Living Vicariously

 

Everybody wants their kid to be the star of the team. Everybody wants to be on the winning team. It’s just human nature. Everybody, meaning parents.

Interestingly, kids don’t think the same way. Oh, if you ask them what they want to do when they grow up, a fair number of them will say that they want to be a professional athlete in one sport or more.

But if you really dig into it, you will find that they just want to have fun and be with their friends. No doubt, winning is important to them but boiled down to its essence, they want to enjoy their sports.

You have no doubt heard about parents living “vicariously” through their kids. The earth may shake and the dead may roll over, but I’m here to tell you that isn’t always a bad thing.

I have seen a lot of parents who either were never athletes themselves or never had the opportunity to be an athlete. I remember one local athlete that was phenomenal, but when you look at her parents, you wonder how that could have happened.

Neither of them had an athletic bone in their body. But their daughter sure did.  Sometimes those things happen. I’m sure those parents enjoyed their daughter’s success.

Then there are the folks that didn’t have the opportunity. A lot of that is economic. Some kids have to hold down jobs to help the family. My dad dropped out of school after the 6^th grade when his own father died. He went to work in a hosiery mill and never went back to school.

Think about that. He was 11, maybe 12 years old, and already working in a factory alongside adults. His family needed that to survive. Child labor laws would prohibit that from happening these days, but you won’t have to go far to find a family that depends on the income from their 16 year old’s job.

I remember one young very promising athlete. He played three sports until he turned 16. Then he got a job and never played sports again. He had an old truck but his family couldn’t afford the insurance on it so he got a fast food job so he could drive and help transport his siblings.

It was sad really. Unfortunately, if you look at the high cost of participating in some sports, you will see that it can be cost prohibitive. If you want to be competitive, it seems like you need to take private lessons, work with a personal trainer, travel all around the country, and dedicate pretty much all of your spare time to it.

Golf and tennis come to mind immediately. Volleyball and basketball aren’t far behind. It is just more than some families can afford.

There are exceptions. In football, pretty much all of the equipment is provided. And in running, for the most part you just go run.

I will still insist that there is a place for just going out and playing, without all the “extra” stuff.  Some of the best basketball players I ever knew just played. You could always find them on a court somewhere. They were always in the gym shooting. Before school. After school. In their driveway.

The best football player that I ever played with didn’t play until high school, rarely lifted weights, wouldn’t know a personal trainer if one was standing in front of him, and didn’t need much in the way of coaching. He was a linebacker and all you had to do was tell him to go tackle the one with the ball.

I have to believe that if you are talented and work hard, good things will happen. Back when I played a little softball, the best player that I knew could throw a wicked curve with a softball. No one ever taught him how to throw a curve.

So, if you can’t do all those extracurricular things, don’t give up. Work hard and follow your dreams. And if those dreams are your parents’ dreams as well, so be it. Let them enjoy what you do. Let them live a bit through what you do. It’s OK.