Well seeing that most all my blog posts have had positive spins; I am going to journey down a different road here and have a little vent session. We are going to dive deeper into issues that “Grinds My Gears”.
The long-lost art of valuing values. Over the past 20 years I have been thrown into many different situations coaching. Some on the court, others off the court, and then some on an administration level. Now before I start going down this deep dark path, I am not painting everyone with this brush. There are some amazing parents, coaches, players out there. For the purposes of this blog though we will focus more on the negative side of youth sports/society and how youth sports exposes parents and youth who lack “values”. Ok so back to my rant….
Over the years there has been a larger disconnect on parents/players doing the right thing over not doing anything at all. This is something we call in 2021 “Ghosting”. Ghosting is the art of ignoring phone calls, emails, or other forms of communication due to the fact they fear having a tough conversation. Let me give you an example. A player gets an offer on a team, the parents get an email, the player gets an email. We wait for some sort of response. *cricket* We send a follow up just because you never know there always could be the chance of technological issues. *still crickets*. The player has decided to go to another team. This is something we find out from an outside source. Sometimes after maybe 5-6 emails we will finally get a response stating they went elsewhere. I’m not mad they went elsewhere. Truly I am not, for every one that leaves there are five to take their place. The part that is infuriating is that why couldn’t that parent or player just email/phone right off the get go and say it. This age of youth are all afraid of the tough conversation. They shy away from it. Not only do they shy away they run as fast and far from it as possible.
Through out the years I have seen so many parents manipulate rules/regulations. Parents that get overly involved always find ways to use situations for the advantage of their own child. Is sport not supposed to be a team game? Are we not trying to teach our kids how to play nice in the sandbox? Instead we have parents trying to find shortcuts, and gaps in the system. Things such as recruiting and playing time are the first two to come to mind. Like any provincial association, they will always fall on the parent’s side regarding these types of situations.
Things never used to be like this. This has been a snowball effect over decades. Again, not all parents and players are like this. I had a player the other day email me, call me Mr. Wildman and thank me for providing her an opportunity to tryout. She then went on to say she has accepted a spot at another club. I was so happy for this kid I made sure to write her back, and her parents to let them know what a great job they have done. When we as coaches have such impact on impressionable youth, it provides opportunity for us to mold these kids for the future. With that it should go without saying that basic ethical values should be implemented on a home front prior to them stepping foot into sports. You would think this would be a fundamental principal to any parent 101 course to teach their children these values. But how can we as the coach be mad at the kid. Normally the apple never falls too far from the tree.
And that is what
GRINDS MY GEARS
.