|
|
 |
| Parents missing the point |
|
FLORIDA TODAY SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 1D
HEADLINE: Parents missing the point
BYLINE: PETER KERASOTIS Contact Kerasotis at HeyPeterK@aol.com or 242-3694. Listen to him Friday mornings from 8:45-9 on WMEL, 1300-AM
Some of my best memories growing up playing sports had nothing to do with schools or organized leagues. Or, more specifically, parents.
Tackle sandlot football. Baseball on empty, inviting fields. Pickup basketball on the hard terrazzo floor at Kiwanis Island.
We learned leadership skills, organizational talents, how to settle disputes, what it means to improvise and compromise, and, yes, right and wrong. Things that still serve me well today.
And not a parent in sight.
But if there is one thing that I, and others in my profession, see in youth and prep sports is increasing involvement by parents. Not that it's a bad thing. Then again . . .
I don't begrudge the parents who turned in Astronaut High wrestling coach John Hackney and his assistant Mike Murray for wrestling a seventh grader at the high school level last year, falsifying records to do so. It was wrong, and it needed addressing.
What troubles me is that we at FLORIDA TODAY keep hearing that it was Space Coast High wrestling parents who turned in Hackney and Murray, and they knew about the transgression last year.
Why the sudden surge of a conscience a year later?
Because two years ago, Murray was Space Coast High's head wrestling coach and he was hired to return this year, and a group of parents didn't want him back. So they reported the rules violation, getting Murray fired, and in the process also getting Hackney fired.
And I wonder, what lesson did those parents teach their children?
Wrong is wrong, not just when it's convenient for you, or when it can serve your purpose.
I also think about the father who allowed his son to wrestle under a false pretense. We've talked several times and he confirmed what Hackney and others have told me -- that this wasn't about Hackney, but instead it was about Space Coast High parents not wanting Murray back. The dad told me he's lost sleep over this. He should. Not because his decision led to firings, but because of the terrible message he sent his son about right and wrong.
There are other lessons I think parents are missing.
I'm on an e-mail list of a mother who is upset that last year her son's junior high basketball team had the score run up on them. A year later, and she's still firing off e-mails, demanding changes.
Changes?
She doesn't realize it, but her son learned a valuable lesson. You see, in the real world, nobody lets up.
Back in 1983, when I worked for the Dallas Times Herald and we were losing a fierce circulation war with the Dallas Morning News, they didn't go easy on us. They didn't let up. Heck no. They poured it on, putting us out of business.
Later in the '80s, when I worked for the Los Angeles Daily News and there was an even fiercer newspaper war raging, something had to give. It was the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, which folded after 86 years in business.
My advice to the mom would be to take her son to Viera and show him two stores, two rival companies -- Bed, Bath and Beyond and Linens-n-Things. The former is thriving; the latter is going out of business.
That's the real world.
That's the lesson her son learned from sports, if only she'd let him.
If I've had one prep coach, then I've had a 100, who tell me the toughest part of their job is dealing with meddling parents trying to dictate why their child should start, or get more playing time, or play this position instead of that.
Again, I think back to the sports we played as kids without our parents around. We decided who should play where and why, basing those decisions on the frank assessment of each other's abilities and that universal common denominator -- wanting to win. Not on some parent's ego.
When my colleague Mike Cherry got an e-mail from a father who said it was going to break his heart to tell his son he wasn't our FLORIDA TODAY Prep Basketball Player of the Year, I shook my head.
Get over it.
If not being named our player of the year is the worst thing that happens in your son's life, count your blessings.
Besides, the boy learned a valuable lesson. Subjective evaluation of your job performance is an everyday workplace occurrence. Sometimes you agree, oftentimes you don't. Let go of your son's hand, and he'll learn that lesson sooner rather than later.
I know parents walk a fine line. How much to be involved, and how much not to be? Teach your kids lessons that need learning, and do it at home. If you let them play sports, then leave them alone and let them play. They'll learn a lot from that, too.
I was 18 when I last played youth sports. It was a summer baseball league for 16- to 18-year olds. Our Merritt Island team was a rowdy bunch, but in good fun. One day, our coach told us we'd been booted from the league because some parents from another team thought we were too rowdy. He suspected, and we did, too, that it had little to do with our rowdiness and everything to do with us being in first place.
The following summer, when I was 19 and Merritt Island was forming a team again, some buddies told me I should falsify my birth certificate and play. It was tempting. I could've justified that I'd been wronged the year before and I deserved this.
I didn't do it.
Falsifying information wasn't right. My parents already taught me that, along with many other things. It also wasn't right to play in a league where I'd be older than everyone else was. It wouldn't be fair. That's what sports taught me, also along with many other things.
Contact Kerasotis at HeyPeterK@aol.com or 242-3694. Listen to him Friday mornings from 8:45-9 on WMEL, 1300-AM
|
|
