Sports in the Seventies

Sports in the seventies

Sports in my family are a big deal. My father and I have been into all different types of sports, but his version of sports are a lot like my version. My father and I would play basketball every afternoon during the summer. Every Sunday my father and I would go over to my grandparents' house to watch the football game. My parents got me into sports when I was in the second grade. Growing up playing sports made me very happy. I had a competitive drive to be better. When I stop to think about what sports were like back when my dad was in high school I know I have to ask him. My father was a multi-sport athlete who thrived on winning and being the best, which is much like our modern day athletes.

When I asked my dad what sports he participated in when he was in high school, he told me, hockey, baseball, and basketball. I thought to myself I play baseball and basketball I can relate to his sports fairly easy. Little did I know how many of the little things have changed in sports over the last thirty years. The comparison of sports in Grand Rapids in general from then to now is not very different.

In the early seventies my father played intramural hockey with others from his school. The kids had to make up teams and have a captain; my father was the captain and named his team The Lucky Puckers. They were the best team out of twelve teams in the Grand Rapids High School. My father's team won three years in a row until my father graduated. Today we don't have a school league like that. We would go to the ice rink in town and make teams to play one big game all night.

There were no captains and no real competitions so we could just have mixed teams and have fun without getting mad. To be an athlete in my father's day you had to go all out and play sports all the time you can. For him it was easy to do because he didn't have to work a job. He told me stories about him and all of his buddies going out every day to play baseball after school.

School was a lot easier in my father's