Parents Say the Darndest Things

There aren’t many of you that remember the old Art Linkletter television show.  It’s so old, I think it was only done in black & white.  He had a segment on the show called “Kids Say The Darndest Things.”

It was later recreated a couple of times but the original was what I grew up on. On the show, Art Linkletter would subtly lead kids into saying what was really on their minds. And you know kids—they sometimes have no filters.

What resulted from Art Linkletter’s somewhat innocent questions was often hilarious. Parents of athletes sometimes say the darndest things too. Some are funny, some are sad.

“They just got lucky.” One team scores and the coach/parent yells, “they just got lucky.” Maybe on some level that coach/parent is being positive but I think not.

It clearly implies that the other team is not really good enough to score without the benefit of luck. That their skills mean nothing.

I’ve heard people say “I’d rather be lucky than good.” Not me. I’d rather be good. Every time. I’ve also heard it said that “luck is when preparation meets opportunity.” I like that.

“Hit somebody.” That one always strikes me as funny.  Hit somebody! OK, who? Shouldn’t you be more specific? Is it OK if I hit somebody on my own team? They’re “somebody” aren’t they?

I guess “strike hard against someone on the opposing team” just wouldn’t work. By the time you get it out of your mouth, the play is over.

“Keep your eye on the ball.” I’ve been guilty of that one. I’ve probably said it a million times. The idea is to watch the ball all the way to your bat or to your racket and, in doing so, make better contact. It isn’t quite that easy.

Early on, it is important to keep your eye on the ball. Through repetition, the bat or the racket becomes an extension of your hands. That’s where you want to get to.

You can’t tell me that major league hitters see the ball all the way to the bat. MLB fastballs are just moving to fast. But thousands of repetitions establish a muscle memory to where it isn’t necessary.

“They just got their bell wrung. It’s football.” I still hear that one, even in today’s world of concussion awareness. Sure, that’s the way we used to approach things. We know better now.

And once you know better, you can never go back. You can never ignore the potential or the possibility of a concussion.

“Get in the hole!” It’s a golf thing. I’m not sure but I don’t think golf balls have ears. And from my limited experience, they don’t take orders. From anybody. Yet, I would have been yelling for Phil Mickelson’s putts to “get in the hole.”

“You hit like a girl.” Oh don’t get me started on that one. The other one in this category is that you “throw like a girl.” Those parents need to get a clue. Or a girl.

I’m as competitive as the next person but I don’t believe in cheering when somebody misses a free throw. That’s just wrong. Unless it means that your team wins the game. Then you’re cheering the win, not the miss.

I try and imagine what it is like to be the kid on the losing team or the kid that strikes out or the kid that keeps trying and trying and trying. And then I choose my words carefully.

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.

Long in the Tooth

It wasn’t that long ago when I realized that I never looked at the comics in the newspaper any more. For my entire life, that was the first thing that I turned to when I picked up the morning paper.

It wasn’t a conscious decision and didn’t come all of a sudden. It was gradual and only when one of my grandsons wanted to always see the comics in our weekly foray to work in my barn did I realize what had happened.

I’m officially old. Forget that I’ve got a birthday coming up in a month—I quit worrying about those things a long time ago. That birthday cake would look like a bonfire.

Today, it’s more of wondering what is going to hurt the most when I get out of bed in the morning. Will it be that nasty left wrist today? One or both of my shoulders? Knees, hips, ankles?

I have to watch about taking too much Vitamin-I (ibuprofen). I keep my regular visits to my primary care physician, my gastroenterologist, and my dermatologist. When needed, I don’t hesitate to head for my orthopedist or my cardiologist. But my own medical care is part of every day life.

When my biking buddy Steve Bright mentioned in the middle of a 50 mile bike ride that we were getting “a little long in the tooth,” I reached the inevitable conclusion we were both most definitely old. (If you don’t know what that means, ask an old person.)

Mind you, I don’t really mind. I consider it better than the alternative. I want to go to heaven but I don’t want to go today. (Of course that line is in a country song.)

So I do everything that I know to do to deal with aging. I eat mostly healthy. I take my meds. I’m getting more sleep than ever. I wear compression stockings most days (there’s another story in there). I exercise every day.

I laugh often, love deeply, live without regrets, and read all the time. All those things are important. I play this game called Wordscapes every day because it might help keep my mind sharp.

Let me step back just a bit. My life and my work revolve around exercise. My college degrees all focus on exercise. It is a creature that I know well. Exercise science and movement education have been a part of my professional life for over four decades now.

I’ve never really been what you call “out of shape.” It just isn’t in me. The clinic where I see patients is half rehab, half fitness center. All day, I look out across a gym with people working hard, sweating, getting stronger, getting more fit.

It would be hard to ignore that but I don’t need much motivation anyway. It is inherent to my nature to ride, hike, paddle, lift…and move.

And there’s the magic. In movement is the Fountain of Youth. Every day. No exceptions. Ride with me on a mountain bike and you’ll never guess my age.

When you wake up in the morning and it hurts, you’ve still got to get out of bed and get moving. When you can’t decide whether to take a nap or a hike, you take that hike.

I’m an avid bike rider. Riding on a gorgeous day with a group of friends is divine. But there are some days when I just don’t feel like it. I get out there anyway.

Sometimes that first step is the hardest. Not just the big first step to start exercising but that first step to get up off the couch and do what you know you should do. Every day.

Maybe I wake up on Saturday morning and am just not feeling my regular Saturday ride. Doesn’t matter. Once I get rolling and feel the wind, the joy of the open road, I know I made the right decision.

Movement. It’s what sustains you. It’s what keeps you young.

And, by the way, I’ve gone back to looking at the comics first.

Teach them the Love of the Game

Only the most vile of parents doesn’t want better for their children than they had it. That’s especially true for sports.  Any responsible parent wants their child to be as good or better than they were.

That’s pretty much a given. I’m not talking about living vicariously through your children. That happens a lot. But that may be because you want your child to have opportunities that you didn’t have.

I’ve seen some really great athletes that never played a sport but were accomplished athletes as adults—adults that maybe didn’t have opportunities when they were growing up. Often called “late bloomers,” it really has more to do with the fact that maybe they didn’t have someone to take them to Little League practice. Or to gymnastics. There wasn’t somebody around to teach them how to shoot a free throw or run a race. Or kick a ball.

Maybe mom and dad worked all the time and didn’t have time to teach their child how to swim or ride a bike. Too busy trying to make ends meet. Maybe they couldn’t afford private coaches and personal trainers.

There are lots of reasons that aren’t excuses at all. It just is what it is.

I’ve often heard it said that if you want to be a standout athlete, that you should pick your parents well.

Don’t misunderstand me:  A young athlete can be much more athletic than their parents. They can become a much more accomplished athlete than their parents. It can be done.

It’s hard to overcome that gene pool but through early movement education (think learning how to run, throw, and kick), lots of opportunities to play sports and games, and participating in a variety of things, anyone can become better as an athlete.

I played football but I was never even remotely as good as my son was. I played a little volleyball but my daughter was way better than I ever could have been. The parent that has a problem with that is the parent that I talked about in my first sentence.

So, what is the number one way to guarantee your child’s sports success? Teach them how to love the game.

Let them learn the joy of movement. And success. That doesn’t mean that you make sure that they are on the right team, a team of all-stars that plays every weekend and wins every game. It doesn’t mean that they have the “right” pitching coach or that they focus on one sport.

Goodness knows that last one is a mistake. Up until high school, kids should play everything that interests them. No, they’re not going to become the next four sport superstar but sports specialization has been clearly demonstrated to not work.

The kid that loves a game is going to be better. And if they stay with it, they’re going to be good.

You may recall me telling about a grandchild that is learning tennis. He’s struggled to find his “thing” but he has fallen in love with tennis. I’m there to help gently guide him in these early days but he will quickly exceed my ability to teach him the game.

Maybe he’s a “natural,” maybe he’s not. But if that love persists, he will be a good one.

I’ll say it one last time—the best thing you can give your child is love. Love of a game. Love of life. Love for each other.

Local Hero

I was recently assisting with an accident that I came up on.  My training as an Athletic Trainer provides me with a skillset for handling emergency situations.  I have received additional training as a Sports Physical Therapist that does the same.

Fortunately, on our playing fields and courts, we rarely encounter medical emergencies. But we still must be prepared for them when they happen. Those same skills can be applied to other medical emergencies.

That’s where I happened to find myself recently. Most of the time, the job is clear. Check for airway and bleeding, stabilize the site and the injured, call for emergency transport.  At that point, staying calm and not moving the injured is essential, unless it is unsafe for them to remain where they are.

A few weeks ago, I talked about a local fellow, Kenny Wiggins, that is an unsung hero, a local star.  I found another such person during all this.

A quiet professional, someone that knows his job, someone that you probably don’t know. But part of the fabric of this community that makes this a great place to live.

When the ambulances arrived at the accident, I looked up and saw David Blanton, a para-medic with AMR.  This isn’t the first time that I have been attending someone injured when David arrived.

On each occasion, I remember thinking “oh good, David is here.” I know that David will provide the very best in emergency care.

Calm, steady, and highly trained, David first asks me for my assessment of the situation then immediately goes into action. Our Athletic Trainers work often with the local EMT’s and para-medics so the hand-off is seamless. 

Once those EMT’s and para-medics arrive, it is their show.  They are the ones most prepared to deal with it from that point on.

And David is the best of the best. Originally from Pell City, Alabama, David has been a Blount Countian since 1999 and a Para-Medic since 1986.

We have had outstanding emergency medical services in this county for decades. It all started with Ray Everett and his company called Maryville-Alcoa Emergency Medical Services.

Think about this for a moment—these are the people most likely to be in a position to save your life. Well trained and dedicated to service, EMT’s and para-medics may also be the most underpaid health care professionals out there.

The hours are brutal, the work conditions can be difficult. It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, if the call goes out, they are there.  It tends to be a young person’s profession. Attrition is high.

The local EMT academy has helped. People that enter into this world do it for the love of the work and with a servant’s heart.

And think about this before you criticize any of the providers—when the ambulance shows up, they don’t stop and ask if you have health insurance. They don’t stop and ask about your ability to pay for those services. They don’t care if you’re a king or a pauper. They are there to take care of you. All of you.

I happen to believe that you get their very best effort every single time.  I believe that is both the nature of their work (dealing with medical emergencies) and the people attracted to the work.

And if I’m ever in need of emergency transport, I hope that I look up and see David Blanton.

BACKPACKS

I go off on this rant about once a year. It all started when one of my student trainers walked in with a backpack that looked as big as she did.

The next day, I brought in a set of scales and weighed her backpack. It weighed 26 pounds. This high school junior (it’s been several years ago) weighed 96 pounds. So that backpack was over 25% of her body weight!

And she carried it around all day. Hunched forward, leaning into it like leaning into a fierce wind. It’s not one school or another…it’s pretty much all of them.

Since then, I’ve made it a point to be vocal about that problem. It’s partly professional and partly personal. After all, I have 7 grandchildren, all of which may be in the same predicament.

At the same time, I’ve seen too many teenagers with back and neck pain that can be attributed to that backpack.

So what’s the real problem?  For a long time I have blamed huge textbooks. That’s still part of the problem but with the move to compute-based learning, it’s less of a problem.

I asked several students to share the contents of their too heavy backpacks. What I found was surprising. Food—full meals actually, not just snacks. Gym clothes. Spare clothes. Phones. Chargers. Batteries. Tons of personal items. And on and on.

In asking around, I also found out that kids don’t use their lockers anymore. In my random survey of a dozen teenagers, only 2 used their locker.

Why? It’s not cool. I can remember when kids would decorate their locker, applying a personal touch to what they saw as a personal space. Not so anymore. Apparently backpacks are cool and lockers are not.

It’s not convenient. Schools are generally bigger these days, especially around here, so it’s hard to visit your locker between classes. You only have so much time between classes and it’s perfectly normal to prefer chatting with your friends than making the hike to your locker which may be a good distance away.

And goodness knows you don’t want to be late to class nor do you want to be running through the halls to get to your locker and back. That will get you into trouble in a hurry.

It’s just easier to carry everything with you. So lockers have become a thing of the past. Your backpack is your locker these days.

We are beginning to see the end of textbooks. That will help. I still study but haven’t owned or referred to a textbook in decades. My information is in my laptop.

What can we do to encourage locker use? I don’t know the answer to that one. The logistics of making sure everyone’s locker is close to their classes make it impossible.

Students, think about what you are doing to your neck and back by trying to carry so much stuff around all day. Plan better. Pack smarter.

Parents, take an interest in what your child is carrying every day. A little guidance there goes a long way.