Sport. It's everywhere you want to be.

I look at sports like my credit card. No, not a hellacious curse of plastic gold ensuring time delayed cringes with each swipe, hear me out! As youngsters we play, we learn, get catered to and educated on the fields of sport to no end. We max out our proverbial limits buying coaching, mentor ship, competitions and skills.We show up on frosty mornings, dressed before we step out of the vehicle with our sole responsibility being to charge head long onto the playing field like a rabid Grey Hound and simply to give it a fair go! This method progresses and continues as our careers do, gradually more is expected, more demanded of us as athletes and eventually as teammates too. Slowly and subtlety the interest kicks in. It's bred through the growing maturity in our passions of the games. Slowly we begin to 'want' to help others succeed, to improve not only ourselves but others 'games' as well, trading secrets and tactics alike for the betterment of all involved.  And with all good things, the end eventually comes, varying in shape or form, and we must hang them up -- Skates in my instance -- and move on to the next stage of our sporting lives, our debt. This debt is when we must give back, settle up our accounts, examine all we have reaped and extracted from the games we love and sit down with our inner athletic advisor and devise a plan to pay it all back, if we can. 

Last week my friend and teammate Sean Scarbrough & myself ran the annual Canberra Knights hockey school for Canberra youth. Wrangling kids like sheep we clawed our way through five tough love days of hockey enlightenment, finally collapsing Friday afternoon exhausted and defeated by relentless youthful exuberance. I'd be lying if I said there was zero fiscal compensation attached to this position but in relation to hours, and headaches, the money hardly made sense. 

Yet, this is our debt as hockey players, our unspoken responsibility as benefactors who have enjoyed countless memories and experiences from the game we've eaten, slept and breathed so devoutly, for so long. Coaching, managing, mentoring, you name it, for this is how we give back to the hockey gods, and in every sport for this matter. Sport is a cycle, a fluid circle of progression and advancement we all must take heed of and recognize and respect. We must not reap the spoils of countless athletic withdrawals and naively forget that it SHOULD be debt we plan on repaying. 

The options are wide and varied for this service. Sport has payment plans for every type of person, custom tailored to even the most demanding of schedules. From a lesson, to a practice, to a conversation, to taking a aspiring athlete to a game, the choices we have as athletes are infinite, and more accessible than wi-fi. For myself, I've been a private goal tending coach for many students for over five years, I've done hockey schools, clinics & camps. And despite occasional spikes in frustration levels, or youth tolerance, these experiences have paid not only monetary dividends through college and a semi-pro career but also and more importantly emotional deposits in my inner vault as well, these which can never be withdrawn.

It is a strong belief of mine that all who can, should. This pertaining to taking up a mentor ship position in their chosen sport. Service towards others is a quality all should aspire to include in their personal skill sets and lives. Sport acts as such a rich source of so much, and for so many in life. The athletic mediums of our upbringings can be traced to the development of many core values and competencies we hold within ourselves. These blend and synergize with one another deep inside each of us to create exactly who we are, not only as individuals, but as teammates, friends, family members, and mentors too.   

One only need to coach one child for one day to get a sense of the impact and magnitudes that your presence and capabilities forge. The connection that is fused is indescribable when you see their hope, potential, and excitement. Most especially when their passions and energies are pointed squarely at you, asking for your help in ushering their advancement in obtaining their athletic goals. 

As it lies today, many current and ex sportsmen & women make countless contributions to mentoring tomorrows athletes. But as in anything good, more is never a bad thing. From my experience I estimate about a fifty percent rate from teammates I have played with who have chosen to begin paying back their athletic debts through coaching and other mentor positions. And while this is good, connecting and inspiring the other fifty percent would do unthinkably great things for sport and its social impacts on our worlds youth. At times it can be frustrating, draining, even stressful working with children. Yet for all the minor headaches and sacrifices required, the rewards and inner fulfillment obtained from giving back, being able to see the positive effects of your efforts, will ultimately make the process completely soul enriching and gratifying in the end. 

Sport is the credit card without limits, spend all you like, take from it everything you need and do so sans regret. For this is a card whose payment plan is riddled with inner reward and its interest rates composed solely of charity towards the passionate athletes of tomorrow. Heck, some organizations might even throw in a t-shirt or vacation for your commitment. Simply remember, the swiping of this proverbial plastic will always be encouraged.