Sports years end up flying by

“Just how old are you?” asked a student when I told the team that Joe DiMaggio was the kind of role model I felt an athlete should be.

“Never heard of him. You must be really old in sports years,” he added.

Twelve-year-olds who consume sports as their primary intellectual pursuit are very inquisitive: “Does this Joe guy have a Web page?”

Discovering how sports memory ages you can explain the disconnection many youth are having with education sports.

Measuring age in old athletic ideals may explain why I don’t understand some of today’s sports customs. Why, for example, is my grandson’s personal soccer card more important than the team card?

Today, each athlete seems to have to have his or her own personal icon. Maybe it has always been that way and I missed it. Still, all the body piercing and tattoos that symbolize today’s athletes are difficult for us old guys to understand.

Cornelius Warmerdam broke his own world pole vault at 15 feet, 73/4 inches in 1943 and I can replay his jump in San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium. He gave me a piece of the tape that wrapped his bamboo pole! I didn’t understand his Dutch words, but I knew I wanted to be a Cornelius.

Warmerdam vaulted 15 feet or higher 43 times before he retired in 1946. Today high school boys catapult over 15 feet to win state meets.

How sports-old are we? Try expressing the merits of these seasoned sports values:

The “mile” was once a track event and the four-minute mile was one of the humanly impossible barriers of athletes.

Girls played half-court basketball because full-court was too physically demanding.

Girls’ interscholastic games did not exist; competition was all intramural and boys could not be spectators.

Only girls were cheerleaders.

Boys basketball had a center jump ball after each basket.

Everybody shot free throws underhand and set shots two-handed.

Moms were silently proud or anguished at their children’s games.

Kids walked home after practices.

Student-athletes got to drive the family car only after washing it, splitting and stacking the wood, mowing the lawn, and/or washing the windows.

Washing your own uniform and socks by hand was routine, not an oddity.

Baseballs and soccer balls were leather-covered bladders. Footballs were actually called pigskins.

Coaches were teachers who volunteered to coach unpaid.

College presidents had a higher salary than college coaches.

You had to wait your turn, usually in age-order, for warm water to take a bath … on Saturday.

If you wanted warm water, you cut the wood, built a fire and waited. At school the shower water was always hot.

Listening to Leo Lassen you could see a baseball flying off a bat and going “back, back, back … boom against the wall … rolling on the grass … on his way to third … here comes the ball … ” (I’m safe!)

Joe DiMaggio was a humble hero and the devoted husband of Marilyn Monroe.

Younger brothers learned sports skills from older brothers. You played hard in pick-up games so they would choose you sooner.

A coach’s words were final and respected.

Dads were humble about their son’s special ability and accomplishments.

There were no professional games to watch so families attended the home games of our school teams.

I am proud of the girls and boys who keep improving skills and breaking records. In education sports, getting better in only sports skills is achieving only one of the benefits of school sports. There are some very important team attitudes and characteristics in the “I” approach creeping into school sports.

But at my sports age, creeping away from Joe DiMaggio (or influences of the Bill Remingtons of South Bend High School) is probably appropriate. Someone else has to run the races, jump the bar and coach the players.

After all, those players will be the coaches of the future. I guess I always wanted to be a cheerleader!

Cliff Gillies, former executive director of the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, writes weekly during the school year for The Herald. His mailing address is 7500 U.S. Highway 101, South Bend, WA 98586. His e-mail address is cliffsal@techline.com.