Let's Keep It About The Kids

When New England Patriots linebacker Mike Vrabel was living in town he went over to Norton one day to watch and support the son of an Easton neighbor who was playing in a Pop Warner youth football game. 

Of course, Vrabel draws attention everywhere he goes, especially in Patriots country, and a man walked up to Vrabel and asked him if he had a child playing, and Vrabel said no, he did not have child playing, and that he was going to hold off on his kids playing youth football. 

Now, obviously, Vrabel was not denigrating Pop Warner; he was supporting it, because he was on site supporting a young person who was playing in the program.  It is instructive, though, that a stud NFL player was not pushing his son into football at the first opportunity that the kid could don a helmet and pads for competition. 

This got me thinking – and I’m writing this on Super Bowl Sunday – about something NFL Hall of Fame lineman Howie Long said in a TV interview following incidences of parents acting up, sometimes violently, during their children’s sports games.  Long, who played high school football here in Massachusetts, and who did not pick up the game until he was 15, suggested that placing too much emphasis on sports achievement for boys and girls when they are very young is not healthy for anybody.  He talked about how he did not play youth football, and that not playing youth football rendered benefits for his football career.

Out of high school, my dad was recruited to play Div. 1 college football, although he opted to go to the University of Notre Dame on a track scholarship.  He would go on to coach football for many years at , and would later be inducted into the Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame.  My father also ran a football camp where some of the top collegiate football coaches in America worked, many of whom went on to coach in the NFL.

Early on, my father was not a supporter of Pop Warner Football.  Primarily because of the physical and hitting nature of football, he thought it best that kids wait until high school to begin playing the game. 

(Just to think – in Spartan society, when a boy reached the age of seven the state took him from his family and he began to train as a soldier.)

Now, let me say this, I believe that Pop Warner Football is a positive and enriching experience for almost all the kids who play it.  My OA classmate, Jack Pereira, is the president of the hugely successful and popular Easton Wildcats, which is the Easton entrant in Pop Warner.   Jack works hard, he cares deeply, and his efforts and that of all the volunteers on behalf of the Easton Wildcats enrich our community.

My dad changed his view about Pop Warner – somewhat – with that perspective no doubt influenced in that, while my father was at the helm of OA football, it had lost competitive advantage against high schools in towns that had Pop Warner.  Indeed it was Budgie Campbell (OA '59), a standout prep lineman and member of the OA High School Athletic Hall of Fame, who as a Mansfield resident was one of the founders of Mansfield Pop Warner, which is a pillar of the foundation of Mansfield High School’s gridiron dynasty (of course, Mansfield coach Mike Redding constitutes another pillar – actually, his role may be better described as the keystone – of Green Hornets success).  

And my father deeply admired and appreciated the work of people who brought youth football to Easton.   

But, whether it is youth football or basketball or wrestling or hockey or baseball or running … you name it … let us keep things in perspective.   Especially, nowadays, with all of this specialization.   Here in America we are acting like the old Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries:  identifying athletic talent when a boy or girl is five or six, and then enrolling them – whether they want to be enrolled or not – in a streamlined and exhaustive program over which hyper-vigilant adults preside, and which is targeted to earn for the child, or maybe mom and dad, esteem, praise, and … the big payoff … a college scholarship. 

Supporting excellence is great – absolutely wonderful.   But remember this, mom and dad, and all you coaches:  it is not about you; it is never about you.  

Easton native Jim Craig, an Olympic gold medalist, and his wife, Charlie, were hockey parents living in Easton, which has a strong hockey heritage.  They have two children:  a son, J.D., and a daughter, Taylor. Both J.D. and Taylor played youth hockey and for OA (yes, Taylor played a season on the boys’ team).  J.D. was a team captain for the Tigers; he is in college now, and he may or may not play competitively again.  Taylor, a senior at Tabor Academy, is one of the top players in her age group in the U.S., and has recently agreed to attend Colgate University on a full athletic scholarship. 

Jim – who also coached his children in youth hockey – contributed a chapter to a book, Fathers & Daughters & Sports, released last May from ESPN Books.  In the chapter, Jim wrote, “I remembered that I’d had mentors who inspired and pointed me in the right direction, but ultimately I was the one who arrived at and adopted my competitiveness and focus.  Taylor had to find her own way as well.”

Parents can’t do it all for kids.  You can only push and coax and inspire them so much.  Again, mom and dad, coach, it is not about you.

It has to be good for the kids.  

And while the benefits that come from sport accrue through hard work, sacrifice, pain, deep anxiety, and setback – if the sport never renders happiness, exhilaration, and accomplishment, then it is time to hang up the skates, cleats, running shoes, or what have you.  No more.  Done.  Finis. 

Let kids be kids.  Love them and inspire them and support them. 

Allow and encourage them to experiment with many sports – just as you should permit and encourage them to try out all sorts of activities:  sports, dance, drama, music, graphic arts, carpentry, gardening … you name it.

Kids d0n't mature physically or mentally at the same pace.   Browbeat and overwork a boy or girl, and you just might cause the child to give up on the sport, even if he or she may harbor extraordinary potential.   

Two of the most accomplished and successful athletes who graduated from OA did not take up the sports for which they gained their high level fame until they were in college.  

Jane Miller (OA ’68), a member of the OAHS Athletic Hall of Fame, did not play lacrosse until she was at Northeastern University.  Now a senior associate athletic director at the University of Virginia, Jane went on to become one of best lacrosse players in U.S. history, and one of its best coaches as well.  She started on three U.S. national teams and coached the University of Virginia women’s lacrosse team to two national championships and six Final Four appearances.  Jane is a member of the U.S. Lacrosse National Hall of Fame.

John Everett graduated from OA in 1972, and was inducted into the OAHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 2004.  John didn’t pick up rowing until he was a student at MIT.   He was a member of teams that won a world championship and six U.S. championships.  John competed in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, and was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team that would have been competitive for the gold medal – yet a U.S. boycott prevented John and his teammates from competing in the games held that year in Moscow.  John is a member of the National Rowing Hall of Fame. 

Jane Miller was a not a 10 year old with a lacrosse stick running up the field while a coach bellowed at her.   John Everett was not a 12 year old member of an Easton AAU Travel rowing team.

Most coaches and parents are the right role models and role models for children in sports.   So many give so much to help out young people and improve their lives.  Still, we can never do too good a job in ensuring that sport provides kids with the best lessons possible. 

Here we are the day after our unofficial national holiday – a cultural, societal, and media obsession that undergirds a lot of fun, but also which distorts many values and much perspective. 

When we are working with and mentoring young people in sports, let's require and enforce fun – and let's make sure we are teaching the right values and that everything is kept in proper perspective.