A Non-Parent Perspective on Jr. the Athlete

A battle rages and I mean violently between parents and coaches. It is based in the difference between what parents want and what a coach is hired to do. If you’ll permit me to use my imagination, I presume that from birth proud parents, surrogates and guardians garrison the borders surrounding their children. I’m tempted to use the pronoun WE but I’m reminded that I’m using my imagination. Parents don’t want kids to suffer because many of them did. They don’t want them to go without, to sit the bench, or to be cut from the team. In a perfect world, no child of yours or anyone else’ would travail in poverty, miss out on college education or come home crying because of disappointment. But truth be told from the paradigm of a salty old non-parent, that last sentence is a farce for a world without travail or tribulation is far from perfect. A world where kids find advocacy at home for their deviance is cancerous.

Again imagining, kids come home everyday with a slanted and often biased recount of the days occurrences. In my experience as a coach of basketball players of both genders, I’ve found that young people are most susceptible to enabling. A 13-17 year old is rarely at fault in their own mind, and even more seldom are they convinced that selfishness is an undesirable character trait. I taught and coached adolescents who created, maintained and worshiped their own fraudulent identities. Something as simple as arriving to class on time is so trivial that the stock response of a student who entered my class after the bell rang was, “Am I late?” How is such a question not as illogical as taking a field trip to war torn parts of Africa and asking, “Will this affect my health insurance premium?” The players I’ve coached struggle with acknowledging responsibility, consistency for mastery’s sake, the benefit of true teamwork, the dangers of unforgiveness and a host of other elementary virtues. But it’s not until their revolt against owning these attributes is encouraged that the young athlete becomes dangerous.

Parenting, I imagine, is a manual-less enigma. It’s got to be hard or more people would have two role models instead of single ones at home. But there’s an age-old trend of parents telling coaches what to do, manipulating the teams for which their young offspring play. I’ve seen the look in the eye of a parent that says, “I really don’t care what you do with them. This is my kid so you better do what I say.” And it’s in those moments I am clearly not a parent. See I’m the coach responsible for transporting the athlete. We’re headed in a direction that only a team can go. Selfish ambition is sacrificed for role playing. Fantasies related to basketball have to be expunged when it’s time to compete. But the coach is merely a vehicle and the machine will not function without its fuel, your young athlete. I’ve seen parents impede the progress of their son/daughter’s team via vacations, outside team obligations, frustrations over playing time and the like. The parent challenges coaches everyday but I imagine its for reasons that have more to do with the maternity ward than valid reasoning. After all, that’s your kid we’re talking about.

Truth is, I could say I understand that parents love their kids and thus behave unreasonably. But I don’t. There’s love and then there’s infatuation. One strengthens while the other cripples. Coaches are resources provided they’re the right kind of individuals. Jr. the athlete bears true allegiance to his/her parents and coaches weren’t meant to win that contest. So for what it’s worth, my imagination includes an honest take. Coach or parent, we’re all mentors with respective roles. Vicariism is the enemy as the temptation to make your children a better version of yourself undoubtedly beckons. Fight the compulsion. There is a village that helps raise your child and once you’ve identified your son/daughter’s coach as one of the village people, support them in their role. Your kid will be better for it.