly helped and was an incredible moment, I think we’ve been conditioned as a society to focus on the wins and losses vs. the process and I truly believe that the popularity of the sport would still have increased if they hadn’t won; just maybe not as quickly.

Through this podcast and blog, we will explore that belief and have discussions around this idea that the power of sports lies outside of wins and losses. Our view here at BOS is that while we certainly celebrate the incredible accomplishments of amazing individuals and teams, the most powerful aspect of those successes is the impact they can have on our communities. To me, the best moment from Simone Biles’ domination at the world championships is that she has helped inspire youth all over the world to dream big, work hard, and follow their passions. Sport has the ability to do that in ways that so many other things don’t and we seek to celebrate that ability in the work we do in our blog and the conversations we have on our podcast.

While we will certainly celebrate the victories and discuss the losses, we will be focusing the majority of our efforts on the bigger picture of sports and we look forward to engaging in positive dialogue and conversation with the global audience that sport impacts. We are inspired by athletes such as Simone Biles and her success is well deserved and should be celebrated, but what excited me more is the next generation of gymnasts, basketball and soccer players, and positive citizens that her success has no doubt helped inspire.

As an aside, these “feel good” articles are not new and our obsession with winning and losing has permeated our sports culture. The perseverance that Andre Ingram must have had to make it to the NBA after 10 years in the “minor” leagues is beyond inspiring, but is a feel good story of 2018 really the Cleveland Browns “turning a corner”? Maybe for their fans, yes it is- but as we move forward into 2020, we would like to focus more on the Andre Ingrams of the world and the impact that story can have in our communities.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to engaging with all of you in 2020 and beyond!