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!

Ice Cream

I love ice cream. Let me explain. There is a certain ice cream franchise that I took my wonderful wife to the very first day she moved in to my house. I remember that day it as our real true anniversary. It was January 21, 1988. Yes, that’s right, in the dead of winter. The temperature that day was 10 degrees.

The girl working at the counter said I was the only person she had seen all day, and that included her boss. My girlfriend at the time, the Saint that she was, humored me by going out in the bitter cold for ice cream right after she had moved in. I’m sure it was not her idea of a celebration.

I have all the franchises phone numbers listed in my little white book along with rankings for each store. Friends will email me to check on which one I recommend when they have friends coming into town, IN THE SUMMER!

I recently was told this by a parent: “As long as my son keeps his grades up, and he loves playing this sport, we are going to keep doing it.” He described trips to Baltimore, which games got rained out or at least shortened, without any angst.  They have trips to Washington and Boston coming up. The tone and inflection in his voice showed ne that he was partnering with his child in this sport. He loved the status and travel name dropping or adult Olympics as I call it.

There were other people around when he told me about this, so I did not want to get into a discussion with him, We are not a gotcha company. I simply gave him my card and explained that his son could get better at his sport by not playing it.

 I have seen hundreds of children keep playing a sport just to get their parents approval!

For you reading here, let me explain.  It is unhealthy to play one sport year round, travel, elite whatever. Your chid’s chance of injury increases dramatically. Have you ever flown and it took all day? Remember how tired you were from just sitting around at the airports and on the plane? Now think of driving 7 hours in a car ONE WAY, and the effects of that on a young body.  Then they play multiple games over the weekend, then drive another 7 hours home.Lastly, life for children is about new experiences, meeting new people; fun, failing coping, and experimentation.

I love ice cream. I can’t eat it every day, it’s unhealthy.  I would get sick of it.

Sports are a microcosm of life.

Game Changing Calls

Game Changing Calls

 Don’t put yourself or team in a position where a ref can make a difference in the outcome of a game. You don’t want him/her to do it, and neither does he/she. In the course of a game there are multiple calls that are questionable. I could go back through the game and every team sport game I played, coached or watched and point out plays and calls for both sides, if executed properly, would have made that “game changing” call in the Buffalo Bills Jacksonville Jaguar game, or any game I played, coached, or watched, inconsequential.

Much is made of “blown calls.” What is not mentioned nearly enough when a questionable call is made is how many bad plays happened before the “questionable call” was made?

What also should be mentioned, and this is one I hear constantly: “The ref had it in for us.”NO, he/she did not. Officials do not wake up in the morning of a game and say they are out to screw one team or another. Most want to get through the game unnoticed. When I see a coach going nuts over a call and yelling at an official wonder how it would feel if the ref turned the tables and starting yelling at the coach or parents in the stands for a clueless comment, botched play, or a poor coaching move.

 I use to say this to my team. We don’t point fingers we create solutions. I coached 451 college hockey games and not once did a ref determine the outcome of a game. We did as a team. (Edited for future viewers)

The importance of fun and laughter in sports

Play for Fun with laughter

In my 7 years as a professional standup comedian I was continually overwhelmed by the fact that as comedians, we could take a group of people in a room, who would never be together again, and unite them in laughter. After the show was over, people would come up to you, buy your CD or DVD, stop and chat, or comment on the show.

I would sometimes stand  to the side and just watch the whole proceedings. Watching people leave the comedy club feeling good, made me feel good.

Then it struck me how valuable laughter was to people. Oprah had a show that had a lot of sadness and angst. She did some wonderful things for people, but there was much sadness in her shows. Ellen, on the other hand stressed fun and laughter. She even starts her show with some dancing and everyone joins in. Her show is as strong as ever, and my daughter Molly got me to watch it with her a couple of times. This woman wants people to feel good, laugh, and have fun.

When I commented about this fun and laughter to a couple of my ex players and guys I coached with, they all said basically the same thing to me. V.J. when you were coaching you tried to make us laugh. We had fun. We didn’t know at the time it was helping us as much as it did. What we did know is that it was different than what we were used to, and we were drawn to it and you.

You don’t have to be a professional comedian to bring fun and laughter to your team. The opportunities will be there if you look for them. Try it.

As the Joker said in the Batman movie: “Why so serious?”

Injured egos fractured truth

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?

The Buffalo Bills and Accountability

 The Bills seemed to blame the referees for the loss yesterday against the Giants, or at least all the penalties. Not taking responsibility for ones actions is a very good way to ensure entitlement. It’s not very good role modeling. Am I to assume that the refs wanted the Bills to lose and the Giants to win? Teaching our children accountability should be a paramount basic fundamental value. But if our leaders don’t, why should they? I used to tell my teams don’t put yourselves in a position when playing that the ref can make a difference in the game.

I am all for backing you players as a coach in a public forum. I did it as a head coach in college hockey for 21 years. Saying that “I put the best players out there who give us a chance to win.” Isn’t always the right thing to do? Sometimes, as a coach, you have to send a message to the team that certain kinds if selfish behaviors are not tolerated no matter the talent, or the score, Sometimes, yes, it costs a victory. But, here is the thing: it rarely does. Do you really think the people that got you into this mess will get you out of it? Also playing other guys when your starters are screwing up and making repeated mistakes builds interterm competition, and that my friends is the secret to team success.

Cell phones and selfies

Cell phones and selfies

Life is about balance. We are social creatures by nature. The more we lose sight of the value in community to all, the easier it is to become jaded. Most everyone wants to be independent but they also want to belong. If you don’t feel like you belong, many serious negative consequences, thoughts, and actions become more plausible to you.

When you take the group dynamic and all it positives and negatives, and turn it into a vehicle for self, you have looming problems. (See congress) or big business. I’m all for fun but when I am out with my family at a restaurant and I see mother, father, and both kids buried in their phones, yes there is a problem. In the journey of life, relationships are the single most import facet of keeping a community close.

I think the phrase is divide and conquer.

 A friend of mine has an idea. Whenever we as a group go out to lunch, everyone has to put their cell phone in the middle of the table. first one to answer picks up the tab. pretty funny to watch, especially when one member of the lunch bunch purposely has a friend of his not a lunch call one of the lunch bunch form a phone he can’t ID..

 I need to be entertained.

 No phones allowed at our dinner table ever, not at home or in a restaurant.  Manners are a paramount fundamental for our children’s healthy development. When is the last time you saw everyone bring their camera to the dinner table? And if you did what was the social interaction? When did you see them talk to their camera or try to post their cameras pictures?

Let’s talk and listen. Let’s listen to hear, not object. Let’s appreciate what we have and embrace those who don’t.

Peace of mind is victory!!