MentalEdgeNow's Blog

Don’t force your kids into sports. I never was.
To this day, my dad has never asked me to go play golf.
I ask him. It’s the child’s desire to play that matters,
not the parent’s desire to have the child play. Fun. Keep it fun.

~Tiger Woods

Over the last ten years I have immersed myself in the youth sports culture.  This has included investing hundreds and possibly thousands of hours interviewing athletes, coaches and the many adult volunteers that invest significant hours attempting to make youth sports an enjoyable and life changing experience. Without a doubt one of the resounding themes permeating these interactions has been the destructive involvement of some parents. Because of the sheer number of times I have been faced with this issue I feel it very important to write about this challenge in an attempt to shield many kids from this huge and complicated problem in youth sports.

I would like to start by defining the essence of the problem as I see it. It starts, in my mind, with parents that love their children deeply. As a parent myself, I know that I want my children to succeed. I want them to be treated fairly, never have a “bad” experience and be given many opportunities to develop their skills as well as utilize these skills in a game situation.

Because of our love for our children we can easily step into their experience desiring to “help” them have the best possible experience. However, stepping in usually means we have come to believe that our child is being treated in a way that is “hurting” them and we want to stop that. In most cases we simply disagree with something being done and there is no significant harm being done to the child and we have entangled ourselves now in a way that makes it real difficult to stay objective. I believe most often our kids need to learn to deal with less-than-perfect treatment that often makes up many youth sports experiences by learning to control their own experiences through mental toughness principles. Once we have determined the coach is not doing a good job and our kid is negatively impacted we have begun a parent verses coach relationship, which often is felt by the child.  Kids are going to want to stay aligned with the parent leaving the coach with a difficult, often-impossible job to coach that kid without impairment. Now the experience has been contaminated without much possibility of repair.

When we as parents get involved in an attempt to manipulate the experience of our children, we unintentionally teach them that they are helpless and often begin to alienate ourselves, as well as their coaches, from our children. Most kids report to me that they wish their parents would just stay out of it often experiencing embarrassment because of the behavior they see in their parents.

In summary, we exhibit destructive involvement when we step into our kid’s sports experience in an attempt to manipulate their experience because we believe they are being harmed in some way. In attempting to change the experience most of the time our kids our embarrassed leading to an inner tension that reduces the enjoyment of the sport.

Lastly, there may be times where parent involvement is needed in an attempt to right a severe wrong. In my experience this makes up only five percent of the cases. Many parents over catastrophize situations leading to actions that ends up negatively impacting not only their child’s experience but also the experience of many children.

If you are a parent that would like some tips on how to truly help your children here are some ideas. First, spend more energy helping your kids manage difficult situations as opposed to trying to fix them for them. This will not only help your kids in the present situation but is a great skill to learn for their future. Second, keep your disappointment with your kids coach to yourself. There is no value in sharing it with your kids it only results in inner tension that makes it difficult to talk about their experience. Last, be grateful for those that take the time to coach. They invest significant time and receive little training and most are doing the best they can and need your encouragement.

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Brady Greco

Steroids, steroids, steroids.  I know what you are thinking right now, geez not another article about the steroid or sports enhancing drug use that has infested the world of sports today. Ha, well I’m with you, but I think you will find my take on the subject matter more intriguing than most.

To begin, I must admit that I am disgusted by the awful excuses professional athletes hide behind after testing positive.  We have heard it all from; I must have taken too much sudafed for this awful cold I have been fighting, to, my trainer just injected me and gave me pills that would make me feel better.  Since he gave them to me I didn’t think twice about it. My heart wants to jump out of my chest every time I hear another lame excuse for why they did what they did.

To eliminate all the controversy that surrounds this topic once and for all, the sports world must take some advice from me.

First and foremost, you must understand that in today’s society science has an unfair advantage.  What I mean when I say this is that science and medicine are so far advanced, it makes it impossible to develop an accurate drug test.  Therefore, athletes who have taken the newest drug to “hit the market” will pass with flying colors.  If you understand this correctly, you are either thinking to yourself, wow then only the dumb athletes get caught. Or, then why should they even test professional athletes?

Both of these thoughts are valid, however I will focus on the latter.  Why should athletes be tested if the test is unable to detect a new drug?  They shouldn’t.  What they need to do is abolish testing altogether and allow for steroid use to run rapid.  I mean isn’t that what they are essentially doing now?  Imagine sitting in front of your television come Sunday afternoon about to watch your favorite football team play.  How entertaining would it be to watch a football field full of juiced up barbarians on the verge of roid rage?  Or, what about a Stanley Cup playoff game where two enforcers square off like Popeye and Hercules.  Forget reality TV, this is what I call entertainment!

And what’s the deal with all these minuscule punishments being handed out?  Most often a punishment consists of a fine, suspension, and a hit to the athlete’s ego.  A hard concept for me to grasp is how can an athlete who makes millions of dollars and is fined, going to learn from their mistake.  The answer is, they won’t.  Instead of issuing a measly fine and suspension, what needs to take place for the athlete continue on with their career is this…for one year an athlete who tests positive must play pro bono.  In turn, the athlete’s annual salary will be donated to a charity that promotes the education of the negative effects sports enhancing drugs have on the body.  It would be very interesting to see how the athlete would compete in competition knowing they aren’t receiving any pay.  It would also be incredibly easy to distinguish an athlete who loves the game and an athlete who loves the money.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a forgiving person and believe with all my heart everyone deserves a second and sometimes even a third chance in life.  However, when an elite athlete chooses to “shoot up” and then is given a slap on the wrist for cheating, what is this instilling in our youth? To me, it says if you are going to become a great athlete, you must cheat to get there.  And if you get caught, oh well no big deal!

Brady Greco is a Performance Coach with the Mental Edge