Article August 7, 2000 Issue

for teens

GRACE IN A CRUNCH

By Bev DeWindt

What's at the top of your "got to have it" list? A pair of in-line skates? A new computer? A set of wheels? A position on the football or field hockey team? Or maybe having a girlfriend or boyfriend?

A friend of mine, when he was a high-school junior and played football, discovered one day on the field what he needed most. He had tackled the ball carrier forcefully—but also very awkwardly. After the two of them had collided, they lay on the grass, trying to collect themselves. The coach came over to my friend and said, "You should pray for more grace."

To this young man, "grace" went along with wearing a ballet costume, and he wanted nothing to do with that. Even so, he listened to the rest of what his coach had to say: "You'll find that when you are the most graceful, you'll be using the correct form and will be the most powerful. There is more power in moving with grace than with physical force." That was a completely new idea to this ballplayer. And although he didn't fully understand it at the time, he realized it was important advice, so he started trying, in his own way, to express more grace.

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