This may be the most refreshing take from a coach I’ve ever seen. I grew up in the state of Texas. Sports is king and football in particular, is king. If I had one friend who was playing just because their father wanted them too, or they didn’t want to let their family down by not playing, then I had 100. I saw more than one ugly incident in my life when a friend/teammate tried to quit a sport because they were miserable. The parent or the coach would just berate the kid until he relented and kept playing. As I look back as a parent, it is one of the saddest positions I could ever imagine putting a child in. That’s why I find this video below so awesome.
Just had a young man come in before practice and quit, and I couldn’t be happier! pic.twitter.com/P0zsmbUQzU
— Coach Hines 🇺🇸 (@CoachKurtHines) September 15, 2021
Mom and especially Dad…pay attention to this. I was a basketball player of some renown when I was in high school. My son, of course knew this. I’ll never forget when he was in 6th grade and it came time for basketball season and I saw that something was really bothering him. “Daddy, don’t be mad at me, but I don’t think I want to play basketball anymore.” He looked at me…scared to death. I smiled, put my arms around him and said, “Bud, I’ve had my moment playing basketball. This is about you. And all I want for you is to be happy. If you don’t want to play basketball, I don’t want you to play basketball.” I’ll never forget the look of relief in his eyes. I’ve made a lot of mistakes as a parent, this was not one.
