WHEN YOU NEED A FATHER FIGURE

This is my latest new mug, the Father Figure, and it’s my favorite of all time.

The handle is right.

The size is right.

It holds so much ice water I don’t need to refill it during my workout routine and lose focus.

But there’s so much more.

Who remembers growing up with high school coaches and teachers and mentors who seemed determined to have some impact?

They were father figures in sports, in the classroom, and out.

I enjoyed seeing guys transformed from who there were before, to who they were after the experience.

Did a kid with a dad need a father figure? Yes.

And if they thought they didn’t, they needed some education on the topic.

The men who stood up as father figures deserved respect at the very least.

They wanted to create a family-feel with learning and competition for the kids who needed it; those who thought they didn’t need it still needed to fall in line.

As far as learning, at fourteen years old I spent time helping my dad switch engines in an old Chevy truck.

“That’s not an end wrench, goddamnit.”

I learned the difference between a combo-wrench, and open-end, and a box-end.

He was my father figure, and then some.

As far as learning about competition? I had a big brother.

 

Father Figures For The Kids?

I had Hall Of Fame coaches in high school and college.

My kids had a dysfunctional sports experience with a wrestling program led by a guy who last competed in eighth grade.

He didn’t know how to run a wrestling room, how to hold practice, or when to feed the team on the road.

His boozed up buddies came to practice to help toughen up the kids so they’d be ready for a bar fight.

The state champion football coach who ran an innovative West Coast offense was fired for yelling at a kid.

This came after he took a couple of players to an event over the summer for a local coach who’d been paralyzed in an accident.

One of his career climbing assistants reported him for holding an unauthorized practice, which landed him on probation.

During pre-season a kid wasn’t getting enough playing time and told his dad, who complained to the coach, which led to the talk, and the subsequent firing.

He stepped over the line trying to get more football from a kid who didn’t know he had more to give.

He was being a coach and mentor to a kid with a funky father figure.

 

Next Coach Up

To go along with the dysfunction of finding a new coach at the last minute, the new athletic director had trouble finding his way.

The coach came from a weak program where he used the Wing-T.

The Wing-T achieved massive popularity as a scholastic offense because it allows disciplined teams with average-sized players to beat more athletic opponents through misdirection, precise timing, and hard-nosed execution. 

The new team was packed with size, speed, and D-1 prospects who grew up learning the old coach’s West Coast offense in middle school.

The new coach worked with what he knew because he couldn’t read the team and its potential.

The new athletic director was worse.

He showed up at an out of town pre-season game three sheets to the wind, ghetto-talked black parents to show he could relate, and got pulled over for DUI on the way home.

During his arrest he dropped his bag of weed.

Now the second new athletic director showed up and did the best he could.

The best he could do included missing important student data that resulted in the football team forfeiting their season because of an ineligible player.

The basketball team forfeited their early games, too. The kid was a good athlete you wanted on the field and on the court.

His ineligibility ended up being an administrative error.

 

Dear Father Figures: Do Better

If you can’t help kids in their interests, at least don’t hinder them.

I’ve coached enough to see when kids are close to giving up and quitting on sports, which can lead to quitting on school, their family, and joining a cult.

One kid was habitually lost on the basketball court and grew more and more frustrated. He was slipping away, so I started subbing him in, then taking him out, sooner than later.

The after-game parking lot:

 

Dad: Was my kid hurt?

Me: No.

Dad: Did he say he was tired? 

Me: No.

Dad: Then why didn’t you let him play more?

Me: I want him to have fun.

 

I didn’t say, “You’re kid can’t play well with the others because you don’t spend enough time with him, shoot with him, pass the ball on the run to to learn how to track.”

I didn’t say, “This is third grade, jackass, get out of my face and take your kid home to shoot and pass in the driveway like a normal dad would do instead of blame a coach for your shortcomings.”

I didn’t say, “The most important thing you can do right now is help your kid learn how to compete and get better. If you think this helps him, you need better coaching yourself.”

 

PS:

After you’ve done everything you can think to do, ask yourself, ‘What would a father figure do next?’

 

PSS:

Hint: first, find the right mug. (Hey D&K)