Swim for ZOE: The Essential GoodSports Story

Leanne LaFave is training to swim the 10 miles from Carolina Beach to Wrightsville Beach. That's equal to about 704 laps in the YWCA pool. And she's doing it to help kids halfway around the world.

Her story, which ran yesterday as the Sunday profile in the Wilmington Star-News, is one of the essential stories that inspired the GoodSports blog and that drove me to become a poor, starving journalist. It's about everything I'm about, everything (I hope) brandonsneed.com and GoodSports represent:

Crazy people. You remember Leanne LaFave? If you're a new reader around here, check out some of the entries from the Triathlon Training Series of last year. Leanne's the chick who pushed me into that, and then got me through it. And then made fun of me when I quit because I wasn't tough enough to keep going. She's B.A. to the hilt, man, with this triathlon stuff. 

Good. The world looks pretty effed up sometimes. While in Zimbabwe a few years ago, Leanne saw some of the s--- that's out there. It gets downright depressing, and it's not just in Zimbabwe—it's right here, a few miles down the street, in all its own awful ways. But Leanne is also bringing light into those dark places. There is good to be had and seen in this world, effed as it may be. It's just a matter of finding it.

Awesome things. What Leanne is raising money for will totally change the lives of some lucky kids in Zimbabwe. That makes me happy. Many journalists take it upon themselves to find something wrong with everything. And those of us who do prefer to, you know, actually enjoy life—we get looked down on sometimes for that. 

But honestly, finding the bad isn't hard. It's like dissecting frogs in lab. Which is something I never did, personally. My high school didn't have a big science program. Maybe on account of being Christian. I don't know. But the point is, anybody can pick something apart. It's not easy, though, finding a way to make something whole again.

Being that we are all spectacularly human, this world is one in which imperfection is more common than clouds. It's discovering why people are fighting that imperfection, and how, and what they've gone through that compels them to do so, that is really worth chasing. 

Believing in something. The older I've gotten, the more I've realized that the world is just unbelievably effed up. Wallow in the muck and the mire too much and you'll go down with it. Many let seeing all that bad make them simply miserable. They snipe at others who seem to be part of the problem. They seem like they're always angry. The world is broken, and they're blaming everyone, including themselves, for it. This isn't accurate, nor is it fair to those they attack, nor is it healthy for anybody involved. Anger and disappointment and even depression can be good. They can be motivators. They can lead to good—but not alone. They need something else. They need joy. 

People like Leanne have found a way to navigate between the good and the bad, to push through the swamp to the promised land. 

Kafka famously said that the meaning of life is that it ends. That's what every single story, every single event in life, is ultimately all about. Life ends, some day. It's all about how alive we choose to be before then. Because the more alive we are, the more alive we make others. 

Some believe that Kafka meant that there is really no purpose or meaning to life, to the things that we do in it, because really, it all just ends some day. True, this. This life, our individual life, does end, some day. But what we do—it is never meaningless. Not to the people affected by it. 

So I try to surround myself with people more alive than me, so they'll rub off on me. I like being alive. 

That's what GoodSports is all about. 

Below is the first bit of the Leanne story, with a link at the end to the whole thing. It really is a good story, and seriously not just because I wrote it. I'm just lucky that she knew me and trusted me, and asked me to tell it. Someone else could have done it. It's an easy story to tell. I'm just glad I was the guy. 

It answers, in its own little way—the way all stories do—a question raised within the story: Sports can be great. They give us a little distraction from life, and sometimes those distractions are what maintain our sanity and let us survive. But when it comes to devastated kids in desolate African villages, what good, really, can sports do?

That question echoes across our existence. What good does [insert passion here] do?

That's what we're exploring here at GoodSports. That's what we're exploring everywhere, really. What good is the good in life when things are so bad so ... everywhere? 

The answer, as you'll read in Leanne's story, is this: More than you would think. 

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Woman Prepares for Beach-to-Beach Swim With a Cause

Leanne LaFave is training to swim the 10 miles from Carolina Beach to Wrightsville Beach. That's equal to about 704 laps in the YWCA pool. And she's doing it to help kids halfway around the world.

LaFave, who teaches physical education at Holly Tree Elementary in Wilmington, right down the road from the YWCA, went to Zimbabwe in 2006 on a medical missions trip with ZOE Ministry. She gave the Zimbabwe kids a good time, playing soccer, jump rope and follow the leader. She's got an infectious laugh and smile, and she looks like she's in her late 20s when she's really, well, some years older than that. So there was lots of laughing and smiling. At least at first.

LaFave also helped teach the community how to treat HIV/AIDS, which runs rampant there. She learned some heavy stuff, such as how some men believe that having sex with a virgin can cure HIV/AIDS, leading to unspeakable treatment of young girls that, over here, would land a man in prison.

"It was a very, very difficult trip," she said.

Eventually, as most missionaries do, she left having done all she could. But she wasn't smiling anymore.

"When most missionaries leave, they feel good," LaFave said. "They've done something good for these people. But when I left, I just felt worse."

She couldn't help but wonder if playing games was really all she could have done.

Sports can be great. They give us a little distraction from life, and sometimes those distractions are what maintain our sanity and let us survive. But when it comes to devastated kids in desolate African villages, what good, really, can sports do?

"I just felt so bad," LaFave continued, her voice unusually raspy. "I wanted to do so much more for them."

Sitting across from me in casual clothes, her hair fixed, LaFave looks less sweaty than she usually does when I see her in Starbucks. (Read the full story here.)