For The Love Of It

I've been angry recently. Furious really. It's not pretty and those who are foolhardy enough to follow me on Twitter will have seen the evidence. More F-bombs, more retweets, more futile arguments with randoms. 

It kicked off due to the resurgence of the debate about School Sport. While I welcome the return of the debate and the interest in the topic, it's reignited my fury. And I'm not happy about that. Contrary to appearances I don't like being furious.

So I thought I'd explain where that fury has come from.

Love.

Just typing that word makes me feel clearer-headed and less stomach-knotty. Isn't it always better to find the positive feeling behind something and focus your energy there?

My husband, the love of my life, is a self-confessed sports nut. He's lucky enough to have made a career from the thing he loves. He's worked in community sports development, sports development for a national governing body, coached sport abroad and, until last year, he ran a School Sports Partnership (SSP) across two counties. 

He did it for love. There was no fame in working for an SSP, the pay wasn't that great and, as it turns out, his job security wasn't all that either. But he would come home buzzing with stories and passion - the inner city secondary school pupil who'd tried rowing for the first time in her life during one of his sessions and is now representing her county, the coach who came to work for him as part of his unemployment programme and was flying, the kids who had never swum before Jamie's partnership took them to a pool and gave them coaching, the teenagers who had become Young Sports Leaders and were blossoming with confidence and passion (he spotted one of them standing behind Usain Bolt during the 100m final and as he pressed 'pause' his pride was palpable). I used to look forward to these stories. These testimonies of the power of his passion for his work, and the sheer goodness that came out of it. 

Jamie's love for sport is contagious. My own enjoyment of the Olympics is amplified because I get to experience it with him. I get to walk round the Olympic Park and see his face like a child at Christmas. I find myself jumping up and down on the sofa with him as our rowers/cyclists/runners speed towards the finish line. And the free explanations of sporting rules, gossip and insider knowledge is pretty handy too.

Because of love.

Jamie now works for Fields in Trust (FIT). Having found himself unable to achieve his goal of bringing his love of sport to as many people as possible via School Sport he just went and found another way round the problem. People with a shared love have a habit of finding each other and when Jamie found FIT I knew he'd found a home. He now works with communities, sports clubs and councils to protect playing fields and open space. He's about to launch a project to create opportunities for young people to play sport on the playing fields that FIT protect. Frankly, he's unstoppable. But of course he is - he has a love for something that teaches you to just keep going because the buzz of achieving great things is addictive. 

That love is what we should be seeking out and replicating now as we enter the debate about School Sport, sports development and the Olympic legacy. It's not about politics. It's about propagating love for sport. You won't do that by making it compulsory, or by dictating how that love should manifest itself. You'll do it by bringing together the Jamies of this world, getting behind them and letting them do what they do best. They're the experts. They're the ones that have been doing this since before it became a cause du jour. And they do it for the love of it. Let them lead, give the job of shaping our legacy to those who care and who have the experience. Keep the politics out of it. Do it for love.