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?