In movement, there is beauty.
In sports, it can be present just about everywhere. Certainly, sports that involve dance and music – gymnastics, figure skating, competitive dance – invite you to admire the human form. But when a sport is done properly, every sport is a dance.
Late Saturday evening, South Carolina and Florida met up in a first-round game at the College World Series in Omaha. In the eighth inning, with no outs, Florida’s Daniel Pigott did more than just get a bat on the ball, he ripped a ball into left-center that looked every ounce like a double dropped in the gap.
Then South Carolina’s Evan Marzilli decided to make the highlight reel. At a full-out sprint, Marzilli ran for the ball – then dove. Somehow, he timed that dive so perfectly that as he slid underneath the ball, as the ball came within inches of the ground, it landed in his glove.
That it made just No. 7 on SportsCenter’s top plays outraged South Carolina fans across the country. Yes, it was magnificent enough that those fans wanted it on top of those top plays.
In watching the replay, it makes you admire everything that had to go into making the moment. Countless hours running wind sprints. Years in the batting cage. Endless games in Little League, juniors, high school and then college. Seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, hours to days – time rolling into time to make that magical moment in one of the biggest games of his career.
Marzilli is one of those kids with a one-in-a-million chance of making the big leagues. His personal highlight reel has impressed many coaches, and the Arizona Diamondbacks drafted him in the eighth round of the MLB draft. Gamecock fans fully expect him to jump ship and head to the pros.
If he does, college baseball loses an outstanding outfielder. The pros gain one. None of the beauty will be lost; it’ll just be packaged in a different uniform.
It’s so easy to take for granted the excellence you see on a pro field – or for that matter, on a college or a high school field. A little bit of perfection can me a moment, a play, a stretch of an arm, or an extension of a leg. If you’re a soccer player, and you make the game-winning save of a penalty kick, how hard do you work for the one moment when it comes, to knock away the ball by the ends of your fingertips?
Playing basketball, you start with dribbling. Can any player count the number of times they’ve dribbled a basketball? Actually, I’m not sure why you’d want to, since it would quickly get monotonous and you have to keep dribbling the ball anyhow. But basics lead to clean basics, which lead to the foundation for bigger and better things.
Sometimes, it’s enough to be able to do one thing well. Not every athlete will have the chance at the pros or the Olympics or even a college scholarship. Does it matter? Talent is a God-given part of the equation, one you can’t change. If you work up to whatever ability you have, you’ve accomplished all that you can.
So much can be lost in harping on the errors, in striving for the perfection that is needed to win a title, or even meet the goals a team has set for a season. And when that happens, it might be time to step back and take a look at just what a single person can do.
It can be as little as making a catch, setting a volleyball, stroking a pair of arms through the water. It’s the perfection of movement, the beauty of the game.
Sometimes, it’s the perfection of beauty, caught in the moment of a game.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
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