Westside Story

Guest Blog by Alex Beckman

The NFL Draft has just concluded, and it marks another year that I didn’t get picked up by any pro teams. I am not sure what they are thinking… I am 6’3”, 220 pounds, and I am still in pretty decent physical shape. I don’t want to brag, but I am a tough pickup in a game of touch football. Maybe they are thinking that because I only played 2 years of High School Football, I am not ready for the pros. They might also be thinking that I am not the right kind of 220 pounds – I have love handles and eat ice cream about 3 times a week, probably always will.

In my heart of hearts, I know that the NFL doesn’t care that I exist, but there was a time when I thought I would be part of Draft Day. When I was in grade school, boys that didn’t play basketball, football, soccer, and/or baseball were not cool. In fact, if you had no physical talents, you were basically marginalized. If I had known that by the time I turned 30, the thousands of hours I spent on the basketball court and football field would not only cost me time and money due to the wear and tear on my body but they would in no way make me cool or powerful in the business world, I probably would have allocated my time much differently.

The main point of this story is not to talk about my athletic career that has yet to launch (I will be sitting by the phone for the NBA draft, as well as next year’s NFL draft… just in case) but to talk about how proud I am of my little brother, Andrew. He is currently dancing for the San Francisco Ballet and has performed in some amazing productions that I have been fortunate enough to watch. Unless your name is Matt Kemp or Albert Pujols, he does in fact dance better than you can hit a curveball. He didn’t start out a Ballerina. He started out a lot like me – in fact, age for age, he was a better athlete. He hit more home runs in little league (I hit one, he hit many), he was a beast on the gridiron, and he was a powerful inside presence on the basketball court: he was a grade school athletic stud with tons of upside. He had 4 older sibling who had all excelled in athletics at the grade school and high school level.  In the fifth grade Andrew heard that famous athletes often did ballet to improve their strength and flexibility. My mom, who had a dance career once upon a time, drove him to a local ballet studio in order to enhance his sports career, of course, but in hind site it was one of those “life changing” moments. The ballet teacher who taught on weekday afternoons recognized that Andrew had athletic talent, and advised that he continue with Ballet. She even said, “someday, you won’t be good at Football or Baseball, and besides, the benefits of dance last long after your glory days in those sports.” I don’t know if Andrew appreciated then what he was stepping into by attending that class.

You can't tell me this guy is not an athlete of tremendous ability. Now that's a vertical!

More than a decade later, my little brother is dancing at the SF Ballet, and most recently he performed in the Nutcracker, but it wasn’t without some hardship. For a short while my little brother did both school sports and ballet. He was simultaneously crushing long balls on the diamond while perfecting his pirouette at the bar. After some time, his talent for dance was becoming more and more obvious, and his teachers were urging him to spend more time on it. He attended a tryout for the SF Ballet youth program, and he was accepted. Andrew had to choose between the sports that all his friends and older brothers played, and dance. This decision became more than just the sum of the parts… it was a life decision. Choosing dance over “normal” sports was so pregnant with meaning. It meant he was not a real guy, that he bucked the system, he was giving up his shot at really becoming an athlete… it meant something different to everyone who had a chance to weigh in. By eighth grade, my little brother was not able to play sports for his school. He was in the youth program at the SFB, commuting 7 hours a week to participate in the exclusive dance program, and barely able to fit in things like homework or grade school graduation (although he someone managed to achieve quite amazingly high grades – bright kid!). As a result choosing ballet, his friends abandoned him. Andrew was no longer a part of the cool group, he wasn’t there during practice, after games, so his friends forgot about him. When they managed to unforget him, they called him names and picked on him for choosing dance over them.  Andrew had taken the road less traveled, and it was making a difference… but often times it seemed worse, not better.

Today, Andrew is in amazing shape – he has to be, he dances 6 days a week in one of the most competitive programs on earth. I can still beat him in arm wrestling due to my broad chest and man strength (he is only 16) but he is a handsomely well built man with a body that is built to move and flourish on the open floor. He has performed in front of thousands of people throughout the years, packed houses in some of San Francisco’s most famous venues, and he is happy.

I write this not because I suggest that all young people should dance instead of play baseball – and not because I think Andrew is better than all other 16 year olds. I write this because I am the proud older brother of someone who has defied the odds, gone against the grain, taken a chance, and succeeded. The amount of happiness his success brings me is overflowing, and it has taken the form of these words on this page. Dance is hard, and Andrew’s story is not typical – as many people wash out trying to become a prima ballerina as do people who want to be like mike.

If you LOVE baseball, or football, do that. If you don’t want to dance, then don’t -  but if you want to try dance, and you don’t do it because you are afraid of what your friends will say, they probably aren’t your friends, or won’t be for long. I watched my little brother climb to the top of his young world, fall to the bottom due to his decision, and then rise back to the top and land leaps and bounds ahead of his previously critical peers. I cried with him when he felt upset about the teasing and the hard work that he put in at the expense of normal kid stuff. I would not wish these hard times on any family – but when I look at his thriving career at this moment, I can’t help but feel so excited for him. At 16 he has experience the gut wrenching agony of making a tough choice, and he has succeeded… some people live a whole lifetime and never get that.

As I plan my wedding, and I have been asked by my fiancee not to play basketball for the three months before we say “I do” so that I don’t cut my face or sprain my ankle ahead of the big day, I am wondering how I am going to get ready for my first dance as a married man… I wish I had some dance chops so that I could really wow the family in attendance. Maybe they will overlook my two left feet after I wow them in a game of horse or an impressive batting cage session? I am lucky to have my Andrew to call and show me a couple of moves.