UNITED STATES OF AMERICA — Oscar Levant, the concert pianist and author, once said, “Once I make up my mind, I’m full of indecision.” William James, the renowned philosopher and psychologist, broke it down like this, “There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.” Then George Canning, the British statesman, put it where the goats could get it when he spit, “Indecision and delays are the parents of failure.”
And many of these parents are failin’ their children because they won’t allow them to fail and learn from it. I’ve played sports, covered sports and been around these games my entire life. I’ve seen it all and what blows my mind every season is when I see parents lyin’ to their kids about who and what they are.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a parent or sets of parents takin’ their kid off of this team or that team because they’re upset with the coach. They’re transferrin’ the dun from one school to the next because they’re not gettin’ the playin’ time that they thought their child should be gettin’ or because the coach went off on their kid. Then they finally find out that the kid wasn’t as good as they tricked themselves into believin’ he or she was or that he should have been hollered at in the first place.
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! There’s only so many positions on the field or court. There’s only so many people that are goin’ to be born with Division 1 talent and only a percentage of them are goin’ to make it to the professional ranks.
By the time kids are in the 7th or 8th grade the cats that possess the DNA to play at the higher levels have already been singled out and at many times even sooner than that. Everybody and their baby’s momma knows who they are. So it makes no sense for you as a parent to start complainin’ to coaches about why your kid isn’t playin’ very much etc. And it makes no sense to start movin’ the kid from one school to the next because his DNA isn’t goin’ to change because you decided to send them across town to play against lesser competition.
They’re still who they were at the first school when they get to the second or third school. They’re just playin’ more but they’re not gettin’ any better because there’s nobody on the field or court that will push them to get better because you’ve got them playin’ with a bunch of scrubs. So even though the kid is puttin’ up crazy numbers the college scouts can still see that he’s who he was at the first school you transferred him from. So don’t get mad because your child isn’t gettin’ the offers you thought he or she should be gettin’ because they put up crazy numbers against some scrubs.
So all you’ve done as a parent is cripple your child. Sure his self-esteem has been falsely increased for the time bein’ but the athlete is still the same athlete. You haven’t improved a thing. All you’ve taught them how to do is run away from competition and complain when they don’t get their way. You’ve stagnated their progress as a person because now they believe that they don’t have to learn how wait their turn and compete against the very best and that simply isn’t true.
On some real talk, none of this has anything to do with sports! The only reason you put your kid into athletic competition is to teach them how to compete in life. In this thing that we call life there are always goin’ to be people that are better than you are in some form or fashion. You’re goin’ to have to learn how to compete against them for bonuses, raises and jobs opportunities. So if you start teachin’ your kid that if the competition is too much over here then you can just run over there and get on. Life doesn’t work that way playa.
So all they’ll be doin’ for the rest of their lives is runnin’. They’ll eventually become the dun that can’t ever keep a job because every time it gets thick they’re bouncin’ or dippin’ off somewhere else where there’s less competition.
At the end of the day like I said initially, there’s only so many people born with the DNA to play Division 1 sports and only a small percentage of them will make it to the pros. So everybody else is goin’ to end up havin’ to get a job after high school or college anyway.
A friend of mine told me when I started havin’ kids that you aren’t raisin’ children you’re raisin’ adults. So if you’re raisin’ adults you better start teachin’ them how to compete in this world instead of teachin’ them how to run away from competition. Sittin’ on the bench and learnin’ how to compete will probably be the best thing that’s ever happen to them and now you can stop me when I start lyin’!
Playas Thesaurus:
1) Dun: noun – the person in question, dude, guy, etc. It’s whoever I’m talkin’ about and its non-gender specific.
2) Put it where the goats can get it: verb phrase – to make it as elementary as possible. To put it at ground level so everyone can understand it.
3) Ole boy: noun – the person that I’m currently talkin’ about.
The G is excluded from the endings of all words because the G is near and dear to my heart because I’m from “The G” which is Gary, Indiana. So I only use the G when I’m talkin’ about “The G!”
The caption under the photo isn’t real but its real talk!