What is the cost of the new 15 seconds of fame?

Consequences: Cause and effect

Scenarios are playing out across the country with kids and families devoting themselves to get those 15 seconds of fame. They don’t think that is what it is going to be, but for most kids, and that is 99% of them the dreams of the DI scholarship and pro career come down to this.

What if an athlete gets to play 15 seconds in one game at one hallowed stadium, arena, or court? What if those 15 seconds is all he gets? What if he only got those 15 seconds because the assistant coach told the head coach to play the kid so it would help him get another walk on to commit? The assistant explains to the coach that maybe they can find that late bloomer if they keep doing this and get their own “BIG” before he becomes a “BIG.”

Let’s take this concept and extrapolate it across the country to all sports. There could easily be 100,000 kids and families going through this scenario each year. They have invested all the time, money, and mental stress to get their child to this one point in his continuum. This child then uses social media to tell all his friends and kids he played with that he made it to the Promised Land. He has to be careful though, not to upset the other scholarship players on the team or the coach with his story as to jeopardize his spot on the team.

What if other kids he played with did not make it this far? What if they are playing, maybe even starting, on a lower level college team and resent this event? What if they meet back at the old high school and have to face each other?

Back in my day we would be thrilled for the kid. We would take joy in his success. We would not use it for our own status and benefit. We would still play pickup games and have fun and genuinely share in the good fortune?

But what about the parents connected to this player? What do the parents of the kid who didn’t make it that far say to their own child? How does the snubbed child rationalize and justify being bitter? How does it affect his future playing, coaching, work, and relationship skills? He too spent his whole life trying to get to the DI Promised Land. He may even have had more accolades that the player who made it.

Who does the coach favor when they both come back to one of his practices?

How does the coach handle it? Does he brag to all he knows that one of his kids “made it” and played at a hallowed venue? Does he use this with players coming into or up to his program as an “attainable carrot?”

What are the long term ramifications of this kind of journey for our children, parents, and coaches?

Championships made lives influenced

The true sign of a great coach is how many players you develop and get significantly better under your tutelage than championships won. You influence a lot more players lives every day in practice and off field demeanor and modeling behavior for future life skills than you do winning championships. By the way, the two things are directly related.

Championships: It's all about the journey

Winning is something you have little control over as a coach unless you play weak opponents or stack the deck.  I watch coaches and organizations schedule weak opponents or avoid tough ones when they schedule. Managing games over developing kids undermines the team concept.Play lots of kids in all situations. I just met with a young boy last night. His coach wont play him much. I asked if he wanted to play . His eyes lit up. YES he said!   He is 14. No one knows how good he is going to be if he doesn't get to play meaningful minutes in games. No one gets better sitting on the bench. Why practice hard if you know you wont get to play in a game.You only get better playing in tough situations. That leads to more championships than any other coaching way

How did you think this was going to turn out?

I say this over and over in my talks, seminars, and workshops. There is a culture in sports that is headed in the wrong direction for the kids, parents, and organizations participating Over and over we see abhorrent behavior being defended by one person or another.  They say they didn’t mean it. They say we saw it wrong. It was in the heat of the moment

Rarely if ever do I hear anyone say, that is a really bad example to set for the children. Rarely if ever, does the offender own up to the behavior. WHY? That behavior, like most catastrophic injuries has a history of events and misbehavior before them leading up to the incident.

The coach, parent, and organization have looked the other way because the athlete is one of the most talented players, if not the most talented player on the team. Everyone has made excuses for the player or defended the players’ actions in the name of winning. Others want to cling to that person and say they know him. With the younger athletes they love to say he was over to our house. I’ve talked to him a lot.

The bottom line is that we now have a culture where excuses are made for behavior, instead of corrective action in many cases, not all. The long term consequences of this behavior, and there certainly are consequences may not show up for years.

Modeling this kind of behavior and having the people around the behavior acquiesce to it ends the wrong message to the youth of our country. The children see it and emulate the behavior at home, in school, and on the playing field. Adults’ fans and friends are surprised by either the action or the reaction.

Specializations, entitlement, pay for play, recruiting 12 year olds. Win at all costs, and cheating all has a very high price to pay in one form shape or another either right now or in the future.

  I’m surprised that most people are surprised. How did they think this was going to turn out?