I grew up an athlete.  Throughout high school and college, athletics were as important to me as music and girls.

In high school I was a decent three-sport athlete (Football, soccer and track).  I did not really know the meaning of work, but the highlight was that I did play split end and defensive safety on an undefeated and unscored upon championship football team that was one of the greatest teams in the history of my school.

I then went to the University of Virginia on an athletic scholarship (soccer and track) for a year.  I pole-vaulted under a coach who had coached several Olympic vaulters and he taught me the meaning of preparation and what it took to become a champion.  But the jock’s life at a major college was just not for me and I finished up my college years at a small college in the Midwest – Principia College.

There I found myself as an athlete and was the high scoring center forward on the soccer team and a champion pole-vaulter.

I suppose, as some people might think, “I had the genes” for my father, Lyman Link, who was from Canada, had been a professional hockey player and had actually played with the Chicago Blackhawks for some time.  So he had been an athlete as well, though being from Canada, at the time, he had no experience whatsoever with either football or baseball.  Neither sport had yet become popular in Canada.

My dad was an old-fashioned dad.  He was just not the kind of dad that rolled up his sleeves and got down on the floor and played with the kids.  We never shot baskets together, though he built my brother and I a fine basketball backboard in the driveway.  He hated basketball and as an ex-pro hockey player, called it a sissy sport and we argued that one for two decades.

He came to my brother’s and my events seldom and participated in our games never.  He was an accountant and a workaholic and spent most of his time in his office.  None of this ever bothered me as a kid.  What did I know?  That’s the way most dads were.  One summer he did sponsor our Little League baseball team, but he was always more the owner than the coach.

One early fall Sunday afternoon as baseball turned to football, my brother, Jim, and I were out in the side yard tossing the football around.  Our house was on a two-house lot with room enough for a brick patio and an ample playing yard on the side.  As my brother and I worked on our passing, my dad sat on the patio and read the Sunday St. Louis Post Dispatch on his one free afternoon of the week.

Then an historic and totally surprising thing happened.

Dad actually stood up and walked out into the side yard and began to watch us throw more closely.  Jim and I immediately became totally self-conscious and had no clue as to what to make of this insertion of a previously standoffish father into our life.  Our passes got wobbly, we began to drop the ball every other catch, and our minds were just not on the practice, but rather on a suddenly interested dad.

Then he pulled out all the stops and shocked us both.

“Hey Jimmy, throw me the ball.”  My heart went into my throat.  Dad wanted to play with us!  I remember feeling suddenly, totally out of place and out of time.  This was just not ever even dreamed of, never considered.

What did Dad know about football?  He didn’t even know the rules of the game.  My brother, who was as in shock as I was, turned and readied his throw to Dad.  I remember thinking, “Oh my god, he’ll never catch it.”

But Jim threw the ball and Dad caught it easily and with grace.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

And then Dad turned to me and said, “Now Pete, go out for a pass.”  I began to trot and he readied his throw.  I felt a surge of adrenalin as I realized a new world, a new existence – a father who would play sports with us, coach us to heights yet unconsidered – be one of us.

And then he threw.  Now you have to remember that he grew up a hockey player.  This was quite probably the first time he had ever thrown a football in his life – and the last time.

He threw the ball like a girl.  Instead of a neat spiral with a Johnny Unitas spin on it, the ball fluttered through the air end to end softly landing some 15 feet short of my trajectory.  I dove for it heroically, but didn’t even come close.  It was a pathetic first attempt.

The ball bounced lazily to a stop on the grass between us.  I couldn’t even go pick it up.  I just stopped in embarrassment.  The three of us just stood there for a good long beat or two wondering what to do next.

Then Dad said, “Yeah, well …” and turned on one heel and shuffled off back to the patio to continue his afternoon reading.

That was an experience that defined our relationship for all time.  Looking back, had I been older, had I been wiser, I might have said, “Here Dad, let me show you how to hold the ball, let me show you how to roll it off your fingers when you throw so it will spin like Johnny U.  Maybe that defining moment better played might have changed our paths.  Maybe that was surely a moment missed.  Maybe, surely …

But I wasn’t older and I wasn’t wiser.  I was just embarrassed for Dad.  He was out of place in my world and that hurt me deeply with a shocking kind of reality.

The moment was never brought up again in our lives, but always remembered by me.

It was the time my sweet old-fashioned dad tried mightily to step across the line of demarcation between past and present … and failed.

I know now that it was just not who he was.  But I also know now that the image of the modern father, the father I became – one who did get down on the floor and wrestle with his son, one who did give up his mornings to help coach his son’s swim team, the one who loved playing with his son – this was the image that, for a moment, intrigued my father.  He tried to step over that line, but couldn’t.  But he tried.

I’ll always love him for that attempt.