How can a youth sports experience form a life? A US Senator explains

Sports make us "wistful," even if we’re U.S. Senators. It was the word Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) used when talking about his own career.

"How many New Jersey high school football players of the year do you talk to?" Booker told USA TODAY Sports in an interview late last month, with tongue in cheek. "The older I get, the better I was."

The memory isn’t as much of a riff from his home state’s own Bruce Springsteen in "Glory Days" as much as a ballad to where they took him.

Booker, who has held his seat since 2013, was once recruited to play football by Jack Elway (John’s father) at Stanford. He later played at the school for coaches Dennis Green and Brian Billick, who went on to become highly successful in the NFL.

Somewhere from the time his parents dropped him off at a soccer field as a boy, and when he and an eclectic group of teammates pulled off one of college football’s signature upsets (more on that later), Booker began to realize reaching the pros wasn’t sports' purpose for him.

We don’t have to attract college interest to understand their meaning.

"Sports and the arts aren’t extras," says Booker, 57. "They’re vital for our children's success. And I think we as a country, in the last generation or two, have really shortchanged our children from having not only a fullness in life, but experiences that actually can supercharge their success in other endeavors beyond sports and the arts."

Booker is a co-sponsor of the Let Kids Play Act, which was introduced in May and seeks to end what it terms "vulture practices" by private equity firms involved in youth sports. Congress members accuse them of putting profit – and charging high sums to stay and play at tournaments – before the needs and concerns of children and pricing some families completely out of sports.

"I think one of the biggest things that shocked me when I got to Newark (as a city councilperson) was how my kids didn't get the great fields and facilities that other towns less than 10 miles away had," says Booker, the mayor of the city before he became a Senator. "It seemed profoundly unfair to me that the access and opportunity I had, that changed my life outcome, wasn't universally available to all young people."

Booker spoke with us about his sports story and how his involvement in legislation might help us better navigate the ones our kids are creating.

'I saw miracles': Your accolades are temporary; your experiences last a lifetime

Booker, who grew up in northern New Jersey, has described football as a "jetpack" that lifted him to opportunities that were beyond his dreams.

He was a "rambunctious kid" who his parents threw into sports – baseball, basketball, soccer – as an outlet. He didn’t pick up football until high school. Success came at him like a torrent. After his sophomore year, Street & Smith magazine named him as a preseason all-American.

"Suddenly, my house just started getting deluged with letters from colleges," he says. "And my parents, who would ground me if I brought home a C or threatened to take me out of sports if my grades dipped at all, (started) seeing sports (as) a great opportunity for me."

As a junior in 1985, his high school, Northern Valley Regional at Old Tappan, won a state championship after limited success, Booker says, over the previous two decades. By his senior season, Booker was receiving calls from former President Gerald Ford and Civil Rights leader Andrew Young during his recruiting process.

He was named to USA TODAY’s 1986 All-USA high school football team  as a defensive back.

Sports success, and its spoils, can be intoxicating. From the moments we first find it, we gain confidence and feel pretty good about ourselves. But we can quickly learn that, from an individual perspective, success can be fleeting, and that handling sports without it can help mold us.

Jack Elway was gone during Booker’s sophomore year after a 3-6-2 season, and in came Green and Billick.

"They came in and turned our program around," Booker says, "and just in terms of organizational leadership, witnessing this extraordinary coaching staff did so much for me. I learned a lot of great lessons about how do you build team and how do you build pride and a sense of accomplishment and I saw miracles."

More Coach Steve: Dodgers' Mookie Betts opens up about his life navigating multiple sports

The power of team is real, and sometimes it makes you better than you are

Booker has learned how we draw strength and community from our interactions with and faith in others. Think about how those words apply to sports. While Booker got into 22 games in his career at Stanford , catching one touchdown as a tight end, what stays with him was how he learned to believe in teammates who weren’t like him.

Stanford was 1-3 when it traveled to South Bend, Indiana, to face No. 1 Notre Dame on Oct. 6, 1990. Have you noticed around youth sports that there often seems to be that parent who tells you, "We can’t win"? The Cardinal had every right to feel that way.

Booker even remembers his coaching staff telling him and his teammates that Notre Dame has better athletes than them.

"But come Saturday," the message was relayed, "we’re going to be the better team."

Booker keeps a copy of Sports Illustrated in his office that called the 36-31 win the biggest upset of the year next to Buster Douglas toppling Mike Tyson. Stanford would lose its next three games and finish 5-6, but one was enough to create a lifetime memory.

It’s how sports can work for us, especially as kids. A game, or even just a singular experience within it, can exhilarate us.

"Those kind of experiences get seared into your DNA and you begin to understand things beyond the gridiron and how life works and to take this group, this incre...

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