Mike Reed of Pasadena, Texas correctly summed about youth sports, “Parents have become the ultimate fools.” Everyone is aware of news stories about parents bludgeoning each other in the stands or the “Texas Cheerleader Mom” hiring members of the Corleone Family to “whack” the coach, another kid or the French and Russian Judges. (I don’t know that lady. But, I recall buying Girl Scout Cookies from her outside the Walmart.) In fact, just this week a dad in nearby Canton, Texas was convicted of shooting his son’s football coach. (I’m not on a first-name basis with that guy. But, we buy our tobacco and deer corn at the same store.) Competitive Youth Sports is a minefield, fraught with perils, be it baseball, hockey, football, motocross or Azteca-Style Horseback Riding (Indeed, one of our faithful readers’ sons is the preeminent young rider in South Texas). At such a tempestuous time, we brave few must remind ourselves why we expose ourselves and our children to the ugliest displays of selfishness, violence and self-aggrandizement. To clarify, we do it because our kids need our support in this competitive world. In reality, if we’re big enough to make a baby, we are big enough to keep the implicit covenant to teach him/her about life. And, where better to do that than the odorous cauldron of emotions and histrionics of sports? However, sometimes those emotions get the better of us. So, we must constantly check our motives.
Society wants your kid to fail. Don’t take it personally. But, society doesn’t want to see your kid at the top. They want their kid at the top. (Again, nothing personal.) It’s a numbers game. From a secular, purely mathematic perspective, there just aren’t too many spots at the peak of the proverbial podium. So, if your kid wants to stand there, he’s got to pull somebody off, slide on sideways and knee somebody else in the groin to force his way. And, it is not just that impersonal in sports. Every pursuit worth pursuing requires grit and determination. So, smart parents hedge their bets by playing the ‘Sports’ game, the ‘Academics’ game and a wildcard (like dance, ceramics or Olympic-Style Curling). Kids need our support. They need their own pit-crew to succeed in this endless drive for advancement. Like EVERY race, things get heated, tense and demanding. Successful kids today need parents ready after school to pull them in the front door, wipe their noses, shove a protein-rich, vitamin-packed, Strawberry-Banana NASA bar in their mouth, stab an electrolyte IV in their arm, update the spreadsheet on BM’s and throw them into the car to listen to soothing Classical piano all the way to their Business Leadership for the Nine-Year-Old Entrepreneur Seminar. Society is a punitive dog-eat-dog place. Nothing personal, just a numbers game.
The Parent/Child Pursuit Covenant is this: If you honor him, he will honor you. (This applies to girls too.) If you give him the support he needs, he will compliment you with sincere effort in all his pursuits. Never was there a child who didn’t want the approval of his parents, so the above is a hard and fast rule. Another aspect of The Covenant: your child’s youth will test the depth of your belief in your core values. In other words, do you believe in your platitudes enough to invest your child’s youth? For example, how many seasons in a row will you poke out your chest and pronounce,
You never lose if you never quitif your child has still never won anything? How many years will you tell your son
There are no short-cuts if you want to succeedas you and he continually watch his peers getting ahead by way of parental favoritism and politics? The PCP Covenant implies that he is not the only one who is being tested. You’re both being tested. You’re in this together.
Relating to our motives for pushing our kids, I wrote the following in my epic masterpiece, DADDY BALL:
As good fathers, our most fervent wish is simply to have each spring afternoon develop as follows:
1. Drive to ballpark with son, hitting all the lights.
2. Son remembers all his equipment, and carries his own bag.
3. Win coin-flip.
4. The sun shines brightly into the dugout of the other team.
5. Infield plays tight, fundamental defense.
6. Outfielders keep their heads in the game.
7. Son pitches two or three innings, just to let the dog out a little. He fires blistering cheese, while buckling knees with that filthy knuckle-change thingy.
8. Son breaks tie with a walk-off double and RBI in bottom of the last inning.
9. As dusk falls over the ballpark, father and son walk to parking lot while all other dads make-way; other moms silently contemplate the father’s strong jaw and incomparable manliness, as well as the son’s easy swagger.
10. Dad puts arm around son, and they both smile.
That sounds fair enough, doesn’t it? We’re not asking too much there, are we? It’s important to remember that every daddy is trying to pave the way for HIS son’s walk-off, game-winning base-hit. So, in order to reduce the sometimes unrealistic pressure to succeed, remember that some afternoons will end with failure. Now, ask yourself: In failure, where is the first place your child looks? (Yes. He looks at you, seeking understanding.) So, remember to believe in him enough not to lose faith after one bad game. A real father finds the virtue in each loss.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering
produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.
--Romans 5:3-4
We’ll actually expect to lose on occasion because we trust that our kids are strengthened by it, in the long run. Our motives have got to be centered on the growth of our children, not the results of the game.
There has never been a team in youth sports that fell apart because of the players. No videotaped bludgeoning of a referee was ever meted out by the kids. And, no bitterness amongst the players ever continued for a season without the implicit sanction of a petty parent. As the old adage goes, youth sports would be a picnic if it wasn’t for the parents. (Please cease and desist with all comparisons between me and Tennis-Dad from Mont-De-Marsan, France.) Sports for our kids have become rugged, ugly testing grounds for their character and the quality of their upbringing…….. And, guess what…… That’s what childhoods are supposed to be. So, parent and child: remember your covenant, support each other, check your motives, buckle your helmet and get in the game.
