By Christopher Cudworth

Making the cut. Some crack. Some don’t.

The world of sports can be merciless. In some programs, you either make the team or get cut.

Getting cut used to be a method of sending a signal to kids that they had to either work harder, grow up a year or think about another sport.

Getting cut or making the team. There was status in the latter and shame in the former.

The first time I got cut was pretty young. 10 years old. Tried out for the premiere baseball team for which my brother had played and was a little too young to cut the mustard.

The next year I made the team and we won the city championship. I got to pitch in the semifinals game. Making the cut had initially been scary on that club. You had to learn the fundamentals to get playing time. They taught good baseball. It’s a lesson I never forgot all my life. We weren’t even allowed to wear our uniform caps on anything but game day. Discipline.

Some think love is better than forcing people to make the cut.

By the time I was a junior in high school I’d made every other team for which I tried out in baseball and basketball. But by the time I was a senior in high school running had taken up more of my time and I did not attend summer basketball camp. Big mistake.

Come tryouts that fall the other senior and I who did not go to summer camp got set aside to do drills in a corner of the gym. My track coach wandered through during practice and came up to both of us. “Get the picture? You’re not going to play this year.”

So we cut ourselves. Cut our losses. Cut and ran. At least that’s what I did.

Michael Jordan worked hard and came out for basketball the next year. So it’s not always bad to get cut. But you have to make your choices.

Life can be ice cold at times.

The same goes for so many things in life. Sometimes you just gotta know when to cut your losses rather than hang in there when the message is clear. Either you’re not needed or misunderstood. The signals are there. You know they’re there. But sometimes they’re hard to read. Or accept.

That’s what so many of us love about running and riding. You either stick with your effort or you don’t. Many teams don’t cut kids from the squad. As long as you want to run, no one’s going to tell you go home. Plenty of room out there on that big fields. Lots of time to cover ground.

Cutting up for the fun of it

There is a movement afoot to put on non-competitive races and events. I get that. People want to run with other people just to enjoy the camaraderie.

It was not like that in the first or second running boom. The winners were lauded for their work, and getting under 3:00 in the marathon was the only thing that made you a runner.

I’ve also raced CAT 5 in cycling. That’s the “open” race where anyone can ride as long as they pay their license fees. The reason for licenses is that you have to prove you’re at least serious enough to not crash into people wantonly. $25 is the threshold. Otherwise you’re cut out of the racing.

Sports still can teach us stuff about cutting it or not cutting it. Life is harsh at times and you don’t always get the job or make the team. But if you’ve been through the experience before, through sports,  you know how to handle it either way, including hitting the wall, or the glass ceiling.

Run on. Ride on.