Injuries are part of the risk of playing the games

My son is having surgery this week. He isn't worried or nervous about that, he told my wife and I; he's just annoyed. 

Now, we don't take surgery for granted. We do understand there's no such thing as a "simple" surgery, and there is always risk that something could go wrong. But this isn't some kind of experimental procedure, or anything; the orthopedic surgeon who will perform the operation has done it many times. We aren't overly worried about anything going wrong.

Instead, we are focused on what happens after the surgery. According to the surgeon (who we've been going to for years) the recovery period will be six months. That means he will miss the entire lacrosse season in the spring. Given the current circumstances, and the fact that, at this moment, the coronavirus still is affecting all of our lives, there is a chance the spring season in college sports may not happen, anyway. We certainly hope that isn't the case, of course, but regardless, he won't be able to play. That is what annoys him.

I don't want to lose perspective, here. This has been a tough year for all of us. COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world, sickened tens of millions, and caused countless to lose their livelihoods. Everyone has his or her own story.

But in the context of this blog, my son has his story, too. A freak injury during wrestling season ended his high school career in that sport, prematurely. And he lost his senior lacrosse season, his prom and the last three months of his senior year of high school due to the shutdown forced by COVID-19. Then, just before he went off to college, where he was supposed to play lacrosse, his school announced it was suspending its athletic program for at least two years, meaning if he wanted to play, he'd have to transfer to another school. 

And then, few weeks ago, he reinjured his shoulder. And now, he needs surgery.

In a way, the surgery -- and subsequent rehab -- has helped formalize his plans regarding transferring. Since he can't play this spring, he'll stay at his current school for one more semester and hold off on transferring until next fall. And while he will miss the spring season, he should be healthy in time to play in the Under-19 Lacrosse World Championships in the summer (he's set to play for Jamaica, the country where I was born). 

So his athletic career will go on. Injuries are part of the risk that goes along with playing sports, and sometimes, those injuries require surgery to repair them. Thankfully, we are in the position to allow him to have the operation he needs, and hopefully, his life will go back to normal afterward. In this case, there's no reason to overthink it.

Playing college sports? Make sure to put school first

One of my father's favorite sayings was, "Up to the lip, the cup can slip.'' It was what he said to warn us not to take anything for granted. He was telling us that no amount of preparation or planning was enough to safeguard us from some last-minute glitch that could derail all our plans, and work. In short, a thing is not done until it's done.

My son graduated high school this year and went to college. He was supposed to be playing lacrosse there. The school seemed like the perfect fit for him: It had a good academic reputation, lacrosse at an appropriate level where he would be able to play, and was close enough to home, but far enough away for him to feel independent. It was all good.

But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. People died. Businesses failed, and many, many people lost their jobs. Everything shut down for a time. Everything, everywhere, changed. 

My son's college lacrosse career got affected, too. Days after we signed a lease on an apartment (he was going to live off campus with a couple teammates) his school announced that, due to financial hardship as a consequence of the virus, it was forced to suspend its entire athletic program, for a minimum of two years.

So, three weeks before classes were to start, the cup was at the lip. And it slipped.

I have to say, my son handled the news quite well. The night the announcement was made he said he had no intention making a rushed, knee-jerk decision. His plan was to go to the school for a year and see how things were, he said. Maybe he would like it enough to stay, even without lacrosse. If he realized he missed the sport too much, well, then he would see about transferring to someplace where he could play, if not at the varsity level, then at the club level.

It was a mature attitude, which was nothing less than we expected from him. He has always been a problem-solver and a glass-half-full type of person. Presented with challenges, he accepts them, and works to meet them. He takes his time to research problems, figure out what went wrong and why, and takes corrective action. 

When he first got serious about setting himself up to try and play college sports, my wife and I spoke to several people who had gone through the process, so we could learn what we needed to do to help him. One of the things we heard often from parents whose children had gone on to play sports in college was they had told their kids not to go to a school just because of the sport. They all said they told their kids that the school needed to be a good fit without sports, because what would happen if, for some reason, they couldn't play sports?

We passed along the same message to our son, and he obviously heard it. Circumstances beyond his control have prevented him from playing lacrosse at the school he is attending, but he's attending classes -- almost exclusively online -- and trying to make the best of it. He does want to play again, and is actively looking to transfer. In the meantime, though, he and his teammates plan on playing lacrosse this fall in a local men's league, and right now, they hang out together and support each other. 

There's a lot more to college life than playing sports. My son gets that. 

When times are tough, sports become most important

I started writing these blog entries because I thought, as a dad who'd gone through the youth sports experience with three sports-loving kids, I had information I could share that might benefit other folks who would be going through the same stuff. And everything I wrote, I did because I thought it was a common everyday occurrence in the youth sports world, and my perspective might help someone else in some way.

But this entry is different, because it's not about something that happens to everyone, eventually, at some point in the youth sports journey. This one is just straight up venting, because I have to do something.

As I write this, the world is battling with the coronavirus pandemic. And all our lives have changed, in major, major ways. People are quarantined in their homes. Jobs have been lost, and businesses are going under. People are sick. People are dying. We don't know how long it will be before life returns to some semblance or normalcy.

And right now, I miss sports more than anything.

As a sportswriter, sports are my business, so that's part of it. But on a personal level, now that there are no games being played, I find myself truly understanding just how important sports are to our society. I turn on the television and I hear the grim news about the virus, and its spread; I hear all the daunting statistics, and the dire speculation about just how long we'll be forced to live under these "social distancing'' conditions.

And all I want is to get away from it all. I want to be able to turn on a game on television and not have to think about this awful virus for a while. But there are no games to watch that can serve as a distraction.

Look, I don't need to tell anyone just how awful things are these days. My family has it relatively good, actually. We're all home, we're all healthy, and we have food to eat and nice weather in which we can go walk around in for an hour or so to kill time.

We all believe we'll be OK -- that our social distancing efforts will help to stop the spread of the virus and we'll eventually be able to go back to our regular lives. But we also know it could be a while before that happens. And in the interim, it's going to hurt.

My three sons -- one in college, the other two in high school -- are all doing school from home now. And I find myself wishing, more than anything, that we'll get the good news soon that our kids will be able to go back to school. Most of all, I'm really hoping my two high schoolers will be able to play lacrosse this spring.

My middle son is a senior, and this will be his final chance to play sports with the kids he grew up with. He's signed to play in college, so he at least knows he'll play lacrosse again. But most of his classmates can't say the same. My heart breaks for those boys, knowing they won't get one last hurrah with their teammates before they leave to go away to college.

My youngest son is a freshman, so he's got more years to play. But losing an entire season is going to hurt him, too. And as a parent, this is the last chance I get to see two of my kids play together on a team (sort of, anyway, as one would be varsity and the other JV). I was really looking forward to that. Playing together really helped them get closer to each during football season, and I think, as brothers, it's something they really need.

It's something I really need.

The second sports heartbreak is easier to get over

I am watching, for the second time, a coach drive my son away from a sport he loves.

This time, it is basketball, a sport that my son has loved more than anything else over the last four or so years. Yesterday, he told me he doesn't like the sport at all.

I don't believe that, of course. He's 14, and his heart has been broken. Surely, it will be broken a few more times in his lifetime. He'll get over this and be fine. As a matter of fact, I'm sure he'll get over it before I will.

The story isn't special. My son isn't getting the playing time he believes he deserves on the freshman team at our high school. That's certainly not uncommon. Lots of kids, in every sport, and at all levels, think they should play more than they do. Most of them are not as good as they think they are, but sometimes the kids are right, and they really are getting screwed.

My son certainly is.

Yes, he's my son, so it's impossible for me to be objective here. I acknowledge that. But I'm not just any other loving, overprotective dad. I'm a professional sportswriter, which means my job for the last 30-plus years has centered around watching athletes perform, comparing athletes to other athletes, and making judgments based on my observations. So while I can't claim to be totally objective, my professional training and experience allows me to say, confidently, and without qualification, that my son is one of the team's better players.

In the game I saw last week, the team outscored its opponent by 11 points in the time when my son was in the game. Early in the second half, he came in with the team down 11, and when he came out, they were down by one. He came back in the fourth quarter, with the team down four, and came out about a minute later, with the team still down four, and four minutes to play. They lost the game by 12.

The next game, he played about three minutes.

To be sure, he hasn't played a mistake-free season. And he hasn't made every shot he's taken. My wife and I implored him to speak to the coach, face-to-face, and ask what he may be doing wrong, and what he needs to do better. But he's not interested. He's done the mental calculation and has decided it makes more sense to simply check out. At this point, he'll most likely finish the season, and he'll still show up to practice and work hard for the 90 minutes or whatever that he's there. He'll play tough defense when he gets in the game, because that's just who he is. And if he can cut to the basket for a backdoor layup now and again, he'll do that.

But he's no longer emotionally invested in the team. And as far as anything extra, like, "optional shooting practice,'' well, that's over.

Four years ago, it was a junior football coach who drove him away. Looking back on that, my wife and I always believed he'd return to football when he got to high school. And last fall, he did, and I've never seen him happier. He reconnected with friends he'd drifted away from, and by midseason, he was starting at receiver and defensive back on the freshman team. He ended up leading the team in receptions for the season, and his success on the field seemingly vindicated his decision to walk away from the game when he did. A good football experience made everything in his life seem better. He even started getting along with his older brother -- probably for the first time in their lives.

Now he's getting ready to walk away from a second sport. But it's easier this time. As sad, angry and confused as he was -- and my wife and I were -- the last week or so, we're already beginning to look ahead. The good thing about his current situation is that it'll be easier for him to play basketball somewhere next winter than it was to play football three years ago. Next winter, he'll play CYO basketball, or maybe he'll go back to his old club. Basketball will be fun again.

I'm looking forward to that.

So your kid wants to play in college? Well, it won't be easy

It's been a really good few months for our family, especially as it regards the kids' sporting events. The latest highlight came earlier this week, when our middle son accepted an offer to play college lacrosse at a nearby Division II school. The quest to play a sport in college did not go the way we expected it to, but, for him -- and our family -- it ultimately worked out great.

Our son was always a really good athlete. Twenty months younger than his older brother, our second son learned much from playing with his brother and his brother's friends when they were little. He always seemed prepared for every next step -- whether it was Preschool, or Kindergarten; Tee ball, or PeeWee football; middle school, high school, etc. -- because he had watched, from up close, his brother going through every event. And he knew, going in, what to expect when it was his turn.

Anyway, his mother and I knew, from the first summer we saw him play club lacrosse, that he would be good enough to play in college if everything played out normally. As a 12 year-old going to tournaments, we knew the kids he was playing with and against were going to be the ones who would be playing college in a few years. So when we saw him keeping up with them, and even excelling, we knew that as long as he grew normally, didn't suffer any catastrophic injuries, and didn't somehow lose his love for the game, he could play beyond high school.

He was always a key player on his club teams, and he performed well at whatever Prospect Days and showcases we took him to. But he was never big for his age, or super fast. And as such, he was never the kind of kid who jumped out at you the instant you watched a game. He was always more of a smart player who did a bunch of little things that helped the team, but might go unnoticed by the casual observer. He kind of needed to be seen over time to be appreciated.

We did all the things we were supposed to -- identifying schools we thought he might be interested in, and emailing those coaches early in his high school career, to get him on their radar. He went to those schools' Prospect Days. But the one coach who genuinely seemed interested in learning about him early ended up leaving the school suddenly -- for reasons we never found out. The new coach at that school was polite, but never seemed truly interested. And neither, it turned out, were the coaches at other schools we targeted.

What we came to realize, almost too late, was that the whole thing is a lot harder if your child has a specialty major, one that isn't offered at every school. He would have had lots of options if he intended to major in Liberal Arts or Business, probably. Engineering, though, turned out to be trickier. It seemed the schools that liked him as a player didn't offer his major; and the schools that did offer his major had their pick of a lot of kids, just like him. For them, it was a supply-and-demand thing.

A couple months ago, I ran into the dad of one of his classmates who had discovered the same problem we had. His son was a baseball player who, like my son, wanted to study engineering. But despite being a good player on high-level club teams that went to top-end showcase tournaments, and despite performing well to all these big-time individual showcase events, finding a place where he could get the education he wanted, and play baseball, was proving difficult.

A few weeks ago I ran into the dad's son. He said he had zeroed in on an excellent school a few hours away, but when he realized there were going to be eight players at his position (he's a catcher) he gave up the chase. His plan now is to go to a big school, and maybe play club baseball there.

My son was luckier. In chatting with the father of one of his club teammates at the last tournament this summer, I learned that father had gone to a well-respected engineering school nearby that hadn't been on my son's original list. Part of the reason we didn't consider it was that it was a Division II school, and we had been focusing more on the Division III level. Anyway, my son sent them a highlight video from the summer and they liked it and responded immediately. We struck up a dialogue and, long story short, they turned out to be very interested and ultimately offered him a spot on their team.

So all's well that ends well. It for sure ended well for him. But it certainly wasn't easy.

Youth coaches: Do your best to keep the kids in the game

My wife and I like to joke with people that we must be the only two parents in America who actually want their kid to play football, even if he doesn't want to.

These days, participation in youth and high school football is down, in large part because parents -- rightfully -- are concerned with the relatively high risk of injury for football players, especially the risk of concussions. Now, the reason my wife and I are OK with our kids playing football is not because we aren't concerned with our kids' health and safety; it's just that we both believe that the rewards of playing football -- the life lessons the game teaches, the friendships the kids make, and the fun they have -- are greater for most than the risk of injury.

Our three sons all played youth football, and our middle son still plays in high school. He's about to start senior year and plays both offense and defense for our high school team. Our youngest son is set to enter high school as a freshman, and, after not playing football for a few years, has toyed with the idea of possibly returning to the game in high school. He's brought it up a couple separate times, and debated the idea with himself. When he does, my wife and I, and his brother, all try to talk him into playing. So far, we've been unsuccessful.

Why is it so important to us that our son play football? It's not that we're such devotees of football; it's that we want to make sure that if he doesn't want to play anymore, it's for the right reasons. You see, when he made the decision to quit the game, it wasn't because he'd gotten hurt, or had somehow lost his love of the sport, or anything like that. No, it was a coach who drove him away.

He so loved football when he was younger, but when he got to the fifth grade, he had a coach who was simply consumed by winning. If this guy didn't think a kid could help him win, then that kid meant nothing to him. Our son was moderately athletic, but small, with probably only average speed. He was never going to play in the "A" games, but he didn't play in the "B" games, either. Worse, the coach was so focused on winning that he devoted all his practice time to the kids who played the most in the games. That meant the kids who weren't going to play in the games didn't even get to practice. They just stood around and watched every night. Mental reps, they call it in the NFL.

When you coach 10- and 11-year-olds, though, the job is different. You have to balance the desire to win with the need to keep kids engaged and to develop all their knowledge and skills, because kids all grow differently -- at different times, and different rates. And sometimes, the smallest kid in the sixth grade ends up being one of the bigger kids in the ninth grade. Oftentimes, the stars of the PeeWee team aren't stars in high school. And those kids who were smaller and weaker and who just played to be on the team and have fun end up being the best players on the varsity. When you're coaching at the youth level, winning should be a happy byproduct of good coaching and talent; it shouldn't be the thing that drives how a coach operates.

Our son has gotten along just fine without football over the last few years. He's given his heart to basketball, and the sport has been good to him. He's made wonderful friends and he's made himself into a very good basketball player. He's a good lacrosse player, too. And he's grown. He's not small anymore. The high school coach would love to have him, but it looks like he won't. If he doesn't, it'll be largely because  of a youth coach who never understood the job.

Someday, the games will end. But if it's still fun, play on

Walking away from a sport you love can be hard, but it's something everyone will have to do at some point. The best case scenario is that you get to do it on your terms -- like after a Hall of Fame professional career, or after a National Championship, or something. But for the vast majority of us, the end of our athletic careers won't be nearly so romantic.

My son isn't ready to stop playing yet. He's in college now, and while he's having the time of his life reinventing himself away from home, making new friends, and enjoying all types of new experiences, he just doesn't want to let go of playing organized sport right now. So, last weekend, he tried out for the college's club lacrosse team.

To be honest, my wife and I weren't happy he did that.

He was never a good athlete, which kind of broke our hearts, because he so badly wanted to be. And what made it even more poignant was that his younger brother turned out to be a really good athlete -- the kind of kid who could play any sport he wanted, and be a star in all of them.

Sports were never so kind to our oldest son, though.

It wasn't all bad, to be fair. He had one coach in junior football who took a liking to him and went out of his way to make certain he had a good experience. But in the years he played for other coaches, it wasn't so good, and finally, after he had the worst year of his life as a member of the high school's freshman football team, he gave up the sport and switched to rec soccer, which he liked a lot. 

Lacrosse was, overall, better to him than football. He played JV two years and varsity two years and while he didn't play as much as he probably expected to his senior year, he did get to play with his brother, and really seemed to get closer to him. He scored a couple goals on the season, the team did well, and he generally seemed at peace with how his high school career finished up.

To me, that seemed like a good way to go out. After all, only a few of his high school classmates are playing sports in college at the varsity or club level, so, if he doesn't play a sport in college, he'd be just like most people. And he'd have more time to explore all the things that college has to offer.

But he just wasn't done with sports yet. He loves being on a team, and he loves lacrosse. So the way he saw it, why not give this a shot, just like he's giving lots of other stuff a shot? He promised his mother that he'd be OK if he didn't make the team, and I suppose if he really will be OK with whatever happens, then we'll have to be OK with it, too.

Good and bad, sports have meant a lot to him over the years, and yes, eventually, someday he will have to stop playing. But if he can make a team, then that day doesn't have to be today.