In my house, my dad and I were never the sports lovers, at least compared to the rest of our family. It was my mother who would be shaking us awake for the Indian national cricket team’s matches at 4 a.m., and who would be in a mood if Rafael Nadal had an early exit from Wimbledon. It was my little brother who would cry every time Brazil was knocked out of the World Cup and talked so incessantly about Barcelona that I began supporting Real Madrid out of spite.
Sure, my dad and I liked sports. My mom and brother unabashedly loved them. We too had favorite teams and certainly dedicated many hours to being planted on the couch for one event or another, but it definitely wasn’t a dominant part of either of our lives.
But now, years later, sports run my life. In the little time that I’m not at The Michigan Daily’s Sports desk editing or covering a game, I’m watching an unbelievable Patriots Super Bowl run, scrolling college sports on X for college transfer portal updates and fighting tears through Tottenham Hotspur’s battle against relegation.
Such a transformation could be attributed to my mother and brother — their passion, surely, had to have rubbed off on me. Yet, actually, the roots of my passion for sports were planted, nurtured and inspired by my dad. Not because he taught me to love sports, but because he taught me something far more important: No matter how foolish you may feel, there’s always a reward in trying something new.
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I’ve always wanted to be just like my dad. Anyone who knows him would describe him as smart, vigilant and competitive, which is all I have ever desired to be. Every answer to every question always seemed within his grasp, each goal within reach. As a child, he seemed almost larger than life, and I mistook that confidence and competence for perfection.
And so I attempted to be just like him. I watched the news with him as soon as he came home from work, began discussing politics at a far too early age and proudly showed off perfect tests as a signal of my acumen. If he had to fix something, I proudly acted as his little helper, and for any game we’d partake in, I’d always play to win — and more importantly, to impress.
As I got older, though, I realized there was a bit more to life than intelligence and accomplishments. In realizing this, I began seeing my dad for who he actually was. He wasn’t just smart — he was curious. He wasn’t just vigilant, he was hardworking. And he wasn’t just competitive, he was courageous.
My dad has never been afraid to try. To build our lives, my father left his home country of India for a brand new world, Connecticut, leaving behind his family, culture and community. And he hasn’t stopped trying since. Whether it be with his career, his stint in coaching my brother’s youth soccer team (a sport he knew little about) or his recent attempt to become a plant dad, he’s never shied away from trying and learning something new.
However, trying didn’t always mean succeeding. I watched him come home exhausted from back-to-back business trips and lose his hair after big career switches. Even now, my dad knows very little about soccer beyond Lionel Messi. And the first generation of plants he brought home a couple of years ago didn’t last long. But these setbacks aren’t what stuck with me because he didn’t let them stop him from trying. He kept showing up. Eventually, he built a successful career, helped nurture my brother’s love of soccer and somehow transformed our house into a miniature jungle.
That same unapologetic courage hasn’t defined me. Constantly creeping in my mind is a fear of failure. Throughout my life, that fear has made me scared of everything from moving schools to, at the grand age of 20, applying for jobs.
Every time, it has been my dad who helped me get through it. Through my tears on the phone and constant concerns, my dad always returns to one point, one thing: be brave. If I am freaking out about an exam or nervous to admit any small mistake I’ve made, my dad is always there. Not to judge, not to change me — simply to encourage me to be honest, be my best and be brave.
Maybe the message would seem basic from any random messenger, but from my dad, my role model who has always shown what it means to try, the words always hit deep.
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In September 2023, I did the unthinkable: I joined The Michigan Daily Sports section. To this day, I don’t know the thought process behind why I did it, but I did. Did I talk to anyone on staff for months? No. Was my first article not until months later? Yes. Yet a small, slightly brave piece of me, bestowed by my father, kept me coming back regardless.
Simultaneously, my dad was beginning a sports journey of his own. Right after I left for college, my dad formed a cricket team in my hometown of Wilton, Connecticut. While cricket is far from America’s most popular sport, in India, it is a religion. And so my dad brought it to our town.
The Wilton Warriors Cricket Club began as quite the motley crew. Initially, it was just a handful of players who would practice on random baseball fields and go out for drinks at a local pub afterwards. It wasn’t much, yet my dad poured himself into it. He wasn’t the best player on his own team, not by a long shot, and yet it was he who kept trying to help it grow.
Every time I picked up the phone or visited home, I heard the latest updates. From working with the town to get a cricket pitch installed to holding recruitment events and spreading the sport to our town’s women and youth, my dad put his all into building a community via cricket in our small town.
And it worked — the team now boasts dozens of members and a few championships to its name. They have their own piece of our local park where they can practice alongside our high school lacrosse teams. They were even featured in an article by our local newspaper.
Two years after my fearful first meeting with Sports, armed with the courage of my father, I tried something even newer and even scarier: I ran for Managing Sports Editor of The Daily. And now, a few months into my tenure, sitting next to one of his championship cups in his home office is a copy of my most recent Daily accomplishment: a copy of the book detailing the Michigan basketball team’s National Championship run that I helped edit.
These mementos aren’t the end-all, be-all of our passion, but standing side by side, they are a small reminder of the unimaginable leaps we took regardless. Neither my dad nor I got here because success was guaranteed — we got here because we were willing to try.
For years, I thought the thing I admired most about my dad was how much he seemed to know and how effortlessly he handled every challenge. But now, what I admire and aspire to take from him is much simpler: It is bravery. It is being willing to step into the unknown, fail, learn and keep going anyway.
Statement Contributor Lyra Sharma can be reached at lyras@umich.edu.
