Ice ’n’ Go: Score in Sports and Life

2. Come Play

chapter 2 Come Play My absolutely breathtaking bicycle journey across America through canyons and over mountains brought me the thrill of freedom. Even when I was a child, my bicycle gave me the independence to venture beyond my neighborhood into other worlds. In fact, unorganized play essentially did the same thing—unwittingly teaching me about the body, relationships, courage, and creativity. My friends and I were always moving—running, jumping, biking, and playing games in the neighborhood, at parks and rec centers, and at school. We used to arrive at school early so we could play games on the playground —four square, jacks, tag, kickball, and hopscotch. We had gym class, recess, lunch with playtime, and then we went home and played outside until dinner. In the summers we were out playing all day, returning home briefly for meals. In our neighborhood we could join in any number of ball games—bounce or fly, 500, pitch-and-catch, kickball, pick-up softball—at the corner park and in church parking lots. Anyone could play, boys and girls together. Equipment was minimal. We shared bats, balls, and mitts. The position of captain was different for every game. To decide teams the captains tossed a bat into the air, barrel side down, caught it as it fell, and then we kids took turns wrapping our hands around the bat toward the knob. The one whose hand ended up on top of the knob chose first. We played by our own rules, and when conflicts did arise, most often we easily resolved them. There was always a core group. We kids fell into roles, mutually determined by age, experience, skill, and how often we showed up. We played until dinnertime. I would be upset if it was my night to do the dishes, because that meant my siblings were outside playing again before I was. After dinner we played flashlight tag, hide-and-go-seek, and chased the fireflies until mom called us in. Then she would call a second time, and we knew it Come Play 6 was not a good idea for her to have to call us a third time. I remember these days as the best of times—carefree, filled with energy and fun. Children frolicking in the pool, one of the kids mustering the courage to dive off the side for the first time, legs shaking, eyes closed, hands clenched together, and then the splash—a head pops out of the water with a look of surprise and joy. She scrambles out of the pool to do it again and again. Today we know that free play is more than fun; it is essential to our development as a balanced and healthy person. Children begin to develop physically through play that requires hand-eye coordination, movement patterns and skills, running and changing directions, jumping and landing, getting in and out of situations. Random play is a steady stream of creativity rich in imagination. Children are observant and mimic what they see. They often won’t ask how to do something—they just try to do it based on what they have seen and what works for them. They make up games, figure out rules, and many times there is no win/loss component to their activity. They combine games and come up with something totally new. They are inventing their sports, adding dimensions, and problem-solving. Using fantasy scenarios, kids imitate their heroes: “5-4-3-2-1 . . . and she scores at the buzzer for the win!” Child development expert Dr. David Elkind describes four major types of play: mastery, innovative, kinship, and therapeutic.1 He points out that these are not stages but rather are qualitative features of intellectual, social, and emotional learning that occur at the same time with fluid boundaries. Mastery play involves actions that construct concepts and skills. For example , when I was growing up, we played freeze tag. The idea was that when tagged by an opponent, you had to freeze in that position. When someone on your own team tagged you, you were unfrozen and free to move. The skills of the game involved running, stopping, changing direction, holding the same position over a period of time, and strategizing. Innovative play happens when the child alters activities, as we did with kickball in the gymnasium. The traditional way to get players out was to hit them with the ball before they reached the base. We added the option of having a fielder...