The Hawk Newspaper
October 24 2012
Page 15
Sports
Kindler returns to the court >> A second pg.16 “I’ll ask people… why do you want to play? Why do you want to do this? If you can’t answer that in a genuine way, then you have a problem,” Kindler said. “[If the answer is] this makes me popular, girls like me and want to talk to me, I have a lot of friends, people know who I am, so by default I’m going to play basketball… you see the superficiality of all that?” He also began to see himself closing off to those around him. “I used to go shoot by myself; I didn’t trust anyone to rebound for me….I trusted no one [and] didn’t let any love in.” Perhaps some of this is due to the enormous weight of responsibility and pressure that lay on his shoulders during this time. “I never felt like I really enjoyed my being there and my playing, whether at practice or out representing the school, I just felt a lot of pressure, a lot of expectations,” he said. “I competed against my teammates and made them my enemies. I secretly hoped that they would mess up so that I could get my opportunity to play.” “I realized the folly of a lot of the things I held dear to me, in terms of basketball,” Kindler continued. “And I think that default [of playing]… it was superficial.” Despite quitting the game that he felt was dragging him down, Kindler still remained dissatisfied. “I asked my mom last year when I stopped playing, ‘Mom, I still have this stupid jump shot, what the heck am I going to do with it?’ I said, ‘What am I going to do now?’” The answer came last winter, when that centrifugal force of basketball pulled him back into the gym. “I would go over to the practice gym…and just go shoot around,” he reminisced. “I’d get asked to leave sometimes… well, a lot of times,” he reflected with a laugh that echoed around the empty gym, much like the one he used to practice in before walking onto the team, “but I’d just kind of mosey on back here.” That’s when he caught the eye of Rob “Sully” Sullivan, ’06, the director of basketball operations. “One time I was shooting around and [Sully] pretty nonchalantly [asked me], ‘Hey, who are you?’ He thought I was some random dude just coming in here, he didn’t know if I was a student or not,” Kindler said. He recounted how Sullivan was intrigued by his story and asked Kindler to take a meeting with him. However, Kindler was still disillusioned with the game and wasn’t ready to commit to trying to play again. “I needed a different life, and I expressed that to him,” he said. “[I] said, ‘Right now, I don’t want to play basketball, I have other things in my life that I’m going to do.’” However, before he left Sullivan’s office, he wanted to confirm one thing: that he still had a place to shoot around at night. Phil Martelli, men’s basketball head coach, recounted a similar story and remarked on the similarities between Kindler and Sullivan, calling them kindred spirits. “Sully is the hardest working man on our staff,” he said. “He has his eyes and ears open, and because he is a gregarious type and Eric is a gregarious type, they have connected.” However, Kindler was still satisfied spending the rest of the winter shooting around in the practice gym. “In March and April [I was] milling over what was going on in my life over [the past few] years. I gained a new perspective on why I needed to play. It wasn’t why I wanted to play anymore; it was why I felt like I should,” said Kindler. He went back to Sullivan and asked if he’d work him out, but Sullivan did him one better: he asked him if he wanted to play. “I was afraid to commit because…all those memories, all those tough feelings [were] coming back in a wave of thoughts and emotions,” Kindler said. Nevertheless, he recommitted himself to basketball and began changing the way he was eating and practicing to get himself ready to work out with the team. Kindler explained that the NCAA allows players to work out with the team for two hours a week, from September to October. Martelli told Kindler he would be evaluated through these two one-hour prac-
tices a week rather than a walk-on tryout. After this, Kindler explained how it led to full practices with the team over fall break, which led to Martelli welcoming him onto the team. Martelli said, “We need more young people who are appreciative of opportunities that are presented… [Eric] is appreciative of this opportunity and I’m delighted that he’s a part of what we’re going to do [this season].” Running parallel to his road back into basketball is what Kindler describes as another massive journey: discovering his new perspective. “Around March or April of last year, I started thinking, reevaluating and reassessing what basketball was to me, and what it meant for people around me,and why I had a talent I could never understand,” he said. “I don’t think I ever truly developed a concept that I was given talents so I could glorify people around me and glorify God. I started believing in playing basketball as an expression of my faith…that really enables me to connect with people and with the person who I am in the way that was meant for me.” It is showing love and praising others through the game that’s become Kindler’s new answer to why he plays basketball. Playing basketball allows him to show love to the friends, family, and fans who have supported him. He also sees playing as a his way of thanking God for the talents he’s been given. “This life’s incredible when you can praise someone through your actions, and especially by praising another and God in such a unique way as through shooting a basketball,” he said. Kindler also wants to focus on praising his teammates this season. “I want to make a concerted effort, a proactive approach, on remaining humble and showing people [that my teammates are] genuine in their own way,” he said. Reflecting on this more, he laughed again. “It’s funny, because usually I would’ve said, ‘Well, I’m excited to play in games.’ Games can go, practice will come; whatever. This is what’s truly real.” Kindler’s teammates are also excited to see him as part of the team this year. Team captain Langston Galloway, ’14, expressed the enthusiasm Kindler has brought so far. “In the couple practices he’s been in he’s got a lot of energy and he’s been working hard,” Galloway said. “So [he’s] definitely going to bring energy and it’s going to be fun to have him on the team.” Kindler reflected on the outpouring of appreciation he’s received from the student body in the last week alone. “If I were here to play just for me, for my own personal advancement, for whatever vain reason I could think of, I’d still be at fault,” he said. “Because all those people came out of nowhere to give their love to me…well, I need to return this.” Maybe it was that empty gym that gave Kindler the clarity he needed and became the central pull in his life. Maybe the hours spent listening to nothing but the bump bump of that leather ball and his thoughts was the pull he needed to bring himself back to the game he loves. But now, there’s no more silence, instead, there is the constant acoustics of love and support from his friends, family, and teammates. [W]hen you see all that genuine, authentic support, you know that when you’re struggling you can look back to that and you can use that,” he said. “That’s where you build strength…they just showed me why it still is not about me, and it never was.”
Photo: May Taqi ’13
Soccer in America << Soccer pg. 16
Basketball scores are so high there is no real point of paying attention to anything but the final two minutes (and that says a lot, coming from me). Hockey to me is the only real example of a Big 5 sport that can be considered not too boring or slow. It’s not advertised enough This one makes a lot of sense and probably is right. In this country, the glamour of being a soccer star doesn’t have the same impact as it would pretty much anywhere else on the planet. Fun fact: Major League Soccer had better attendance last season then the NBA. Today’s athletes not only want to compete, but also desire to be seen and make a lot of money while doing it. There is money in the MLS, but not enough for it to compete with other sports and make players change their minds on being a striking forward instead of a wide receiver. Maybe if the Major League Soccer was treated like the English Premier League is there would be more Landon Donavans instead of Donavan McNabbs. Think about how many basketball players could be great soccer players if their skill were cultivated.
There is a lack of encouragement A soccer player is viewed as an outcast in the United States. It doesn’t help that soccer season and football season typically coincide. The kids who play soccer are more likely to get made fun of for playing their sport instead of being praised. I personally have been called everything from “foot fairy” to “Daisy Duke” based off of the length of my shorts. Things like this can make a fringe soccer player trade in their shin guards for shoulder pads in a minute. Soccer is seen as a game to strengthen athletic skills, with players of other professional sports encouraged to play to help with their footwork. But in the end, those same players go back to their main sports, no matter how much of an impact their time spent playing soccer may have had. It’s not the ultimate prize for most people; it’s a method. The 2012 USMST have kept their hopes alive of making the 2014 World Cup. After failing to qualify for the Olympics and barely making it out of the group stages in the World Cup qualifier, the team is just hoping to survive and make the United States proud. But this team will never be as elite as their female counterparts. Not until this country realizes something that most of its citizens adamantly deny: soccer matters.