“Let’s have some fire!” he would shout from the sidelines, and in his zest for the game and his unwillingness to accept anything less than the best from his son, there is a message that echoes down the generations, from player to coach to ref to the ultimate sporting fan…dad. By Sean O’Connor
From the bottom of a sweaty pile-up of hairy bodies anywhere on a high school rugby field, I would still be able to hear my dad. “Let’s have some fiiiiire!” It was one of his distinctive bellows.
After several years, pretending not to hear him became easier for me. I’d worked out that my performance had no correlation to his passionate entreaties to do anything specific during play.
He was a maverick, a source of amusement and camaraderie to the other parents, a character, “one of the guys”. That’s what he wanted from the deal – a sense of belonging. That’s what he got. But I struggled to let him belong to me because of it.
That he often travelled great distances to watch me play rugby was humbling. I loved my dad immensely, he was deeply affectionate and had a phenomenal zest for life. But winning meant too much for him. “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser,” he was fond of saying, and “no-one remembers second place.” Therapy, here we come!
So I spent a great part of my youth performing well, to win his and my mother’s approval, and affection. It was a corrupt emotional economy which would do me no favours in later life, and made me confused and resentful, often undermining myself and sabotaging my best efforts. It is something I am trying to undo today.
Part of changing that is watching my own son play sport. I sense an echo of my father in me – I can be an extrovert, I have no fear of crowds. But I am introverted too. What does my son need from me?
My place is to let my son know that I love him unconditionally. That I love spending time with him, and love everything that he is. Simply shouting go, and his name, is more than enough.
Strangely, my father gave me some cues for this. He’d worked out that watching me play tennis, for example, could cause my game to fall apart – and so he would be discreet, watching from a distance, as if I couldn’t see him. I appreciated that.
I miss having him alive to help me from a distance today, too. I miss him shouting: “Let’s have some fire!” It’s great to have someone in your corner, rooting for you always. He taught me to believe in myself, and never give up.
He taught me to think deeply about how to beat the odds, and he coached me, giving me his time and his love. Considering what he meant to me, I now learn that fandom needs to be healthy and balanced. Not fanatical, as the word suggests.
As a primary school rugby coach, I got to know the parents of the boys in my team, the U10s. The ones I liked best were the quietest, the most consistent, who would offer advice when asked.
As a referee, on several occasions, I was tempted to depart the field to speak to a parent who was too vocal, whose criticism of me or the boys went too far, and give them the whistle to take over. It was a puerile impulse, and I don’t think that shaming parents is the answer. How do you get a parent to act like an adult?
Criticising the ref is easy to do, but being the ref isn’t. Being your own ref is even harder. Knowing what’s offsides and what’s on target needs practise. Sometimes we need moms and dads to help us with that, to help us judge our own performance, and celebrate the good things that happened.
We need them to help us develop our own way of understanding things like love and performance, and what winning and losing’s all about.
It’s called a game. That’s why it should be fun.
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