By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Arianne Brown: Athletic aptitude is as valuable as academic prowess
fc2c60e0dbba8b2bcf03c106194d2e25b9e5a2193d165206f883c94758d9a8e9
All too often children who excel in athletics yet struggle academically are seen as unintelligent. Recently, my youngest daughter had an experience that illustrates this point. Athletes are not dumb but are in fact geniuses in their own right. - photo by Arianne Brown
Recently, my 6-year-old daughter, Azure, was sitting at the computer when some instructions popped up that required some reading that she had difficulty doing herself. As she should do, Azure asked for some help.

At the time, we were visiting family, and one family member jokingly said with a laugh, What? She doesnt know how to read? But she knows how to do a back handspring. Who are her parents?

Now, I know this family member well enough not to take offense, and I know my daughter enough to have confidence that in due time the whole reading thing will eventually click like it has with all my children. What he said, however, did cause me to think.

Azure, like all my children, is a natural athlete. She comes from parents who are athletes who competed at a collegiate level, as well as some uncles, aunts and grandparents who did the same. Much of our family time is spent being active, fully immersing her and all our children in an active lifestyle.

All of these things combined have caused her athletic aptitude to be higher yes, higher than her aptitude for other things such as reading, math and science.

And thats OK.

Having a child with a high athletic aptitude does not mean that he or she is dumb. I would never look at a child who excels in math but cannot do a flip and point out his inability to do so. Yet some people see academic prowess as something that should be esteemed more highly than a persons ability, inclination or need to perform athletically.

Why? Is it because athletics are seen as too easy? Is it because they are thought of as unnecessary, or perhaps a waste of time? All of the above?

Let me tell you that athletes are not dumb; they are smart. The term dumb jock should never have been a term to begin with because even if the core content areas of math, language arts or science are a struggle, there is an area where that jock is a genius.

As a mother of athletes and as someone who values education, I pray that my children will find success in all areas. More than anything, I hope that each of my children will feel smart. And I hope that the next time any of them ask for help in an area of academic struggle, they will receive assistance without their athletic ability being called into question.

Now, if youll excuse me, I have a back handspring to spot.
Sign up for our e-newsletters
From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
8ccd7d661f85d37c8298791c9a56bec6e0f8449d4aea5c09c6ffcf527854f186
Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
Latest Obituaries