The End Game Truth

I have worked with, coached, mentored, and interacted with over 5000 kids on this journey to change the culture of the youth and high school sports environment. To say it has been a difficult journey so far would be quite an understatement. These kids and most well intentioned parents and coaches have been caught up in a Tsunami of epic proportions, that leaves a path of long term destruction the likes we have not seen in youth and high school sports ever, to this degree.  We have not been able to stem the tide as the problem of specialization, angst, and anger, over spending, injuries, status, and egos is running rampant. However, even as this problem grows, we here at Frozen shorts, along with a few others, work to chip away at the false foundation of youth and high school sports.

Over the next three blogs I am going to write about a few kids we have worked with, some we have observed, and others we have observed and how the journey worked out for them. Their journey’s are eerily similar as they were promised a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but have since learned that it is not so.

Hearing family members related to these kids brag about them and their athletic endeavors and make believe full athletic scholarships is okay as it shows a certain loyalty, however misguided. The real problem in our first case is that the scholarship offer never happened. When confronted with this fact the defensive actions of certain family members just reinforces why this problem is becoming more prevalent.

You see, people are told this child got full athletic scholarships that know this kid. They or people close to them have a child playing that sport. They immediately think,  great for that kid, BUT well IF my kid specializes, goes to showcases, gets a personal trainer, he/she can get the mythical DI athletic scholarship/. They don’t, he didn’t and I am the one coming out of this as the bad guy.

 Living off a lie is no way for a child to enter adulthood. There is lots of noise lately about respect, and some of it is justified. HOWEVER, way more important is trust. At some level, mostly when the kids get to the next level, they find out that what people were telling them about their athletic “greatness” was not true. Much of their youth was spent in a race that doesn’t exist. Then what? These kids don’t know who to trust and how to cope. Because they lack balance, a key component to success in relationships and life skills.

We see they hangover every day. Play for fun. Stop The Tsunami!