“Sport has the power to change the world… It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does… It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination…” – Nelson Mandela, Laureus World Sports Awards, Monaco 2000.
Operative words:
Change.
Power.
Unite.
The fact is this: 9/10 times I watch an individual athlete prepare for a match, a trial, a race or a round, something happens. A flame, small but steady, is quietly ignited in me, glowing ever brighter as the athlete gears up to compete. I almost feel like I’m there with them, rehearsing mental cues, exhaling slowly, shaking out some tightness somewhere, anywhere, everywhere (!). I suspect a similar flame is ignited in every athlete in every nation who knows what that anticipation feels like. Infinitesimal, it is immovable. Hidden, it holds its bearer silently rapt, watching with intensity, willing the athlete – her muse in that moment – to achieve excellence for the sake of excellence itself. It is a light that transcends space, time, language, race, wealth and pedigree to encircle like a purse string, to illuminate like a constellation – a common light shining brightly in uncommon people. Even in girls. Even in persons with disabilities. Even in whomever you think of as “them” or “other” or “different.”
Them, they… The other… Their breath is just as much a gift as yours. Their heart beats with the same life-sustaining vigor (and wonder) as yours. They are, therefore you are. Sport forces you to recognize this, especially when you’re wearing the same jersey as your “other,” “them,” or “they.” As Nelson Mandela described, sport laughs in the face of discrimination, creates hope, inspires and unites with unforced ease. It is one of the world’s most powerful tools of social inclusion.
The Jersey
It’s hard to remember exactly when I made the shift from “them” to “us,” but during the 10th annual All-Africa Games, para-athletes (my original “them”) and able-bodied athletes (my original “us”) wore the same yellow jersey on totally different terms. Reflecting their deep-seated and perhaps unconscious disdain for persons with disabilities, Team Ghana paid for a single square room for all of our male para-athletes and a second square room for all of our female para-competitors. In contrast, able-bodied athletes like me (“us,” in my head, at the time) shared a room with only two teammates!
The sight of my para teammates crammed onto a string of undressed, adjoining mattresses covering the rooms’ floors with weathered wheelchairs piled into narrow kitchens like surplus storage, reminded me of the phrase “three-fifths of a human.” It shook me. And it stood in stark contrast to what I saw outside those stuffy quarters.
Socks!
On the streets of the 10-block Village, we trained. It was best to train first thing in the morning before full light (and heat) and let me tell you, I loved those mornings. Listening to the rhythmic songs of Team Kenya, their perfect harmonies dancing blithely around the beat of their synchronized footfalls, made my heart swell with pride for being African. Who doesn’t run well to a good beat and perfect harmonies? All this time, I thought it was just genetics!
An acapella warm up:
Watching my para teammates practice turned my definition of sport on its head: graceful, artful, seemingly unstoppable, impossibly perfect vessels of speed, they flew down the streets of the Village during practice runs. They looked like human bullets (!), embodiments of light or better, electricity, their bodies seemed so perfectly in tune with racing chairs, crouched, heads cocked, like Africa’s big cats on the hunt at dawn. The swishhhhhhhhhhh of their wheels was made more captivating by the Doppler effect and consistently compelled my head to turn and follow their trails, half-way losing track of whatever 20-meter drill I was doing. I couldn’t concentrate. So impressed, so taken was I by the beauty and sheer power of it all, I imagined they moved the ground beneath them, beneath me, beneath us (ah, maybe that’s where the “us” started…). And I couldn’t help but wonder why on earth I hadn’t seen or been shown this brand of athleticism before. Why hadn’t this obvious display of strength, power, grit, grace been depicted in billboards, coffee table books, magazines and films? And why hadn’t I seen, known or articulated what I recognized then: that sport is, in the end, perhaps the strongest tool we’ve got for inclusion. Because at the end of the day, when you share a jersey and a journey, mutual respect inevitably builds. How could it not? You know what it’s taken for you to get to a certain point/place/event. Your sport forces you to the extreme of (pick a noun, any noun)…
To me, there is no purer expression of the above than through sport. And the most amazing part is… Sport is available to us all (similar to some but distinct from other forms of creative self-expression). Sport at any level, from recreational to elite, requires only the ability to move…something. One, two, three, four or five legs… Five, four, three, two or one arm… As long as there is a physical component to your existence, the opportunity to move is inherently available to you. And you can be completely human (read: complex!) in that space. You can for example be tenacious and doubtful at the same time, be prepared but struggle with performance (much to your coach’s chagrin), in the sporting arena. The beauty of sport, particularly recreational youth sport is just that: the forced evaporation of pretense and fluff allows a common and simple space to emerge, one where your jersey and journey tell a very human story that starts and ends with a clock, a distance or bell. The resources you need to move — even if you can’t sing, paint, write, draw or solve for “x,” — arrived on this earth with you. They are, simply, your brain and your body. No more. No less.
Short clip of Ghana’s Anita Fordjour, just before London 2012:
I think a lot about inclusion. The sincere version of it. And I think sport (especially recreational youth sport) is one of the only tools we have to reliably build inclusive spaces. On July 10th, 2014, I wrote this in my journal and I don’t remember why (must have been after a sports lecture or movie); it expresses what I mean to convey when I say “inclusion,” it also expresses what I sometimes think, in some abbreviated way, when I watch an athlete move:
Your breath is just as much a gift as mine; your heart beats with the same life-sustaining force and wonder as mine; you are therefore I am, I am therefore you are.” Whether you have 0,1,2 or 3 legs, it’s always “we” and “us” in sport.
Ajara Mohammed, 2011 SWAG Sports Person of the Year Award recipient, Accra, Ghana (the first para athlete to win this prestigious award and a HUGE step for our sports community!)
Ajara Mohammed flanked by me (left), one of my colleagues from Ghana Beach Volleyball (right) and her coach behind her
Kids (Who I Didn’t Know But Trained With Me, Anyhow) At The Track, At Night