Learning Values That Define A Lifetime From the Olympics

Watching the 2010 Winter Olympic closing ceremonies last night amid all of the pomp and circumstance, it seemed to me that the crowd and the athletes were walking a little lighter and smiling a bit wider. It was as though the entire stadium took a collective deep breath and began to relax, celebrate being there, and truly soak up the history, spirit and honor that is the Olympic games.

As we watched in awe of the young men and women athletes making their marks on the world stages of their sports, I couldn't help but notice how many teachable moments occured while watching the Olympics and I wondered what the future holds for Li'l Boo. Where will his athletic interests and strengths lie? Will he take to hockey? Or skiing?

Will I have the patience and strength to support his competitive drive, the decisions he may make and the performances he may give as an athlete? How will I know if it is worth sacrificing other aspects of my life (career, financial investment, other kids, etc.) to support him in pursuing his dreams?

On Friday I had the opportunity to speak with world snowboarding athlete and Vicks Olympic spokesperson Lindsey Jacobellis about her Olympic experiences and the support she has drawn from her family along the way. She's celebrated wins and rebounded from mishaps on the world stage, and when I asked her how her family has supported her through the ups and downs, she said it began when she was a young girl.

Her family enouraged her to join team sports and play anything she expressed a passion for as a child, like t-ball and lacrosse. After those early few strike-outs or losses, she said her parents were there to point her in the right direction. "When you're little, when you strike out playing softball, that's when your parents are there to help you move on: to tell you that it's just a game, to ask you what you learned from it. At an early age, they helped me to overcome any times that I've had upset in the sport or haven't gotten the type of result that I wanted to."

As an adult, she pulls from the foundation her family set years ago, yet hears messages from her coaches now too to put things into perspective. After the last Olympics, her coaches were telling her "this doesn't define you as a rider because you're an amazing rider. You just have to move past it." She's done that over and over again and said "it shows I still have a passion for the sport and I don't want to stop and I have fun doing it with my family and friends." Lindsey also said that she's "going to keep snowboarding until my body says its not happening anymore."

Personally, I see sports as necessary to setting the foundation for teamwork, goal-setting, achievement, learning that you don't always get what you want, sportsmanship and of course, personal fitness for a lifetime of good habits and values. For children (sheesh - even for young adults!) it can be difficult to move past a loss, unmet goal, or sideline criticism - not just in sports, but in everyday work or life.

As parents our instinct is to want to eliminate disappointments and hurt from our children's lives, but in interviewing Lindsey, I gained a renewed focus on preparing him with the perspective needed to move past a disappointment to other successes. No one strike-out, fumble or birdie will define him as a person; he'll be defined and remembered for the values he exudes over the course of a lifetime. So it's really what he does with those athletic, academic or career mishaps that are critically important and that he'll need c2cDad's and my support with for years to come until he has enough experience with it built up inside of him to take on the world himself.

. . .though maybe not take on the world as the 2010 Winter Olympians have, what with all of the media hype and pressure to medal. Lindsey explained that the difference between other competitions like the Winter X Games for her is that when you first get to the Olympics, "you're thrown into press conference after press conference and interview after interview and you go through this whole processing thing where you all get your jerseys, all of your uniforms. That's really the only different thing because we're such an individual sport that even though you're on a team, you're still competing for yourself."

Don't worry about Lindsey after missing out on the gold medal with her second Olympic performance. She's enjoying the traveling life of a snowboarder and has the foundation her family and coaches have helped her establish to help her to move forward to future successes. I asked her about whether she feels as though she's accomplished the goals she set forth years ago, and if it feels like she expected it to feel. She said when she started snowboarding 11 years ago, "it definitely wasn't something I thought I could make money from."

"All I've wanted to do in this sport is to make myself known as a rider who has changed and added to the history of the sport and I feel that I've done that and marked myself as a female rider and that's a very rare thing to say . . .I feel that I've definitely accomplished a lot in the sport and I think I can accomplish more so there's really no reason to stop. As long as I still continue to love it then there's no reason to stop."

I was joined on the call by Vanessa of Chefdruck and the Ohio Moms Blog and Heather of milfalert and NYCity Moms Blog, so be sure to check out their posts too!

A special thank you to Devries PR for the opportunity to speak with Lindsey given her relationship with Vicks DayQuil Cold and Flu and Vicks NyQuil Cold and Flu and the 2010 Winter Olympics.