The Hesperia Clinic: Days 1-2

The first day of the clinic I had a heart-to-heart with the 9-12 year olds and I realized one of the reasons I think parenting is hard. A kid asked when we were going to scrimmage on the first day and I said, “Can I be honest with you guys…You promise not to get dem feelin’s hurt?” They replied, “yes” with nods that indicated their latent trepidation. I mean, who really wants bad news and can brace themselves for the constructive criticism bomb. Lest I linger, I came at the youngsters straight. I told ’em we wouldn’t be scrimmaging anytime soon because they can’t even make lay-ups. Is there a way to spin that with compassion in your inflection?

Back to the parenting parallel and epiphany. I run these basketball clinics to help players clean-up all things run amuck in their fundmental development as a player and individual. But part and parcel with any clean-up effort is a healthy but painful dose of truth tellin’. If you’re a normal human being, one of the hardest things to do has to be looking an aspiring athlete in the eye and saying, “Dude, don’t even trip about scrimmaging, playing games or doing anything resembling full-court competition given the amount of repair we need to address.” It’s the hard truth that is seldom delivered because there’s nothing easy about demotivating. Criticism is a gut punch. It can be a knockout blow if administered recklessly. And at day’s end, critique is usually the stimulus of breached rapport, rebuke and ill sentiment by the recipient. What parent do you know who wants to risk their kid not liking them? I guess that’s where I come in. Enter the black dude with the mirror in his hand holding it in front of young people. And it’s one of those magnification mirrors with the bright light that illumines all your skin blemishes and the debris in your nostrils. Yeah…I’m that guy and I’m starting to realize that if it’s hard for me it must feel seemingly impossible to parents. Nevertheless, I’ll do it all over again tomorrow if it will move a kid from where they are to a paradigm that unveils where they can be when the training is all done.