Application for being a Good Parent of an Athlete

Glad you asked. It helps if you know what it takes. Can’t apply for a job unless you know the job description.

It’s easy if you want to be the parent of a GOOD ATHLETE.  It starts with their gene pool. You are directly responsible for that. Not there? That’s OK. You have done all you could do in that category when you birthed them. What’s done is done.

No amount of position coaching, personal training, or going to every sports camp in the country can overcome a bad gene pool. It just doesn’t happen.

But anybody can be a GOOD PARENT of an athlete. That doesn’t take nearly as much.

What does it take?  You can’t be their coach. This coming from someone that coached everything, including the first soccer game he ever saw.

Oh, you can get them started. Youth sports are dependent on parent coaches. You might teach them how to run or throw but you’ve got to realize when it’s time to turn them over to someone else. And assume it’s earlier than you think it will be.

I’ve told the story before of one day when I was sitting at home with my son after high school football practice. I was telling him what he did wrong, maybe what he did right. Keep in mind that I know something about football. I played football. I coached football. I’ve been around football almost my entire life. I felt qualified.

He stopped me and said “Dad, I only have one dad, I’ve got nine coaches.” I got the message.

If you are a Helicopter Pilot, you are automatically disqualified from this job. You can’t hover. You can’t try and control things. I guess you can try but it won’t work.

And if you think you can be a referee/umpire/judge from the stands, you’re also automatically disqualified.

Keep in mind that the younger the athlete, the less skilled the game official. At the youngest levels, they do it for the love of the game and/or for the love of the kids. At the highest levels, they still make mistakes.

Something I can tell you with absolute certainty—if you don’t have a child in the game, the officiating is much, much better.

As a grandparent, I find that the quality of the officiating just doesn’t matter. I can see their mistakes and accept them. I can see that they’re doing their best. In watching a ton of grandkid games, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen an official that favored one team or another.

Pet Peeve Alert:  If a player from the other team misses a shot, don’t cheer. Cheer success in youth sports, not failure.

The only thing that needs to be on this application is your commitment to support your child. Get them to practice on time. Cheer their successes. Console their mistakes. And never boo.

When your child gripes about the coach, don’t reinforce their gripe but help them understand the coach’s actions. Help them understand what they can do differently or better. And never ask the coach about playing time. 

What else is in the job description? Take your child out and hit, throw, kick, jump, run. Swim, paddle, bike. Spend time with them working on what the coach has been teaching them. You can’t play tennis?  Throw them balls and let them hit them. Can’t hit the broad side of a barn door on a basketball court? That’s OK…rebound for them—they get more repetitions that way. Have them pitch to spots. You don’t have to pitch—they do.

They will have more success on the courts and fields and you will live longer and be happier.

Enough of the old guy stuff!

What about the young folks in the room?” OK.  Fair enough. Same advice: Movement is everything.

Sir Isaac Newton figured it out a long time ago. A body in motion tends to stay in motion (unless acted on by outside forces). A body at rest tends to stay at rest.

This covers a whole lot of what I’ve been writing about for the past couple of months. The job is the same—being healthier. The basic concepts are the same. Move!

Active adults create active kids. That doesn’t mean to simply send your kids outside to play. Kids don’t have the same opportunities for “play” that you and I did. There is simply too much demand on their time. 

You are their role model. If your lifestyle is sedentary, theirs will be too. If you hit the couch and watch TV, they’ll hide in their room on some sort of electronic device too.

Playing everything when you’re young makes you a better athlete when you’re older. It’s all about learning to move. Run, throw, kick. Balance, coordination, understanding how your body moves.

That’s what will make your child a better athlete when it really counts. Those basic skills are the foundation for a life of sports performance.

No sport specialization until high school. Never.

Two of the most successful college football coaches in the country are Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Alabama’s Nick Saban. A lot of people speculate about what makes these two very different coaches so successful. I happen to believe that what they have most in common is the ability to identify talent and then develop it.

And I guarantee you, they’re not looking at Little League games or AAU tournaments to identify talent. No one knows at 10 that your child is destined to stardom.

Ace pitcher at 12? Winning races at 10? Means little. Can they move their body? Can they control that movement? Means everything.

You can give your child only two things: Your gene pool and the love of a game. Yeah, that one was a couple of weeks ago. Give me a kid that is passionate about a sport and I’ll show you a kid that will be successful, at some level, in that sport.

Childhood obesity a problem?  Move! Juvenile onset Diabetes?  Move!

That has really gotten more difficult. When I was a kid, summers were filled with activity that we created on our own. I would leave the house in the morning on my bike with the only admonition being that I be home for supper.

That’s not the world we live in anymore. Play dates have to be manufactured. Sports participation is the main avenue for activity for a lot of kids. But what if sports just aren’t what works for your child? That puts it back on you, Mom and Dad.

Movement is life. Movement gives us life. Movement makes our life better.