NCNLOCAL presents…

The Final Forde
By Tom Forde
 

The Never-Ending game of Shadows
How one athlete and one coach have become inseparable for four years

The next time you are walking in the glow of the setting sun or enter a well lit room look behind you or in front of you and you will undoubtedly find your shadow. It is a simple silhouette of ourselves that follows us wherever we go in this world. And as far as we travel the image of our shadow will never be far behind. Coaches are like an athletes’ shadow in almost every way. They are right behind us or right in front of us in every phase our lives as young athletes, either pushing us forward or leading our way. For Lakeland senior Sarah Benischek there has been one man who has coached her on the court and in the field for all four years of her high school athletic career as a Hornet. His name is Steve Fallo and he has been her shadow every step of the way.

But long before Sarah Benischek ever put on the Lakeland green and gold she was a seven year old spectator in the stands, cheering for her older sister Jen. And whether she was watching her sister play volleyball, basketball or softball there was always one voice of one man that remained the same at every event. It was the guiding voice of Steve Fallo who was Jen Benischek’s coach in high school. Little did the seven year old Sarah know that it would be that familiar voice that would guide her on and off the field and court, in so many aspects of life that transcend sports.

Now the truth of the matter is that most coaches don’t coach three different sports and most athletes are not talented enough to play on a varsity level as a freshman. And that is what makes Sarah Benischek and Steve Fallo’s journey together so rare. They have stood side by side in battle for all 12 sports seasons of all four years of high school Sarah has been at Lakeland. And from the moment the coach and player came together, Fallo knew he had something special in Sarah Benischek.

“She has a rare knowledge of every sport she plays that it’s like having another coach on the field,” Fallo said. “She has a brilliant athletic mind where she can strategize while in the middle of a game.”

Whether it was her ability to read pitches in softball, dissect defenses in basketball or vocally lead on a volleyball court, Benischek was a player that played with a coach’s mind. So she always knew what her calling was and who would help hone that talent.

“I really want to coach when I am older so I am in coach’s office every free period I have going over game tape,” Benischek said. “He let’s me in on what he does and that is where our relationship goes beyond athletics. He has given me a stepping stone in my life.”

To Fallo the relationship is more like family than anything.

“She is the first player that comes to me just to talk. Whether it is sports, school or just life,” Fallo said. “She’s family to me.”

In their time together they have experienced all sides of the athletic spectrum from heartbreaking loses to the indescribable elation of a state basketball championship this past season. He was her teacher and her guiding voice and she was his general on the floor who refused to let him or her team down. For years they have seen it all together and now the moment draws near when the two will part ways, athletically at least.

“No matter how far away she goes I know she’ll always make time to come back,” Fallo said. “We’re a family here and Sarah knows my door is always open to her.”

It is that very door that Benischek will miss the most when she is playing basketball at Merrimack College next winter.

“The strangest thing for me will be walking into my coach’s office next season and not seeing him there,” Benischek said. “It’s been impressive to say the least. You want your high school experience to be great. To have your coach like you and you like your coach from the beginning. That is the way it’s been for us and I couldn’t have imagined a greater four years. It’s more than I hoped for.”

In a matter of weeks Sarah Benischek will walk across a stage and receive a diploma ushering her into a new world. But no piece of paper could ever do justice to the education she received on and off the court from the voice she heard as a seven year old child. Next winter Sarah Benischek will now look to her sideline to see a different face and hear a different voice than the one that has guided her for so long. But like their shadows created by the setting sun on their time together, the knowledge and joy they have passed on to one another in this athletic journey will always be with them wherever they may go in this world.

The Final Forde
By Tom Forde

The most beautiful rose I never gave

Mothers are as precious as the flowers they receive

Examine a rose closely and you will find that there is more to this flower than its vivid color and pristine beauty than meets the eye. While its delicate petals are appeasing to the eye and soft to the touch, they rest upon a solid stem, adorned with thorns. They are soft and strong in the same breath. They are a symbol of beauty. They are just like a mother.
A mother is that shelter we run to when the world rains down on us. With their soft and delicate arms, they cradle us, from the day we are born, and forever after.
It is their solid and unwavering love that serves as their stem, making them the pillars we lean on in times of trouble, with thorns to protect us from an unforgiving world.
That’s why it is more than appropriate that on Mother’s Day we shower our mothers with this beautiful flower. Millions of sons, daughters, husbands and grandchildren will present roses to the countless mothers across the country. But no matter how many roses I will give my mother in my life, it is the rose I never gave that I will never forget.

No more  gridiron
In my senior year at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School, I made a decision to stop playing football. It was not that I had lost the passion for the game or that I did not want to put the work in; quite the contrary.
I had actually just chosen to focus on acting, something my mother always supported. Yet, I neglected to take into account what senior year meant.
At my old high school and at almost every high school, a ceremony at the last home game for senior players invites mothers to walk on the field and receive a single rose from their sons.
Having left the team, I would never put on the pads again and my mother would never get that rose in such a public forum. She would joke about it saying, “Well, you better get an Oscar nomination some day so I can go to the Academy Awards.”
It is now seven years since I graduated from high school, and I have yet to hear from the Academy, but one thing I cannot let go of is the thought that I deprived my mother of her moment in the sun. She deserved better than that.

My biggest fan
My mother, like most mothers, was always front and center at my sporting events and was my biggest fan. Whether I won or lost, she loved me just the same. 
 As with any mom, her job was anything but easy. Her day began by waking my three sisters and me for school, and making us breakfast. Trying to wake me up is probably one of her most daunting tasks to this day. She always made sure our schoolwork was done, saw that we were well fed, kept our clothes clean, and drove us everywhere we needed to be. She did it all with a smile. She did the job of ten people day after day and never asked for anything in return.
If I ever had a problem, she knew about it before I opened my mouth. And with a simple hug and reassuring words, she put my mind at ease instantaneously. She never taught me how to shoot a jump shot, kick a soccer ball or catch a football. She did not educate me on the history of my beloved New York Jets, Yankees or Knicks.
All of these were my father’s area of expertise. What she did was so simple, yet so extraordinary. She loved me unconditionally, and taught me how to be a good man.

Values and love
That is what mothers do. They instill in us values and love that no sports dream could ever compare to.
No matter how old you are or how difficult life may get, you will always find their waiting arms when all hope seems lost, and the world crumbles around you.
They are the most precious rose we are fortunate enough to hold the 364 other days of the calendar, after Mother’s Day has passed.
Whether you are a high school athlete playing in your final season with your mother cheering from the stands, or a grown man with children of your own, aside from the gifts and roses that you may shower your mother with this Sunday, remember to give her a hug and thank her for all she has done. The truth is she never stopped cheering for you all those years after you left the field of athletic competition for the final time.
These words are for all those mothers who have given of themselves for their children: You each are as precious as the flowers you receive on Sunday.
And to my mother, Patricia Forde: Allow these words and this public forum to serve as my rose to you, that I never got to give seven years ago. I love you, Mom!

The Final Forde
By Tom Forde

A world without sports
 What would our lives be like without competitive sports?

  “It’s only a game.”
  That is what my girlfriend Kristen told me a couple of weeks ago after my beloved New York Jets were bounced from the playoffs by the high-and-mighty New England Patriots. Perhaps she saw the pain in my eyes or could see how it affected my demeanor.
  Ever since I was a little boy I have always taken my teams’ losses personally. My sister Catherine would revel in any opportunity to rub salt in my wounds every time Michael Jordan buried my Knicks in the playoffs. So, on this bitter afternoon at age 24, my girlfriend, a Pats fan herself, attempted to reassure me that everything would be okay and that it was, in fact, only a game.  
  “Not to me,” I said defensively. 
  Sports are not just fun and games to me and millions of others. These “games” actually exemplify all that is good about the world we live in.
  But what if there were no sports?
  What would become of the world we know?
 
An essential part of life
  But before looking at the landscape of a world without competitive sports it is important to remember why they are so essential to life in the first place.
Competitive sports teach discipline to even the most undisciplined of children. They form unity and friendship between individuals that outside a team structure might never converse. Sports forces us to accept failure at an early age and worked exceptionally hard for success at the same time. It always gives us something to celebrate or debate amongst friends. Sports teach us the finest characteristics of life, such as loyalty, dedication and selflessness.
And even when criticized, the games are still vital to the world we live in.
No, not every kid who tries out for a team will make it, nor should they. I don’t wish to sound overly harsh here but that is the reality that awaits them as they get older. Not everything you go out for will work out in your favor. Sports give you motivation to be better and work harder to reach your goals. They allow the young and old alike to be out in the world running, jumping, sliding, kicking, falling, tackling, flipping, skating, shooting, cheering, crying, and above all else, living life to the fullest.
These “games” are essentially the male soap opera played out year round for our enjoyment. You have your favorite team, the arch rivals, the good guys, bad guys, and an array of colorful characters and situations that are bound to arise every season. It is an emotional and physical journey that affects not only the athletes themselves but the fans. We are the ones who live and die with our team through years of expectation, elation and disappointment only to be consoled by our girlfriend wearing your sworn enemy’s jersey. Ironic, don’t you think?

Another day, another game
Sports reassure us that there is always next game or next season for that matter and that we must remain loyal to our team in the bad times as well as the good. It is in essence the better part of humanity on display where there is a winner and a loser.
But what if there were no sports in the world?
How would the nightly news end?
Would kids be trading politicians’ trading cards rather than those of baseball stars? 
I can hear it now.
“I’ll give you a Bill Clinton and a George W. Bush for a Ronald Reagan rookie card.” (Come to think of it most might make that deal).
There would be no posters of sports heroes on the walls of kids across the world. Joe Namath would have been another long- haired hippie running his own tavern down south; Muhammad Ali would have been just another loud- mouthed radio jockey. Wayne Gretzky would be your local UPS driver. You would find Barry Bonds behind the counter of your neighborhood pharmacy claiming he doesn’t know what medication he’s handling, and Michael Jordan would be right at home still selling shoes but now as an employee at PayLess. Not many kids would be saying I want to be like Mike the shoe salesman.

What, no baseball?
  In absence of sports, Las Vegas would be taking odds on the Westminster Dog Show and there would be tailgating in the parking lots of elementary schools in preparation for spelling bee competitions. Madison Square Garden would be nothing more than an eyesore used for swap meets and craft fairs in place of the sports Mecca it is currently known as. And O.J. would just be… well, guilty.
There would be no Sports Illustrated, no ESPN, and the social impact of Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson would never have been felt. Super Bowl Sunday would just be another day where we find a different excuse to leave mass early or not go at all. Referring to a man or group of men as a Cinderella Story might get you a black eye.
The sound of a ball hitting a glove, the swish of a nylon net hanging from a rim, padded bodies colliding, and crowds clad in team colors would all be silenced forever. Those memories of days spent as athletes and a lifetime spent as a fan would be erased.
What would men talk about with one another? 
What would we have to look forward to at the beginning and end of every season?
Legendary sports announcer and journalist Howard Cosell once said that, “Sports is the toy department of human life.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Sports are that part of existence that we run to like children to escape the rest of the world. It is truly more than just a collection of simple games but a fair and balanced part of society where there is a winner, a loser, and a lesson learned. It causes us to dream of greatness and gives us a framework for our lives as adults. It is its own language that is only understood between the fans of these games. And even when your team lets you down and you are sitting on the front step being consoled by your girlfriend you understand something. Sports builds character, makes you a stronger person in every way.
And even in disappointment or defeat, sports will forever be there to remind you that there is always tomorrow.

The Final Forde
By Tom Forde
 

Forever a family
Even in championship defeat departing seniors leave with something far greater than a trophy
 

Forever. That is what every team fights for in a championship game. That feeling of being eternally remembered by history for greatness all comes down to one game. And after every championship game there is a celebration that ensues. A culmination of dreams manifested into reality by athletes who have sacrificed their bodies and played with their hearts on the line all season long. The champions pile on one another laughing loudly and smiling ear-to-ear without a care in the world. The photographers and reporters all run to them because they are the main attraction and the best of the best. Yet, there I stood at the end of the Section One boy’s soccer championship game motionless. I had been lucky enough to cover one of the best teams I have come across in my time as a sports journalist on the high school level in the Lakeland Hornets. I had kept in constant contact with their coach, Tim Hourahan, and followed every second of their breath-taking run through the sectionals. They became my team and I honestly became one of their biggest fans due to the heart and energy they displayed on the field.
 So as the final seconds ticked off the clock in their championship game against Byram Hills Sunday night at John Jay High School I knew what was coming. Byram Hills was about to win the Section One title and the celebration was about to begin. As the final whistle blew a joyous celebration exploded from the Bobcats sideline and reporters and photographers alike ran to join the fray. I stood motionless standing alongside my favorite team and favorite story as they dealt with the inconsolable pain of a championship loss.
 The tears flowed down the face of every Hornet and I couldn’t help but feel a similar emptiness myself since I watched and admired the passion they played with all season long, only to see their championship dream end that cold November night. The feeling on the Lakeland sideline was that of heartbreak, but their emotion was just as real and tangible as that of the newly crowned champions’; Eight Lakeland seniors came into this season looking for the dream ending to eight illustrious careers that consisted of 22 total years on the varsity level and a sectional championship in 2004. Eight careers that ended one game shorter than planned. But the tears and pain were not due to losing a title or the inability to hold a plaque up high. No, the sad reality that faced the Hornets was that this was the end of an era.
Cory Davies, Dan Rodrigues, Craig Pietrangelo, and Jimmy Hannigan had all played their final games as a Hornet. Nick Jerussi would never blast another goal with his bright yellow cleats. Andrew Collins would never clear another ball from the sweeper position. Colin McGovern would not chase down a loose ball at midfield again. And Mike Rosato would not stand between the posts as Lakeland’s keeper one more day.
 The true agony of defeat for Lakeland was not what they lost, but rather who they lost. This team was a family that had as much love for one another as they did for the game itself. And that final whistle marked the last time this band of brothers would march into battle together. There would be no tomorrow for this team and saying goodbye for those eight seniors may be the most difficult words to utter. Still, the greatness that this team exemplified could not be washed away with one game.
 “When I look back on this team I will remember how much these guys really loved each other and how they would do anything for their teammates,” Hourahan said. “They will always have those great memories of some of the most memorable sectional games ever.”
 These seniors will depart with the knowledge that they have built a brilliant program on the foundation of heart, leadership, sacrifice, teamwork, and above all else, family. When the elite eight moves on to college some may play on next level and don different jerseys but they will always remember their days wearing the green and white. Even when they are old and gray this team will always be connected by the years in which they became a family.
 As a sports journalist I must always remind myself to keep an emotional distance from the teams that I cover but I am only human and such a fan of quality athletics that it was nearly impossible to detach myself from a team of such class individuals on and off the field. They are a credit to their parents, friends, coaches, and the entire Lakeland community. The field and the stands that the Hornets once owned and inspired are vacant now but grace and excellence they personified will live on long after that final whistle.
The Lakeland boy’s soccer team saw what all teams will sooner or later see: the end of an era. But as time moves on it will be those memories of their journey, built over the years, which will serve as the greatest reminder of these glory days gone by. They celebrated, laughed, cried, fought, and bled for one purpose. They did it all for one another and while they did not win a plaque to look back on, they gained something much greater. They will always be brothers. They will always be family. And that, like the title of champion, lasts forever.

The Final Forde

By Tom Forde

Miracle on Front Street
The greatest gift we can give this holiday season is ourselves
 

   Every day I drive a short distance from my house to Front Street where the North County News office is located. I cover stories of young athletes in the prime of their lives and write about them with a personal nostalgia and even a hint of envy.  
   As an athlete on the scholastic level you have an identity. You are identified with the jersey you wear, the letterman jacket, and the fellow athletes whose company you keep. These athletes, or jocks as they are often referred to, are representations of their schools and gain a degree of self-worth each time they put on that jersey. But what happens after the applause fades and the high school star becomes another brick in the everyday working world?
   As a culture, inside and outside of the high school hallway, we place athletes on a pedestal where they stand out from all their peers. The affect they have on their schools and the accolades they receive are tangible proof that all their hard work is not in vain. But for the rest of us former athletes and non-athletes there are no such parades of admiration. We simply go about our days relatively unnoticed, focusing on the tasks at hand with little acknowledgment that our efforts have an impact on the world in which we live.
  To understand the impact you have in the world of sports an athlete need look no further than the box score or their team’s record. Numbers, whether they are in the form of personal statistics or number of team wins, define an athlete. The truth is, after we hang up our jerseys, that mentality never changes.
  
Numbers aren’t everything
   The obsession with sports and numbers is supplemented by a fixation with grade point averages in college and yearly salaries thereafter. But the thrill is just not the same outside of the athletic world. There is a feeling of being just another nameless and faceless ant marching in the manic society in which we live. This is a feeling that has crossed my mind on more than one occasion this holiday season.  I have wondered to myself, “What impact am I having in this world?”
  From the moment that Halloween came to an end, the holiday rush was on. Network programming fills our prime-time television slots with holiday specials promoting the spirit of the season. And the radio dial cannot be turned without hearing about the most wonderful time of the year. The ability to celebrate Christmas itself has been put under attack through the media on an absurd level. Christmas trees, nativity scenes and any religious representations of the holiday have been removed from schools, airports and stores across the country.
  This need to walk the fine line of political correctness has spun out of control.
   A recent story involving 2006 Olympic figure skating silver medalist Sasha Cohen highlights this absurdity. Skating at a holiday event in Riverside, California, Cohen was stopped after her performance to sign autographs. When a choir started to sing the traditional Christmas favorite “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”, the singers were silenced immediately by the local government staff.  Cohen is half Jewish and the condescending members of the thought-police felt it necessary to flex their misguided mind muscles in order to protect the skater from having to hear a Christian carol. Neither Cohen or her mother sanctioned the misguided song stoppage and were in fact horrified by the staff’s presumptuous decision.
   Ridiculous.
  
The spirit of the season
   It seems that when we are not marketing the concept of Christmas for financial gain we are attempting to ignore this federal holiday to appease all parties and beliefs.
  But it is outside of this commercialization and controversy surrounding Christmas there are simple moments to be found that restore our spirits and conversely our self-worth. I spent the first Saturday in December the same as every year prior, putting up the lights on my house with my sister Jennifer. We gripe in unison about this yearly task and wage a battle with tangled wires that we always seem to lose. But it is by far one of my favorite holiday moments of the season because it is a time that I have with my oldest sister, a time to laugh at ourselves and each other. A time I wouldn’t trade for the world.
  Then my girlfriend Kristen and I went to Rockefeller Center to see the tree lighting. We stood in a mass of well over 100,000 people for five and a half hours just to see a massive tree lit up like a towering inferno of electricity. It was the longest either one of us has stood in one place and you could not move one step to your left or right due to the human traffic jam.
   With all that said, it was one of the best times of my life. And it made both of us realize that there was no place we would have rather been and no one else we would have preferred to be with.
   But still there exists that need for us as individuals to be validated by what we do in our everyday lives. A need to feel like we make a difference that rarely is brought to our attention. It is like that scene in Frank Capra’s holiday classic “It’s a Wonderful Life”, when George Bailey stands at the edge of a bridge feeling as if he’d never been born that the world wouldn’t be any different.  And then an angel comes out of nowhere to show him just how important he is.
  
A reason for the season
   So, another day began with me driving down Front Street to the office. But this morning was very different than any other. This would be the day that an unexpected angel would restore my self worth and show me how wonderful this life can be. I entered the office and checked my email as I do every morning and amongst company wide messages there was one email that was simply entitled, “A friend.”
  The message began as a complimentary email where a reader spoke of how much he enjoyed my column. But this was no ordinary email and this reader was someone I can never forget even though I’ve never met him. He was an individual who had fallen on hard times and just got out of jail. A former athlete who fell into a world of drug addiction and wanted nothing more than to find the youthful enthusiasm he had lost in those years of substance abuse. With each paragraph he spoke of how much my words mean to him on a weekly basis and how they reaffirm that passion that had crumbled under the pressure and vices that the adult world had brought. Little did this reader know that these words he sent me had resurrected something in me, a belief that my work did have meaning and had affected a life for the better.
   I felt like running through the streets of Yorktown Heights and shouting my enthusiasm to every familiar landmark I have grown up with as George Bailey did while running through the streets of Bedford Falls. No, I was not shown what this world would be like without me. Nor do I feel that my words will change countless lives of those who read them. What I received was a simple email from a complete stranger. And in that one moment I found the identity that had long since been lost after my days as an athlete had concluded. I found meaning in this holiday season where the true meaning of Christmas has been labeled with a price tag by most and all but silenced by others.
  We have spent over a month preparing for this time of the year. We have looked high and low for that perfect gift for those that we love and ironically the greatest gift you will receive or give is right in front of us every day.
   It is the priceless moments spent with a sister doing a holiday chore that you have done for as long as you can recall.
   It is the ability to find a beautiful and private moment with the person that you love amongst a crowd of thousands.  
   And it is the knowledge that every life has meaning and has an affect on another life even with something as simple as words.
   The spirit of the holidays has been questioned and tested by a cynical world. But the spirit lives on. It exists in the gifts that those who we love give us everyday simply by being in our lives and in the words and actions of those we may never meet.
   So as the conclusion to this holiday season draws near, understand that the greatest gift we can give year round has no price tag. Just be yourself and return the love that is given to you each and every day. That is the most priceless gift that we can give one another in this wonderful life we live.

The Final Forde
By Tom Forde
 

 Leap of Faith
 In a world where our faith is tested daily, sports can serve as a saving grace
 

Do you believe? That question is not easily answered since the world we live in gives us little reason to invest faith in anything. Our nightly news squeezes the worst of humanity into a half hour segment with intervals of advertisements that attempt to distract us from the society that is decaying before our eyes. If the nightly news is our reality then the reality we face is a bleak one. There seems to be nothing left to believe in and yet it is a simple game can restore faith in all of us.
  Sports fans may not always appear to be the role model of religious insight, but they are the greatest example of blind faith that we have left in this increasingly faithless world. Athletics and athletes alike have taken a competition and transformed it into a religious experience in which we wear our hearts on the sleeves of our jerseys and put our souls on the line every game. We enter every season with hope that this season we will be rewarded for our unwavering faith with the heavenly validation of a championship. We find ourselves praying in the stands, in our living rooms, and in local sports bars that some divine intervention will deliver us from the evils of defeat and grant us victory at the end of the day. Why is it that we turn to prayer when we approach our darkest hour? Why is the most desperate play in all of football called the Hail Mary? And why is a last second shot in basketball that has very little chance of going in referred to as “throwing up a prayer?”
  As a culture we have a tendency to turn to a higher power when we want or need something. Too often it’s only in those dark moments of despair that we find faith. And, unfortunately, if our prayers are not answered, too many lose faith just as quickly as they found it. The communication between man and God seems to be a one way conversation. We ask for things and walk away as if giving God a grocery list for our lives, but do we ever truly take the time to listen? Now I am not a religious zealot nor am I attempting to preach about the selfish nature of prayer. I admit that I have prayed for my sports teams to win on many occasions and when they lost felt as if my prayers went unanswered. My mother would be the first to remind me that God does answer all prayers, but sometimes he just says no. In these wise words my mother has a very valid point. If we call upon God for favors for something as trivial as sports and do not utilize our prayers for those in need in a world unraveling around us then why should such prayers be answered?
   Faith should be something that remains just as strong in our brightest moments of life as well as the almighty favors we ask for in our darkest. To believe in or devote yourself to something without logical proof or reason is the very definition of faith and is precisely what we invest in sports as fans. It is living proof that we are all capable of believing in the unseen and unknown. But has professional sports itself turned faith and religion to an obscene spectacle?
   In every sport there is always some athlete making the sign of the cross when they score or thanking their God after a victory. Does this mean that God wanted them to succeed more than the next athlete or deemed them more worthy of victory than the other team?
   To grandstand and make a production of ones religion for the whole world to see is excessive in the context of a game. While it is God given ability that allows these athletes to perform at their highest level it is not God that dishes out the wins and losses. When it comes to sports we need fewer preachers and more professionals.
 Seventeenth century American physician, poet, and humorist Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “It’s faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living.” Such faith can be found in religion, in the eyes of a loved one, in the face of adversity, and even in something as simple as a sport. Faith can truly never be a bad thing as long as it is pure and found from within. In an imperfect world we need something to keep us believing and perhaps sports offers us that belief. It is an unexplainable and undying hope that burns inside every fan young and old. It causes us to dream the impossible and have faith where there is no logical proof or reason. Sports is not a religion, but it does something wonderful to the soul when all faith in this world is lost. It gives us a reason to believe.

The Final Forde
By Tom Forde

A perfectly imperfect sport
 Golf tees up lessons in personal responsibility
 
Golf is one sport where the greatest competition and torture comes from within, yet you would never know it unless you play the game yourself. Amidst the vast stretches of green fairways and calm flowing waterways lies an endless array of potential disasters waiting to occur.
With every swing that hooks and every ball buried in sand or water, the golfer’s frustration rises along with his blood pressure. It is the most masochistic sport there is. Golfers take to the course every spring and summer with the intention of having a relaxing afternoon in what has always been a luxurious recreational activity.
We spend big money on clubs and equipment only to spend an entire afternoon slamming, throwing and blaming those pricey instruments for every mistake we make.
We swing and yell “Fore!,” only to be quickly followed by a plethora of other four letter words not fit for print. The joy in this sport eludes me, but more and more boys and girls on the high school scene are taking to the links with a fervent desire to be the next Tiger Woods.
The likes of Mahopac’s Joe Mauro, Jamie Cirocco and Luke Freehan headline one of the area’s best high school golf programs who are off to another blistering start at 8-0 this season. They are one of the top boys’ golf teams around who also boasts one of the best young female golfers as a main component to their dominance. At 5-foot-3, Marisa Kamelgarn can drive the ball 230 yards and has had two top-ten finishes on the American Junior Golf Association.

A game of inches
They are the best of the best this area has to offer and are probably better than 90 percent of the local population when it comes to the links but even they realize just how hard this sport is and how high the level of competition is nationwide in this game of inches.
It is improbable any of them will approach the excellence epitomized by Mr. Woods. They more likely will spend their time red-faced with frustration, dissecting every swing and putt that goes wide of its intended mark.
Golfers take every fault personally on the course and are their own worst critic, they need to be. And that is what makes golf perhaps the greatest sport in terms of preparing both the young and old for the reality of the world.
In a perfect world we would work in a team environment where any mistake that we make would be the burden of the masses rather than hang over our heads alone. But this is not a perfect world that we live in and we are always held accountable for our decisions and indecisions on a daily basis. This is not to say that teamwork is not important, in fact teamwork is essential to making any workplace, family or romantic relationship work. It is that give and take where we bask in the good times and shoulder the bad times with equal culpability. But sometimes we have no one to blame as athletes or individuals other than ourselves. It is that sense of accountability that is so pertinent to the maturation process of life that golf teaches those daring enough to take up the sport.

No excuses
Every tee shot that sails into the woods never to be seen again and every putt that falls short tests our character and ability to persevere. Do you blame the wind? Do you blame your clubs? Do you blame gravity? Or do you accept the blame yourself and move on with the knowledge of where your game needs improvement?
Look in the mirror long enough and you can always find fault. In that respect, golf is a lot like life. It is an imperfect game played by imperfect individuals. Not even the great Tiger or Jack Nicklaus has been perfect every day, but they always took to the links again with an iron-willed determination to improve their game.
In the same way, we can take responsibility for our mistakes in life and say, “Today I sliced one into the woods, but tomorrow I’ll straighten out my swing.”
It is that accountability that has become a nearly extinct characteristic in a society that is so quick to pass or share blame.
It is a characteristic the Mahopac golf team exemplifies. And golf is the type of sport that builds what we should all strive to emulate.  
 Whether it is at the end of 18 holes or the end of a lifetime, the only person we can blame for or mistakes, or make better because of them, is staring right back at us in the mirror.