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. 

Sometimes a backup role is the best way to help the team

The new high school football season is underway, and my son is playing on the varsity, which has won its first two games. That's the good news.

The bad news, for him, is he isn't playing as much as he had expected he would.

Since the team is winning, he can't complain. And he hasn't. My wife asked him a couple times if he's happy with how much playing time he's been getting, and he admitted he'd like to play more, but said he understands what's going on. I do too, and I view this as yet another life lesson that football teaches: Sometimes in sports -- and in life -- an individual is going to have to make sacrifices in order help the team.

I should point out that my son, a junior, has played roughly half of the defensive snaps over the first two games, so don't feel too sorry for him. He hasn't played yet on offense, though, and that is where the disappointment is. Our high school is a small school, and the best players usually play both offense and defense.

Sometimes it's different when you're a quarterback, however. In junior football one year, the coaches wouldn't let him play in the "A'' games because they didn't want to take a chance he might get hurt, and then they wouldn't have anyone to play quarterback in the "B'' games. Then, in the B games, they wouldn't let him play defense for the same reason.

This year, my son had hoped to play receiver, but because he played quarterback on the JV team last season, the coaches had him competing for the starting quarterback position rather than a starting receiver position. Ultimately, he didn't win the quarterback job (he was always a longshot), and by the time he finally got moved to receiver, the receiver rotation was set -- without him in it.

There's a chance that if he'd been playing receiver all summer, he'd be in the playing rotation now. But by playing quarterback -- and playing well enough to extend the competition the entire summer -- he pushed his competitor to lift his own game in order to earn the starting job. And because he played well enough to earn the coaches' confidence, it's given them the freedom to allow the starting quarterback to play defense, too, which makes the defense better, as well.

Of course, my son would prefer to be on the field. But in this case, his being a backup quarterback is still a significant contribution to the team. It's as the poet John Milton explained so perfectly with the last line of his poem, On His Blindness: "They also serve who only stand and wait.''

Things to consider when chasing that college scholarship

Summer lacrosse season starts this weekend.

For our oldest son, this is the beginning of an experience he longed to have, as it is the first time he's made a club team. We don't know how much he'll play, or how good his team will be, but being on a team, meeting kids from different towns, traveling on the weekends to tournaments, eating snacks under the tents between games, and just playing lacrosse and having fun is something we think he'll enjoy.

Our middle son has played club lacrosse the past three summers. He's enjoyed it immensely and made many friends, but he's also proven to himself -- and to my wife and I -- that he's a good enough player to realistically aspire to play the sport in college. So for him, this weekend has a different meaning. He's playing for a higher-level club which is taking him to college showcases and higher-end tournaments, and this weekend is the first step, really, in getting on the radar of college coaches and entering the recruiting scene.

But getting on the recruiting scene doesn't just start and end with going to the "right'' high school or getting on the "right'' club. In speaking to friends with older children who have gone through the whole process before, we've learned there are things you can and should do to help put your kids into the process.

The first thing is to make sure your kids understand that getting an opportunity to play sports in college starts with working hard in the classroom. Schools have a limited number of athletic scholarships, and -- football and basketball aside -- many schools choose to break their athletic scholarships up into partial scholarships, in order to be able to give at least some scholarship money to more recruits. So a recruit with excellent grades can supplement a partial athletic scholarship by getting academic money. 

That's how it worked for the daughter of a former co-worker of mine, who got a quarter of an athletic scholarship and a half of an academic scholarship to play softball at a Division 1 university. The academic scholarship, my co-worker said, was better than the athletic scholarship, because that was for all four years, assuming she maintained a certain academic standard. An athletic scholarship is renewable year-to-year and can be taken away for any number of reasons -- like an injury, or a coaching change, or something.

And of course, your son or daughter may be interested in playing at a Division 3 school, which can't offer athletic scholarships. They can offer academic scholarships, however.

The next step in the recruiting process, according to our veteran friends, is to figure out what kind of school your child is most likely to be interested in and putting a list of potential schools together. Then you visit the websites of those schools and if they have some kind of prospective student athlete questionnaire (most do) your child should fill that out. You can also email the coach to see if there's any kind of camp or Prospect Day your child could attend at the school.

I emailed a few coaches about our son and one got back to me, asking for a high school transcript and a highlight video. The transcript  was easy enough, but since our son had only played JV lacrosse, I didn't have any film of him. So I asked the varsity coach if I could borrow the team's video camera to record the last JV game. He agreed. And this weekend, I'm borrowing the camera again to shoot more video, of him playing with his club team. My son will figure out how to cut the video up and make his own highlight tape.

So there are things you can do to help your child get on track to play a college sport. As with everything, though, be aware that there is an entire recruiting industry and there are people looking to make a living by helping you navigate the process. Talk to your high school and/or club coach to get help in figuring out what steps you need to take and what traps you should avoid.

The going gets tough sometimes. Don't be so quick to quit the team

They say a winner never quits, and a quitter never wins. But my general philosophy on life is that very few things are absolute, and so I try to stay away from words like "never'' and "always.''

Sometimes, we find ourselves in a bad situation, and from a moral, practical, safety or mental health perspective, walking away is absolutely the right decision. A handful of boys quit the high school lacrosse team this season, for various reasons -- ranging from an understanding they weren't good enough to earn the playing time they desired, to a realization that they had other commitments that were more important to them than playing lacrosse.

One boy who quit though, surprised almost everyone because he was was a good player, and contributed much to the team. Most of his teammates couldn't figure out why he left, but presumably it had something to do with the fact he wasn't playing as much as he thought he should. And if he really was so unhappy on the team, then no one should be mad at him for quitting, because the whole point of playing sports is to have fun.

But there's a difference between being truly miserable every day and being unhappy at a particular moment. In sports, the seasons are relatively short. They move fast, and are filled with ups and downs. You have to learn to navigate those, and work through them, appreciating the up periods and finding a way to overcome the down periods. That's one of those life lessons you get from sports -- if you stick with it, when it's all over, you'll actually appreciate going through those ups and downs, and your ultimate success will mean so much more.

Not everything is going to go your way all the time -- in sports, or in life. Sometimes you're going to have to fight your way through tough times, and sometimes, you're going to have to accept defeat, learn from it, start over again, work harder, and be better. Yes, sometimes it makes sense to quit, but if you quit too easily, you'll never learn how to deal with adversity, and that's a tool you'll need to have later in life.

The boy in question had started at another high school before transferring into our school after a couple years. He played two sports and when he initially came to our school, he quit one, apparently because he didn't make the varsity team. He did return to that sport for senior year and had a fine season. This lacrosse season, he was tested at his position by a freshman and apparently didn't appreciate sharing time.

The thing is, he was playing well, and if he'd stuck around, there was a chance he might have eventually taken over the job full time. He chose not to wait to give himself a chance to make that happen.

And that's the shame of it. I'm sure he doesn't see it this way, but I think his quitting probably will end up hurting him more than it did the team. After the initial shock, the team adjusted to his departure and moved on. The freshman he had been sharing time with began to grow into the position and the team settled and went on a winning streak. The boy who left gave up a chance to be a part of a winning team where he could have had some fun and created some lifelong memories. Instead, years from now, his old teammates might forget he even played.

Maybe his pride was hurt. But if pride and ego convinced him to bail out of a situation at the first sign of trouble, then I wonder what will happen next time this kid comes up against a problem or a hiccup in his life.

Will he have the ability to overcome it? Or will he just keep quitting?

Is extra, sport-specific training a must these days?

A little more than a month ago, as his high school wrestling season was coming to a close, my son asked me if it would be OK for him to do some work at a wrestling club over the summer. All the wrestling dads I'm friendly with tell me that working in the clubs is the only way -- or the fastest way, anyway -- to truly improve as a wrestler.

But besides being one more thing my wife and I have to pay for, club wrestling now becomes one more thing to add to our very busy son's agenda for the summer. He's already got football practice and club lacrosse, and we'd like him to get a job, if he can. Now he has to wrestle, too?

The answer to that, I suppose, is if he wants to be competitive next winter, then yes. This year he did fine against the other kids like himself -- the football players who are trying to stay in shape over the winter, and the good athletes who aren't great wrestlers -- but there were too many nights when he had to face one of those committed, year-round wrestlers who's been doing it since Kindergarten. He couldn't compete with those kids, and he knew it.

As a competitor, that's hard to accept. And if going the wrestling gym this summer gives him even the slightest chance to win just one more match next winter, then how could my wife and I say no to that?

These days, extra training is just part of the landscape. The kid who's playing against your son or daughter probably has a personal pitching coach, quarterback coach, skating coach, shooting coach, or yes, wrestling coach. And if your kid doesn't have one, then he or she is going to be at a disadvantage. And if your son or daughter plays a team sport, then the team is at a disadvantage, too.

On the other hand, a friend of mine whose oldest son is about to graduate high school and head off to a large university (where he will not be playing a sport) was joking with me recently that he wished he hadn't spent all that money on pitching lessons when his son was young. His son ended up not even playing baseball in high school, and my friend's point was that money he spent on pitching lessons now looks like it might have been put to better use somewhere else.

So I guess what I would take from that is, before you dive into the world of extra, personal sports training, you should probably first examine what your expectations are. If you think your child will want to try and play a sport in college, then yeah, you'll most likely want to invest in extra training at some point. But that's probably not something you need to worry about in second grade. Maybe you can wait a little while.

If your child isn't likely to play college sports, but you just think he or she would enjoy a better experience by improving his or her skills through extra training, then go for it, if you can afford it.

Is extra training a must for every athlete? No. But as more and more athletes use extra training to get a leg up on the competition, then more and more are going to have to do it just to keep up.

To youth sports officials: Priority No. 1 is to protect the kids

My wife hates it when I yell at the referees at our kids' games.

She's right, of course -- it's unseemly to yell at referees for any number of reasons. And while I really don't do it often, her point is I shouldn't do it, ever. I know that. But sometimes I just can't help myself. Hey, I'm human. And I will say, in my defense, that the refs have to be pretty bad for me to yell at them.

Usually I only yell at football refs, and occasionally, lacrosse refs, for some reason. I rarely yell at basketball referees. Inside a gym, with fewer people watching, somehow I don't feel as comfortable calling a referee out for every mistake. Perhaps it's because my nephew is a basketball ref, and I realize that referees are people too. I don't know.

Last week, though, it was hard to remain calm as I watched while the two referees working my son's CYO league basketball game allowed the game to get completely out of control. The opposing team was extremely physical, and the referees took the approach where they "let the kids play.'' 

At the youth level, I always prefer referees call a tighter game, so as to teach the kids what is a foul and what isn't. But allowing some physical play is fine, as long as the referees A) remember to let both teams' kids play, and B) at some point, take control and don't allow the physicality to reach a level where the game becomes dangerous to the participants.

The two referees at the game in question did neither of those things in this particular instance. The opposing team spent the entire game pushing, bumping and banging my son's team and it wasn't long before my son's team -- which has three football players on it -- decided to push and bump and bang back.

The problem is, as the contact got more and more intense, the conditions got more and more dangerous for the players. At one point, my son swiped at the ball after a rebound on a missed free throw and fouled an opposing player. The player swung his elbow -- violently -- at my son, and grazed him with a glancing blow on his jaw. He wasn't injured, thank goodness, but he's the only one that got charged with a foul on that play.

And that's where the game went completely off the rails.

My son's coach began to argue with the referees, not protesting the foul call against my son, but the lack of a call on the elbow that the opposing player threw at him. Eventually, the coach got a technical. And then a second technical, which meant he was ejected. The other team hit a bunch of foul shots in the sequence and a tight game began to slip away. That led to things getting even more physical. Thankfully, no one got hurt, but things got so bad that the referees ended the game with 16 seconds still left on the clock.

But that wasn't the end of it. Our coach called the league to complain about the officials, but the league decided to go along with the referees' report, which painted our team as the aggressors. The league suspended our coach for two games and two of our players got two-game suspensions as well, because they were assessed technical fouls in the game. The technicals came late in the game, as the refs were no doubt trying to rein in the players on both teams. At that point it was too late; the game was already out of control.

By the way, in case you're wondering, I didn't yell at the refs -- much.

If I could send a message to the two referees that I believe allowed all this chaos to occur, here's what I would tell them: Call fouls when you see them. By doing that, you set the tone and let the kids know what will and won't be tolerated. That's the best way to keep everybody safe on the court, field, or ice: If you do that, I promise, I'll keep trying to stop yelling at you.

Watch your weight, sure, but don't get crazy

This morning, my son decided he was going to skip breakfast.

He intended to skip lunch, too.

This, apparently, is what wrestlers do on match days. And he's got a playoff match tonight.

Look, I've made no secret of the fact that wrestling makes me squeamish. I appreciate all the positive things the sport offers and I have a great deal of respect for the kids who wrestle. They are all in great physical condition, they develop great mental strength, and they enjoy a wonderful team camaraderie with one another. Overall, it's a positive experience for most kids, and my son enjoys it, which is all that really matters. My wife and I support him wholeheartedly, and we go to the matches and cheer for him, and for all the kids on the team.

But honestly, it's hard to watch sometimes. We were powerless to do anything at a recent match, when an opponent looked like he was going to pull our son's arm out of its socket; and even when he wins a match -- when he pins the other kid, I end up feeling kind of bad for his opponent.

On top of all that, there's the weight thing, which makes us uneasy, too.

As a freshman, he's been content to wrestle his actual weight, or near it, even though that meant he had to start the season on J.V. He did have to lose two pounds to get to the nearest weight limit, but that wasn't a big deal, considering that other kids have had to lose a lot more than that to find an available spot they can fill in the varsity lineup. One of his teammates told me he had lost 20 pounds since the summer. It was the only way for him to earn a regular varsity spot.

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday, and with a playoff match tonight, my son and his teammates couldn't afford to go hog wild on Buffalo Wings and bleu cheese dip like most of the rest of America. He actually went running earlier in the day to burn off some calories and give himself room to have a wing or two and maybe some chips and a soda. This morning he woke up right at his weight limit, so all was good -- except he didn't want to take a chance that eating breakfast might push him over the limit.

Now, believe me, I understand that in the real world, there are many children who don't eat breakfast because there's no food in their house. And that's absolutely heartbreaking to think about. Thankfully, that is not my son's situation. Instead, he chooses to skip the most important meal of the day because of his commitment to a sport, which sounds very much like a First World problem. My wife and I were able to convince him to have an apple this morning, but he wouldn't even drink a glass of water with it, afraid that might push him over the weight limit. He made himself a fruit smoothie and packed a few snacks for after the weigh-in.

Weight management is just part of the sport, and I get that. And fortunately, our son isn't doing anything crazy -- at least not yet. But he likes the sport, and at this point intends to do it again next year and to continue doing it throughout high school. So there could come a point, over the next few years, where he will feel the need to lose a massive amount of weight -- either for his own benefit, or for the team's. 

I'm hoping that never happens.

Got cut from the travel team? It's not the end of the world

At the end of the tryouts for the travel basketball teams for our town, they always tell the kids not to be discouraged if they get cut; but to find another team somewhere and keep playing. Our high school boys varsity coach, who oversees the boys travel team tryouts, likes to tell the kids that his varsity squad often is largely made up of kids who never played on the town travel team, or if they did, they played on the B team.

I always thought they were just trying to make the kids feel better, but it turns out, it's true.

When my youngest son failed to make the travel team this year, a few parents whose kids were also cut got together and formed a team at a local facility that runs basketball leagues and clinics all year round. One of our son's teammates has an older brother who is on the high school's freshman team, and looking at that roster, I realized that many of those players had not played travel basketball at the youth level. My older son is a freshman, and he'd played travel basketball through sixth grade. Of the 11 kids who were on his sixth grade team, only five of them are playing high school basketball now.

And that perfectly illustrated the fact that making the youth travel team doesn't mean your son or daughter automatically will play in high school. Conversely, getting cut now, or choosing not to play for some other reason, doesn't mean your son or daughter won't be able to play in high school.

My wife and I knew -- and our son knew, too -- that he was always a longshot to make the team, even though he'd spent a lot of time in the summer and fall refining his shot in our backyard, and working diligently on improving his ballhandling. The odds were against him at the tryouts because everyone who played on the A and B teams the previous season returned, so unless the basketball association decided to expand the rosters, any new player who was going to make one of the travel teams was going to have to take the spot of someone who had been on the team last year.

Two new kids did make it. Both were obviously too good not to -- no-brainer picks for the A team. That meant two kids dropped from the A team to the B team and two kids got cut from the B team.

Ultimately, my son wasn't good enough to bump someone else off the team. But that's OK. He is enjoying the team he's on and my wife and I and the other parents believe that, in the long run, our kids may end up being better off on this team than they might have been had they made the travel team. They are practicing and playing games against travel-level opponents, and that's the most important thing for their development. And without intending any disrespect, our kids are being coached by a paid coach who knows the game and how to teach it, whereas the travel teams are coached by parent-coaches.

High school is still a few years away for our son, so we can't get caught up in looking too far ahead for him. But it's comforting to know that when the time comes, nothing that happens now will hold him back then.

Is playing three sports in high school still a thing?

One of the best things about living in a smaller town, or going to a small school, is that often it means more opportunities to do things, especially from an athletic standpoint. A big town/school may provide more opportunity in that it may offer more sports sometimes, but a smaller town/school most likely will have less competition for playing time in the sports that are offered.

In high school, that means a good athlete may be able to play three different varsity sports over the course of a school year, something the best athletes routinely did when I went to school.

But these days, playing three sports in high school is not always easy, and it's often not as glamorous as it sounds.

In our town, the high school football team begins practice the day after the championship games for the spring seasons, meaning practice for the fall season begins before the previous school year is over and runs throughout the summer. By the time the football season ends, the players have been going at it very hard for half the year, and their bodies and minds are tired. The idea of rolling directly from a fall sport right into a winter sport without a break in between can be daunting -- and even more daunting if the athlete knows he or she will later have to roll right from the winter sport into a spring sport.

When is there an opportunity to rest? When is there an opportunity to do something other than play a sport?

My son the freshman just wrapped up a very enjoyable football season and is currently in a one-week dead period before he starts wrestling practice next Monday. A month ago, he wasn't sure he wanted to wrestle; he was thinking he'd just work out over the winter, train and get ready for lacrosse season in the spring. He'd tried boxing a couple years ago and liked it (it was actually more training than real boxing) and he thought he'd like to do that again this winter.

But, of course, the wrestling coach was disappointed to hear that. And the football coaches gave him a hard time about it, too. They all acknowledged that giving maximum effort for three hours a day, six days a week at football practice takes a lot out of a person. None of them suggested wrestling would take up less time, or require less effort.

My wife and I told him we supported whatever decision he made, but both of us figured he'd probably end up wrestling. Last week he decided to take the plunge. He said he had changed his mind and now wanted to do it; he said he thought he'd give it a shot freshman year and see how it goes.

Personally, I kind of wish he would have taken the winter off. As much as I advocate kids playing multiple sports when they're younger, as they get older the commitment level for all of the sports keeps getting higher and higher. At some point, I think giving the necessary commitment to three different sports is too much for most people.

There's much more to life than playing sports. But when you're a three-sport athlete in high school, there isn't enough time for much else.

Sometimes, taking a step back from sports is a good thing

This fall, our youngest son decided not to play football. Considering he had practically grown up at the junior football field -- he'd been going there since he was 2 years old and in a stroller, when we were taking his older brothers to practice -- it was a pretty significant decision on his part.

He opted not to play because he wasn't sure how much playing time he'd get, and he knew he'd be miserable if he didn't play much. Now, he's a decent athlete, if not exceptional, and, for all we know, he might have gotten plenty of playing time. But there was also a chance he might not have, and since he's had issues with losing his temper when he's frustrated on the sports field, my wife and I were proud of him for making what we saw as a mature decision.

The thing for him was, he had to develop a new identity. From the time he was 6 years old, and playing flag football, he was always a football player. And he came from a family of football players, so that's how everyone saw him. This year, he had to figure out what he was going to be and how he would spend his time without football.

The good news is, he adjusted just fine. He did miss the game, we're sure, but observing him closely, it doesn't seem like he missed it all that much. Not playing football allowed him the chance to do some other stuff he wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, like playing on a fall lacrosse team, and playing basketball in the fall open gyms that were offered at the same time as football practice. Perhaps best of all, not spending so much time at the football field allowed him to spend more time with some of his friends who don't play football. And he even made a couple of new, non-football-playing friends at the middle school.

Unfortunately, he didn't make the travel basketball team. He had invested a lot of time in the summer and fall working on his skills and his game to get ready for the tryouts, and he really had hoped against hope he'd make it this year. But while he clearly was disappointed, he doesn't seem devastated. He was happy with the way he played at the tryouts, and knows he did the best he could. Disappointment is part of life, and he's handling it well. It's almost as if he's realizing that there's more to life than being on a sports team.

Now, I'm not suggesting he's better off without sports, or anything -- we're a sports-loving family, and he's a sports-loving kid -- and all indications are that he'll return to football someday, whether it's next fall, or perhaps in high school. If that happens, it'll be great, but for right now, this time off from football seems to be teaching him that his self worth doesn't have to be attached to his identity as "an athlete.'' He can just be a nice kid who is a good friend, a good student, and one who is pretty good at sports. He's learned a lot of life lessons from sports, and now maybe he's learning one more: How to put things in perspective.

Folks: Please don't yell at the quarterback

It's different when your kid's the quarterback.

My son is enjoying his first taste of high school football this fall. He's on the freshman team, and after spending most his time in junior football as a quarterback, he's having great success on the field as a receiver, defensive back and punter.

I've never seen him so happy. He's happy with his role on the team, happy being with his teammates both at and away from the field, and in the bigger picture, he appears to be making a smooth overall transition from middle school to high school. As far as football is concerned, he doesn't seem to miss being the quarterback at all (he still is the backup), and it looks now as if not being the quarterback is the best thing that could have happened to him.

The quarterback position is unlike any other in team sports. At every football game, all eyes are on the quarterback, and rightly or wrongly, the quarterback usually gets a disproportionate share of the credit or blame for the team's success -- or lack thereof. Of course, being selected to play the position is an honor, as it means the coach is counting on you to do a lot for the team. But sometimes it seems it might just be more fun to play a position with less pressure attached to it.

The boy who is playing quarterback for the freshman team is a great kid -- and a great quarterback and athlete. He and my son have played football together since the second grade, and while they don't hang out together away from the field, they do like and have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. They share the same values as far as desire to win, work ethic, etc., and I view them almost as partners dedicated to working together to help the team win. I've been friendly with the boy's dad since our sons were on that second grade team together.

The boy's older brother is the varsity quarterback, and sometimes I feel bad for their parents at games. Not the freshman games, so much, but the varsity games can be brutal. At a recent varsity game, the older brother was struggling some, and I was disappointed to hear parents in the stands yelling at him. On one play, the mother of another player screamed at the quarterback, yelling frantically at him to throw the ball as the defense closed in him. When he did, and the pass was incomplete, the mother yelled at him again, shouting, "Who are you throwing it to?!''

The following game, another parent approached the quarterback's dad and their conversation -- about football -- became so heated that they had to be separated by a third man.

My first thought, when I saw the one incident and heard about the other, was: What the heck is wrong with people, yelling at high school kids?

My next thought was this: If this is what happens when your kid is the quarterback, I'm glad my son isn't the quarterback.

Hey coaches, let's try to develop ALL the kids

The older my kids get, and the more sports I watch at higher age levels, the more convinced I become that too many youth team coaches are focusing too much on winning and not enough on player development.

My oldest son played lacrosse on the high school junior varsity team last spring. He was one of a handful of sophomores on a team that was mostly made up of freshmen -- freshmen who had won a lot of games on their eighth grade team the year before and throughout their youth careers. However, those freshmen were in an unfamiliar position, as the best player on all those youth teams wasn't with them anymore; he was good enough that he made the varsity. And while that was great for him, what it meant for his classmates was that, for the first time, they were going to have to learn how to play without him.

It took them a while.

The team started off losing a bunch of games -- including some they were expected to win easily -- and morale was low. Eventually, things did turn around, though. The goalie started making some big saves and getting more and more confident, and little by little, the kids began to move the ball around more, started scoring some goals, and began winning some games. They ended up winning about as many games as they lost, and, overall, it was a good year.

Maybe, from a wins-and-losses standpoint, it wasn't the kind of year the freshmen were used to having, perhaps. But the truth is, they all got better, which is the whole idea of a JV team. Because instead of putting all their efforts into working hard to win possession of the ball and then immediately giving it to their star player, the freshmen had to learn to trust other people and trust themselves to make positive plays. There were plenty of other good players in the group -- some of them sophomores, who the freshmen had to get to know -- and those kids stepped up. And the ones who didn't consider themselves stars eventually began to try things they hadn't had to do before, which ultimately expanded their own games, making them better players and better prospects for future varsity action.

Which once again illustrates the point I keep coming back to: That everything below the varsity level ought to be developmental -- and helping every player become the best player he or she can be is what youth coaches should be making their priority. Yes, winning games is important, because you do want to develop players who understand the difference between playing a sport and playing to win -- understand that there is a level of effort and sacrifice required of players if they want to win. 

But from a coaching standpoint, it shouldn't be strictly about winning. And all sub-varsity coaches, and especially all youth coaches, need to realize they need to help kids grow as players and teach them to play the game the right way. If you do that, then the winning will surely follow.

The best thing about sports isn't winning trophies

About three weeks ago, I experienced one of those perfect days that reminded me of what the youth sports experience is supposed to be all about. It was a weekend that saw the finish of our rec basketball season and the start of our youth lacrosse season, and my biggest takeaway from the weekend was that the fun of sports isn't always tied to winning.

That Saturday, my youngest son was excited because his basketball team had a semifinal game in the morning, and if his team won, it would play in the final in the afternoon. A last-minute lacrosse practice was scheduled for later in the afternoon, so a perfect day would involve two basketball games, followed by a quick change out of his sneakers and into his cleats for lax practice. And that's what happened. His team won the semifinal in a close game, and advanced to the final, where he got to guard one of his very good friends, who plays lacrosse with him.

His team lost the final, but there was no time to feel bad. He and his friend left the gym, raced over to the field for practice, and afterward, his friend invited him over to his house to play. This is a boy who doesn't go to his school, and if they didn't play lacrosse together, they wouldn't even know one another.

My other son also had lacrosse practice that afternoon. And he also ended up hanging out with one of his teammates after practice. In his case, this particular teammate is an old friend, going all the way back to pre-school. They went to different grammar schools, so they grew up in different circles, and though they go to middle school together now, they don't hang out with each other most of the year. But in the spring, during lacrosse season, they're the best of friends.

That day, I was reminded that, for a young athlete, it's not the wins, or the trophies, or even all those life lessons sports provide that are the best reasons to play.

It's the friendships they make.

Filling the void after football

My son had his annual physical last week. Everything went well, except that his doctor was somewhat alarmed by how much weight he had put on since his last checkup.

My son is 15, a sophomore in high school, and still growing. According to the doctor, he'd grown an inch-and-a-half in the past year, but the nearly 30 pounds he'd put on were much more than he should have. I told the doctor that my son had stopped playing football over the past year, and he agreed that that was probably the reason for the excessive weight gain.

That made me think about a conversation I'd had with another parent a week or so earlier. This particular mom works at a local hospital, and, like my wife and I, she has three sons, two of whom play football. As a medical professional, she believes that while there's obviously an injury risk from playing a contact sport like football, there's a bigger risk in your child doing nothing. My son's physical brought home to me exactly what she was talking about.

Playing sports offers countless benefits to kids, but the biggest and most immediate is the exercise it provides them. Your kid can get exercise playing all kinds of sports or doing other physical activities, but while other sports might carry a slightly less risk of injury (no sport carries zero risk of injury) football offers a highly structured activity that keeps minds and bodies sharp. And if your son (or daughter) likes it and is engaged, the benefits are great. 

All three of my sons started playing tackle football in second grade. The oldest was decidedly unathletic and wasn't very good at the sport, but being part of a team was good for him. He made a few friends and he thrived on the routine the sport provided -- practice three or four evenings a week, and a game on the weekend. He would get home from school, do his homework, get something light to eat and go to practice. Everything made so much sense.

When the season ended, it would always be a struggle to fill his time productively. Playing recreational basketball in the winter wasn't the same thing, but it was okay to take it easy until spring, when he could get outside again. In high school, football gave him something to do all summer and all fall. Practicing and lifting weights with the team built a solid body for him and gave him a support system of sorts as he tackled the challenges of freshman year.

Ultimately, he wasn't a good enough athlete or player to continue playing the game, and so he stopped. But after all those years playing football, suddenly there was this huge void that nothing seemed able to fill. He played rec soccer in the fall, which was fun and a good experience, but with one practice a week and a game on the weekend, it wasn't really enough to keep him in shape. He's spent way too much time playing video games, and I didn't notice it until his physical, but over the last few months his body got soft.

So now, my wife and I are trying to figure out how we can help him. We're hoping he gets a job this summer and we're thinking about finding a gym for him to join. This spring, he's playing lacrosse, which he enjoys and which will fill his time and get him in shape again. But then we've got to figure out what to do when that season ends. We don't need him going back to football. We need him to find something that can take its place.