My dad died on April 13. He was lying in bed wearing a decades-old sweater with “The Budd Company” stitched over his heart. On a nearby shelf sat small artifacts from his childhood: a Popeye figurine, a photo of him as an infant in his parents’ arms and other reminders of where his life began.
There were also signs of the life he built as a husband, father and world traveler. Framed family photos filled the shelves. But two items held my attention: a black-and-white photo of his college football team and a worn game ball with his name on it.
I know how much football shaped him. It gave him a path, and that path led to a meaningful life. Forgive the obscure reference, but it reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live sketch where Garrett Morris played Chico Escuela, a fictional baseball player turned commentator, who famously said, “Baseball been berry, berry good to me.”
The line was meant to be funny, but it endured because it captured something true. Sports leave a mark that extends far beyond the game.
For my dad, football didn’t just fill time. It changed what he expected from himself. It gave him discipline, direction and a model for leadership. It surrounded him with coaches and teammates who reinforced those values. It taught him how to handle pressure, trust others and follow through. Long after he stopped playing, those lessons stayed with him.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in sports, especially adaptive sports. At their best, they offer structure, purpose and belonging. They provide something steady when everything else feels uncertain. You often hear people say, “Sports saved my life.” It sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s often true.
My dad was only 11 when his father died, a World War II veteran who didn’t live long after returning home. Too young to fully understand the loss, he grew up searching for guidance, mentorship and a sense of belonging. While my grandmother struggled to raise him and his younger sister in working-class northeastern Philadelphia, my dad carried the weight of that absence throughout his childhood.
Then football entered his life.
At first, it was just pickup games in the alleys behind rowhomes. Before long, those games became a community league, and football gave my dad something he did not have anywhere else — a place to belong. He was no longer just the kid without a father. He was someone people could count on.
There’s something powerful about putting on a team jersey. Before you fully know who you are, it tells you that you are part of something bigger than yourself.
Football also gave him structure. Coaches expected more. Teammates relied on him. Effort led somewhere. Over time, that built confidence.
By high school, he had become a leader. He learned how to prepare, stay steady under pressure and push through when it would have been easier not to. Quitting was never part of how he saw himself. He felt responsible for his mother and younger sister, and that sense of responsibility carried into everything he did.
Football eventually gave him something his family could not afford: college. He chose Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., which was close enough to home to continue supporting his family. He helped Lehigh win the 1957 Lambert Cup as the best football team in the East.
If you asked him what mattered most, it wasn’t the wins. It was the habits, discipline, consistency, accountability. Those values stayed with him long after everything else faded.
After graduating, he spent 43 years with The Budd Company, the pioneering manufacturer known for its stainless steel streamliner trains and all-steel automobile bodies. He started as a trainee and rose to president without ever taking a single sick day. That wasn’t luck. It was his philosophy in action: Show up, do the work and be someone others can count on.
Football was woven into our family life. If dad wasn’t working, he was outside throwing a ball. Fall weekends meant Lehigh home games. Sports shaped how he moved through the world, and he made sure I had sports in my life, too.
The difference was that I sucked at football. Instead, I gravitated toward the water. Competitive swimming gave me its own version of structure and discipline. Hours spent staring at the bottom of a pool teach you something about yourself. And just as football led my dad to Lehigh, swimming led me to Indiana University.
At the time, though, I was too young to see the value of sports beyond competition. That understanding came later.
After breaking my neck and becoming a quadriplegic, I had to relearn how to live, not just physically but mentally. Who am I now? What can I still do? What does my future look like?
And just as football had done for my dad, sports became part of how I rebuilt.
I started racing my wheelchair on tracks and roads. Then, I found triathlons. Training and competition gave me structure again and goals, both short-term and long-term, and a way to measure progress when everything else felt uncertain.
Competition helped me reconnect with a part of myself I thought I had lost. More than anything, it reminded me that I was still capable of growing.
That is what sports do. When people say sports saved their lives, they are often talking about finding purpose again.
My dad and I started in very different places. He was a kid dealing with loss. I was an adult adjusting to paralysis. But sports shaped us in similar ways. They gave us a framework for facing challenges and a reason to keep moving forward.
In the end, those items on the shelf were not random. They were markers of where he started, what shaped him and what carried him through. I can almost hear him looking at that old football and smiling, saying it had been very, very good to him.
I understand that now. Because in my own way, sports have been very, very good to me, too.
As always, please share your thoughts with me at al@pvamag.com.