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SPORTS
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Photo by TIM MANDELL
Owen County batter Josh Juett gets under a pitch against Kentucky
Country Day.
Rebels
head to state tourney
OCHS
wins NCKC opener
Track
competes at Tates Creek
Leading
the cheers
Hamilton
signs with St. Catharine
On
the sidelines
Mistakes
are hard to forget
Tim
Mandell
Making mistakes is
part of human nature.
People make bad decisions, say the wrong thing at the wrong time
and generally screw up now and again.
Usually, it’s minor.
Sometimes it’s not.
But most people learn from their mistakes and become a better
person, or, at the very least, learn to try to avoid repeating
the same mistake again when faced with a similar situation.
In life, we can apologize, we can make amends, and we can take
responsibility for our mistakes and face the consequences.
We can do any number of things to try to repair the damage done
from a mistake, and if possible, go on with our normal lives and
put the mistake behind us.
The process is usually helped along by people who forgive and
forget and allow those who make mistakes to move on, without harping
on the mistakes or trying to make someone feel worse, or even
stupid, for their mistakes.
It’s not the same in sports, where mistakes are magnified
and recorded for all eternity.
Errors, turnovers, fumbles, interceptions and penalties are all
statistics in sports — recorded right alongside touchdowns,
home runs, goals and baskets.
And in some cases, there is no redemption for a sports mistake.
From youth leagues to the professionals, mistakes are highlighted
and remembered, haunting those affected by them like a demon stalking
your nightmares.
There is no apology for a sports mistake that costs a team a victory
or chance at a championship.
People remember — forever.
They may forgive family and friends for lying, stealing, cheating
or committing adultery, but they won’t forgive that person
— even if they’re a stranger — who committed
the foul that cost the team the basketball game, or dropped the
fly ball that would have ended the baseball game, or committed
a penalty in the box that cost the team the soccer game.
Those mistakes seem to stay with people forever.
From a kid in Little League who took strike three with two outs
and the bases loaded to the ball rolling under Bill Buckner’s
glove in the 1986 World Series, mistakes have a way of shadowing
people with a dark cloud they can never erase.
In life, we can say we’re sorry.
In sports, that’s not always enough.
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