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?

Is It Really Worth It

That does not sound right to me

I had another conversation, with another parent, claiming to have a full ride for their child athletically. When questioned thoroughly, and my connections to college coaches explained to him, the parent changes the story. Well, it wasn’t DI and it wasn’t a full athletic scholarship. My child has great grades.

Are parents so caught up in the ego and status of having a kid with a scholarship that they just throw away the truth and hope no one catches them? Are they in a group where everyone believes them and wants to be able to say they know the kid who got the athletic scholarship? Do they yearn for status they never had as a non athlete growing up? Do they spend so much time and money that they feel entitled to some recognition and status they see other parents getting?

Too bad it is not like the whisper in the ear around the room conversation. By the time the last person gets the first person’s saying the whole statement has changed. Parents, I do not care how much time and money you have spent. Your child’s athletic career has nothing to do with you.

The stories I hear all basically come down to one simple truth. The rules apply to everyone but me. As long as I get mine, and I can brag about it, even if it means twisting the truth, so be it. I hear everyone else brag about what they got for their kid, even though I have no idea if they are telling the truth, so I am going to brag and exaggerate about my child.

“I will come off as an expert on the subject and make you believe that my child could have, would have, but decided not to, chase the dream we had as a parents for ourselves. Since they first started playing youth sports, I have been surrounded by people claiming to have full rides” and that the goal is attainable for my child.  I want to believe them so I will not verify their tall tales, even though the numbers do not add up.”

Don’t let the truth get in the way. That narrative does not help me justify what if, or at the very least, defend my actions. Up until 30 years ago very few if any parents felt the need to have this conversation, or did they.

We keep saying how smart kids are these days. Do not be surprised when your child rebel because he or she knows what you are doing is not in their best interest.

 Trust, the base of any relationship, is compromised. At what cost? Is it really worth it?

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Do you want your child playing for that coach

It has come to my attention, as more and younger children are being “offered” athletic scholarships that the coaches and the parents need to look a lot closer into what is actually going on. Are you being told something just so you have something to justify your dream not your kid’s future?

The phrase that college coaches tell parents is that they have to recruit younger and younger. If they don’t, then there are 5 other coaches who will do it. “I don’t know if the kid will develop, but we have to do it. By the time they get to their senior year they might not have the grades to get into our school. I’m offering scholarships to kids that haven’t even played a minute of high school varsity sports. I filled up my 2015 class 3 years ago.”

Let’s look at this more closely. Although the data is not in great enough numbers to give us precise and truly accurate results, there are a growing number of coaches who are saying this type of recruiting is not working. What is working is that coaches have to go to fewer events because youth sports has funneled the early developed kids to showcases. The  college coaches now have an easier time, less time spent, cheaper way to recruit, and  a set statement to tell parents as to why their child will not play for their college.

Do you really want your child to play for a coach who says this? Is this the model of behavior that you choose for your child for the next four years of their lives? Do you want them around a coach who is being pressured to do something you would n to want your child to a part of? Wait, unless you are climbing on the status wagon with the coach.

A college coach cannot fill up this year’s recruiting class three years before. It’s against the rules. A verbal commitment means nothing except to the parent and their friends. The NCAA says a child can’t get an athletic scholarship offer until after their junior year in high school and the get a # from the NCAA clearing house and eligibility center.

You want to know why youth and high school sports are out of control. Look in the mirror?

It's not about you

It is not about you

I have recently been sent numerous messages about coaches not wanting their season to end. These coaches want to continue to coach, and I like that. BUT, holy cow, give it a rest with your team. Get some balance in your life and maybe the kids will too. I am hearing messages about a coach saying that coaching kids is all he lives for. Another coach says that even though the season is over he wants to keep coaching this same team. One more coach says he is going to retire and then admits that he has nothing else to do. One coach says it’s all he lives for. You don’t want to leave because you miss the limelight.

Come on guys and gals. Coach something else. Coach real young kids. Help reestablish the base the right way. Introduce fun and equal play to the little kids and show everyone how that helps ALL kids get better, instead of hurting development. Show how coaching is about relationships and giving back to the game.

It really troubles me when I hear coaches describe who they are through their coaching position, just as it bothers me when a 10 year old is described as a hockey player.

Where has the balance gone? Why are these coaches so caught up in the status of their job as a coach? Are there other problems in their life that they choose to make their identity as a youth a high school coach paramount to their identity? When they do that, don’t the kids and parents follow suit?

A coach first and foremost should be a teacher. Very plain, very very simple. They are there to send the children they coach on their way to adulthood with life skills, such as coping, stress management, community, and humility.

 I hear coaches rattling off their win loss records and championships all the while knowing they were in a league that guaranteed them a certain amount of victories before the season even began because of the league they coached in.

I am watching coaches wear their team’s gear year round and wanting people to ask them about the team they coach so they can have status, ego, and attention all rolled into “It’s all about me.”

I do not hear stories anymore from coaches about the late bloomer or the kid who came out of nowhere to have a great game in a championship. No stories about how no one would give this kid a chance and we said,” hell yeah, let her play.” Where is the: “The win was nice but did you see Molly? She played great. She hasn’t played much this year, but boy is that going to change.”

A very wise college coach once told me this: ALL great coaches have great players. The rest of us, eventually, are unemployed.

Let the kids be the center of attention. Model humble and inclusive behavior for them. The less serious you are about it the better you will be able to coach it.