Just got off
the phone with a friend who was telling me a story about a couple of kids who
played on his team. They were multi sport athletes and played on this guy’s
team because it was so much fun. That’s right, kids play for fun. Whether
adults, organizations, and even parents think it’s about winning for the kids
as a priority, well it’s not. Study after study, including our own of over 1000
kids, demonstrates they want to have fun, play with their friends, and compete.
When things
don’t work out, and the athletic scholarship does not appear, the excuses
come flying out from all sides. Hey, everyone makes stuff up or exaggerates at
one time or another. I tell people continually that my final goal for this
project is a lake,boat, with a house, and no neighbors. I want to be with my new
friends in the middle of the lake with no phones telling a bunch of fibs about
my past!!!
But this new
thing, this excuse machine connected to the failed promises and failed results
of time, money, and ego involved in a child's athletic playing time through high
school has long term effects. These children have two choices. One, they can
say they just weren’t good enough. I rarely see that happen. They can say they
got hurt, they didn’t like the coach or they didn’t think it was good fit.
Let me ask
you this. How easy does it become to tell a lie about something if you feel you
have been wronged and were entitled to something you were led to believe was
going to happen and didn’t? How good would you feel about yourself living that
lie, or listening to others support the lie around you?
What could
possibly go wrong?
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