Like many Americans, I played baseball, ice hockey, football and other sports in my youth, but the demands of work and the fear of injury due to lack of adequate insurance forced me to abandon my childhood passions.
I came out of retirement at age 35. After moving to Scotland from the US, I joined the Harl Hitters, one of 10 teams in the Edinburgh mixed softball league. (In Scotland, “harl” means mist that rolls in from the North Sea.)
The Harle Hitters lineup consisted mostly of Brits who had never picked up a softball and a few American expatriates past their prime, and we were a mediocre team in the weaker of the two league divisions.
What started as a weekly diversion turned into a catalyst for building intergenerational friendships, getting fit, and settling into a new country. While living in Scotland, I learned lessons that will serve me well back home.
America is a nation of sports-lovers who don't play sports, but adult recreational leagues can be an inexpensive solution to many of the things we worry about: missing friends, feeling out of shape, declining physical strength, etc. A 2015 poll found that 73 percent of Americans played sports as children, but only 25 percent continued playing sports as adults.
When the pandemic hit, half of the players quit and the captain stepped down. Myself and another teammate took over and quickly realized we had a great opportunity to reinvent the team. Once the pandemic restrictions were lifted, everyone in town was eager to socialize again. We had more freshmen at practice than we could accommodate.
My new leadership role brought out a competitive instinct I hadn't known existed. I played the long game, scouring Facebook groups for experienced players, planning practice sessions, minding batting order, and sending complimentary emails to the best players I hoped to acquire later in life. I felt like a ruthless general manager with all the power and a dream of winning the league.
I was also trying to get in shape. I joined the Edinburgh Ogres, one of eight teams in the Scottish Ball Hockey League. (Ball hockey is similar to ice hockey, but with a ball instead of a puck and running shoes instead of skates.) I'd played ice hockey from a young age, so I figured I'd do well against the Scottish, a country that has produced very few professional ice hockey players and whose most notable athletic ability is throwing heavy stones.
But midway through the first practice session, I found my cardiovascular system feeling like an overweight dog, and I felt nauseous as I tried to keep up with a Scotsman, sword in hand, charging recklessly into a corner as if he were running down a hill.
Between the nausea and the hurt pride that came with little playing time on the third line, there was plenty of reason to get in shape. Imagine a training montage of a calmer, less disciplined, middle-aged “Rocky”: Jogging along the local river with plenty of bird-watching breaks, lifting weights in his garage while listening to Esther Perel's Couples Therapy podcast, stretching to “Yoga With Adriene” videos on YouTube.
We encourage our children to play sports to improve their physical health, while neglecting our own. According to the World Health Organization, 32% of adult men and 48% of adult women in the United States are physically inactive (defined as less than 150 minutes of aerobic activity per week), resulting in approximately $51 billion in annual health care costs related to inactivity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 8.3% of deaths among American adults are attributable to inactivity.
I was in bad shape, but not completely useless. I loved diving headfirst into the ball's path to block shots in dramatic acts of self-sacrifice. After years of changing diapers and singing lullabies, I felt a little bit of my wild side rediscovered as I limped home after a fierce battle along the boards for control of the ball and a few bruises.
Not only did my team help me recapture the energy of my teenage years, they also helped me make friends at post-game pub meetups and on the long drives to tournaments. I befriended Gregor, a player and coach for the Ogas who also hosted weekly roller hockey scrimmages. He told me stories of being a groomsman at his teammates' weddings, a solicitor for their grievances, and even a referee for their visa applications.
“Lifelong friendships have been forged, romantic relationships have formed and developed, and I’ve watched my teammates grow from quiet, shy boys and girls into confident, self-assured adults,” Gregor told me.
According to the Surgeon General, sports can be a social bond at a time when Americans are spending, on average, 20 fewer hours a month with friends than they did 20 years ago, and loneliness and social isolation are estimated to have as much of an impact on lifespan as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
American kids are also not playing as many sports as they used to. From 2019 to 2022, sports participation fell 6%, with 1.2 million fewer Americans ages 6 to 17 participating in sports, according to the Aspen Institute's 2023 State of Play report. Part of the reason for the decline in participation may be the high cost of sports: Parents pay $30 billion to $40 billion a year for travel, equipment, lessons and camps, and those costs exclude many socio-economically disadvantaged kids.
They might take a cue from European countries like Iceland, where governments, especially local authorities, invest heavily in recreational sports. With a population of about 360,000, Iceland shocked the soccer world in 2018 by qualifying to play against much larger countries and more professionally trained players in the World Cup. The country's sporting success is credited to fostering a culture of near-universal participation in sports (about 90% of Icelandic children play in sports clubs at a young age). In Iceland, sports facilities are open to everyone, children as young as four are coached by highly trained coaches, and teams foster individual development while emphasizing fun and friendship.
Barriers to sports are unfortunate because sports can be almost a lifeline for people, as it was for me. When I left the U.S., I lost my social network and professional connections. My applications were rejected, I failed my driving test, and my financial worries made me feel like I was failing at life. Sports wasn't a distraction. It was the only thing that reminded me that I was a capable person.
Though I struggled to meet many of society's typical standards of success, I was able to work my way up from the third line to the first line on the hockey team. In softball, I batted nearly .700 as a shortstop and watched as the freshmen formed friendships that came together to celebrate holidays and support each other on and off the field. Now we're playing in a premier league.
My dream of winning the league may not have come true, but I have friends to look forward to Thursday nights, and a better cardiovascular system than a heavy dog. The pandemic may be over, but epidemics of inactivity and loneliness persist. Recreational leagues can be part of the therapy.
Ken Ilgunas is the author of Walden on Wheels and Trespassing Across America and captain of the Edinburgh Ogres and the Hurl Hitters.
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