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What’s the point of getting worse at something? Why we all—eventually—quit playing sport

At the end of every summer I wondered if this would be the year I'd stop, recalls Benjamin Markovits

By Benjamin Markovits  
August 21, 2018
September 2018

"My eyes went dark, I could hear blood in my ears." Photo: Australian Paralympic Committee

Every summer when I was a kid we went to Europe to escape the heat in Texas. At the end of August we flew back from London, were met coming out of the air-conditioned airport by a wall of wet heat, fell asleep on the ride home and woke up deeply confused to the pulse of crickets and sprinklers and the smell and sounds of our old house.

My dad would carry us in from…

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Benjamin Markovits

Benjamin Markovits is a novelist and Prospect columnist

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