In her book The Right Call, author Sally Jenkins quotes her father, the great sport writer, Dan Jenkins asking a young Sally,
“Who can describe the athletic heart?”
While Sally offers an extraordinary answer in the rest of her book, I’d like to ask and answer a secondary question;
“Who can describe the Amateur’s heart?”
The latin origin of the word amateur comes from the word amator or “lover” and while modern definitions define amateurs as individuals who participate for free I think the definition of the amateur as someone who pursues something for the love of it is much more in alignment with the character of the amateurs I know.
I am an amateur in a few things, powerlifting, jiu jitsu, and kick boxing to name a few. I’ve been smashed in half, have a metal hip, and am not particularly strong, fast, or agile naturally, I just happen to really enjoy training. I lost all of my rounds at my first BJJ tournament, I miss lift attempts, and I get occasional bloody noses when sparring – and while all of these pursuits have produced incredibly uncomfortable feelings, I keep coming back to them. I have been challenged, shaped by, and matured by these amateur sports in a way which feels meaningful in spite of the discomfort.
Winning feels good. Ain’t no way around it. However, the amateur heart isn’t generally motivated exclusively by winning, if it was I and many others would have quit already, it’s driven by something more. To refer back to Sally Jenkins, she defines the athletic heart as “aspirational” in an interview with The Washington Post. She goes on to say the athletic heart is “the desire to put all your chips in the middle of the table and possibly break your own heart.”
The Amateur’s heart is true to this – they are driven to improve, to measure themselves, and to keep showing up not only because they love their sport, but because they love who they become in the process winning, losing, and most importantly journey of training too.
In his book Amateur: The True Story of What Makes A Man journalist Thomas Page McBee trains for an amateur boxing fight and in reflecting on his experience states, “I didn’t yet realize that fighting was mostly about what you did when you were overpowered. This man, backed into a corner, learning how to fight—this was a glimpse of who I was under the rubble of trauma and expectation and loss.”
McBee reveals a truth that anyone who has competed in a sport knows – the real fight is not the fight you think. The real competition is against yourself – your negative thoughts, your doubts, and the pressure you let yourself feel in that moment. For the amateur the opponent is a visitor with a gift presenting the opportunity to face one’s self.
It is through fear, blood, and persistence that the amateur and champion alike are formed. So maybe amateurs don’t get paid, but the wealth found in the pursuit of something for the love of it is there for the taking if you have an Amateur’s heart.
