Belonging, Identity, and Joy in Sportspeople

During my sabbatical last fall I read about Millennial and Generation Z people and how they are very hungry for three things in particular: Belonging, Identity, and Joy. Since that reading I have been contemplating how we who serve in sport might deliver these to competitors and coaches of that generation. At about 4:00 this morning I had some clear thoughts.

1. Sportspeople already experience belonging in pretty good measure. Their teams, the uniforms they wear, the process of being recruited and brought into a team gives them a sense of belonging far beyond what most others experience.
2. Sportspeople also have a stronger sense of identity than most of their peers. They wear a name on the back of their jerseys (kit), their names are on the scoreboard, in the game programs, on the team’s website, and occasionally promoted widely through all sorts of media. They have a strong sense of identity because of who they are in sport.
3. Sportspeople also have advantages over many others related to joy, emotional buoyancy. In a chat with a women’s basketball team last week we discussed anxiety and what they do to deal with it. Several said that when they feel anxious they simply go to the gym and work out. That’s a far superior approach to many of their peers whose responses to anxiety involve alcohol, drugs, or other harmful behaviors.
4. That would seem to be very good for our friends in sport, and normally it is. The problem is this idyllic situation can be suddenly upset and our friends are adrift when something disconnects them from sport. Injury, suspension, failure, or retirement are often blunt, immediate, and painful assaults to the belonging, identity, and joy of the sportsperson. Suddenly the belonging they felt by being a part of the team is lost. Their identity as, “_______ the star footballer,” is changed to, “what’s his name, the former player.” The joy they experienced through regular, strenuous workouts is replaced by lethargy, boredom, and even depression.

What shall we do? Let’s offer our friends in sport a depth of belonging, identity, and joy that includes but is not limited to their lives in sport. Rather than deny the benefits they experience in sport by saying, “Your identity must not be in sport, it must be in Christ Jesus,” let’s say, “Your sense of belonging, identity, and joy are not limited to your life in sport, but are even more deeply rooted in relationship with Jesus Christ.” We need not communicate these as an either/or dichotomy.

Sportspeople are strongly defined by their lives in sport; that’s why they achieve so highly in it. Without a life in Christ and the belonging, identity, and joy to be found in it, they are in a very perilous state. Anything that would limit their lives in sport is a direct attack upon the foundations of their lives. We need simply offer Christ Jesus, His church, and ourselves as faithful, consistent, loyal, and faithful sources of the belonging, identity, and joy they desperately need, in sport and beyond it.