Leading Our Way

3CONSISTENCY: Becky Sauerbrunn

YOU KNOW THOSE KIDS who were never any good, or motivated, or interested in sports? That's me. Of course, I always did sports because I had no choice—three times per week was the minimum mandatory requirement imposed by my parents up to age 18. And that wasn't the only requirement: it had to be a sport that my brother and I could both do at the same time, to maximise the logistics efficiency of the van der Esch family. Karate, swimming, horse riding, volleyball. I did manage to convince my brother at age seven to do figure skating, but it didn't last long: after less than a year, we were back to swimming. And then there were the skiing holidays and the summer camps: all day tennis, sailing, swimming. My nightmare.

I know: I realise as I am writing these words that it sounds amazing and I am an idiot to complain—but it just wasn't for me. I did it, I wasn't bad, but never particularly good either: I lacked motivation, I didn't feel energised, I was of course competitive and would be pissed each time (i.e. always) I didn't win or outperform others—starting from my brother, but that wasn't enough to get rid of my underlying disinterest.

And it wasn't only about playing sports, it was also about watching sports. Apart from figure ice‐skating, which I could spend hours watching, I remember looking confused at my dad glued to the screen watching the ...