baseball builds character

My husband, Bryce, writes a guest blog post showing us how growing up in a sports household affected his character. It also significantly impacted who he is as a musician and filmmaker. I hope you enjoy it. 

Bryce, Destined For Pro Ball?

You’d never know by looking at this chubby 10 year old that his dream was to be a pro baseball player. Unrealistic as it seems, I didn’t know any better. I grew up in a sports infused household. My mother played college basketball, my father played college football, and my older brother played every sport under the sun. I thought that was what I was supposed to do! This was years before I discovered art and as a young boy playing sports was just a part of life as much as G.I. Joe and Matchbox cars. 

My father coached football for years so he was a great mentor when it came to learning sports. He kept it fun, but made it clear that to be good at something it took practice and hard work. Not exactly earth shattering concepts to some, but as I got older it seemed like not everyone’s father passed on this information to their kids! This was not only a character building example for me, but this legacy of discipline served me well when I actually figured out what my natural talents were. 

Work ethic wasn’t the only thing I learned playing sports. Losing well and being part of a team were character building lessons as well. I learned so much about losing graciously early in my time playing baseball. There is no other way to put it except to state it plainly - my team SUCKED! With a capital S. We lost way more games than we won. But if anyone threw their mitt down at the end of game or said something negative to the other team, we got pulled aside and received a stern talking to from a grown man about three feet taller than us. That fixed it quickly! And we learned that for better or worse we were all in it together. Sure, there were some guys who were more skilled than others but we all had the same blue felt logo glued on our mesh-back ball caps. We were a team.

If you haven’t guessed, my natural talents don’t include sports and baseball, but rather the arts. Even though guitar came relatively easy for me, it still took hours of practice. Every day. Good wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be great. Not because I wanted  to be a rock star, even though if you saw the mullet I sported in the ‘80s you’d be convinced that was the direction I was heading, but to make the best art that I could. The guitar solos were never good enough, the song lyrics I wrote would get reworked time and time again, and still today, after studying music for forty years, I’m still taking the occasional lesson to learn something new or improve. Right now, it’s singing lessons. Taking singing lessons at my age is honestly a humbling experience, but I know I need to get better. Lifelong learning and practicing is important to me and a legacy I want to pass on to my children, the way my father passed it on to me.

This legacy of discipline translates to my time in the art world as well. Every video or photo shoot I go on presents new challenges. That is one of the things I love about it. Meeting new people, seeing new places, telling stories artfully, and solving the hundreds of little problems that come up every day on location are all part of the joy of being a filmmaker. What no one ever sees is me in some hotel room practicing focus pulls with a new camera so I know I can execute the moves well the next day. Or practicing hiding a microphone so we can get the interview rolling quickly the next morning. I remember shooting endless self portraits (this was way before they were called selfies) when I was learning portraiture so I could fine tune lighting setups. All of this took hours and hours of practice. And now I can walk onto a set and know no matter what happens I can honor our customer by telling their story skillfully and artfully.

One of the things I love most about the art forms I work in are that they are collaborative. It is the artistic equivalent of a team sport. I’ve played in bands since I was 15 years old. Everybody has a job to do. Sometimes it is your time to shine, but when it isn’t you play your part so someone else can be in the spotlight. When it comes to making documentaries sometimes I’m in charge and directing. Sometimes I’m the one running the camera, or the person asking the questions. But on every shoot I’m part of a crew working to tell the most honest story working in collaboration with the person whose story we are telling. We want to honor the storyteller and their story by making them look and sound their absolute best. 

I’m thankful to my father and my coaches for that legacy of discipline. The character building work of practicing how to bunt 375 times in the backyard, the painful practice of catching (and sometimes missing) fly balls, and even though I may never have perfected the curve ball that my father mastered, I sure tried. He made it look easy, but I know that he spent hours in his backyard practicing. And I’m still practicing at getting better at everything I do. So now I’m off to our music room to fix the third verse of a new song… it just isn’t there yet.

Our character is impacted through the discipline we receive as a child and the discipline we now give. Often, we don’t think about the lessons until well after the discipline has vanished and left its mark on us. But how we choose to respond during times of discipline shapes our character and becomes part of our family story. Be intentional with discipline. Its effects last well beyond its initial impact.  

Searching for wisdom and asking for grace,

Jody