Grown men can say it has always been their dream to end up with the jobs they have today, but they would be lying. For anyone who has ever picked up a basketball growing up, they can attest to the fact that they eagerly waited for the day they’d be able to slam a rubber ball into a metal hoop situated 10 feet off the ground professionally. Unfortunately, for many of us, that day never comes.
These sort of dreams aren’t limited merely to basketball. Maybe it’s hitting a ball out of Fenway Park, scoring a touchdown in the Super Bowl or competing in the Olympics. The point is, there is a different level of passion met with our childhood dreams.
Apparently, there is a point in time when those passions are substituted with measly second choices. These compromises simply don’t wake people up in the morning the same way those early aspirations did.
After being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, Lou Gehrig stood in front of a crowd in the last game he ever played and said, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth… Thank you.”
Kobe Bryant is only retiring because his body is physically giving up on him. Brett Favre would still play today if a team would sign him. And although Chris Bosh had another blood clot scare, it is not a question of whether he will retire, but when he will come to play basketball again.
People with a passion for sports may have to be dragged off the court or field, but many students who wake up with the wrong mentality have to be dragged to class.
The main difference between sport dreams and other dreams can be summarized by a quote from the movie “Moneyball”: “We’re all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children’s game, we just don’t... don’t know when that’s gonna be. Some of us are told at 18, some of us are told at 40, but we’re all told.”
Although they may have been told, 40-year-old men aren’t discouraged from playing a quick pickup game no matter their ages or skill levels, which is what distinguishes sports from everything else.
The saying may get old, but it still holds true: It’s more than a game; it’s a passion.
On that note, only a very small minority would practice physics problems or read 16th-century literature when it’s not required.
There are some physical restraints to reaching dreams in sports. No matter the work ethic or ability to see with a larger vision, some of us are just never going to stand at 6-foot-8 or throw a 95-mph fastball.
The good thing is that childhoods are filled with more than just sports. Students are hopefully working toward the degree of their dreams with mere restrictions of exam scores and pesky homework.
So if career goals aren’t restricted by height or athletic prowess, why do people try harder in those fun but meaningless pickup games than in hair-pulling but necessary studying?
From the first day of walking to the last day of life, people love passions like sports. Natural expert or lifetime novice, they indulge in their passion. Even if a majority of grown men can’t dunk a basketball, there are still children in them who wish they could.
In everyone, along with physically limited dreams, there are other goals that may be tough but possible.
If people looked to write, create and help others at the same rate people play childhood games, passions would soar beyond goals.
All it takes is remembering what it felt like to pick up that basketball for the first time.
Joshua Udvardy is a UF chemical engineering freshman. His column appears on Wednesdays.
