I realized today that my kid doesn’t have what it takes to play at the next level.
This is not an adjudication on his physical talents. The tools are there. He is likely the most physically gifted of the three to play. He is not mentally able to or perhaps not willing to fulfill the requirements. He’s an average student academically, which makes him the worst of all five boys. This sharp contrast with his physical abilities makes the matter all the more disturbing. He, more than the others, has decided on this athletic path as his way up. Only he doesn’t do anything he needs to do in order to get there, and he treats the people around him trying to help him with a mixture of disdain and unapologetic expectation that is going to halt his progress here moving into his sophomore year where, I now expect, he will languish on the JV roster and lose all interest and confidence in the path he has chosen.
This is a really hard thing to say as a father, because it sounds like I don’t believe in him. More to the fact, I don’t believe he is doing anything to help himself out. I believe in him. If I didn’t this wouldn’t even be blog subject matter. I have to hold these two opposing ideas in my head at the same time: (1) He has the talent to succeed at the next level. (2) He has chosen to rely entirely on that talent and not put in the work off the field needed to succeed at the next level.
The problem is, again, what he does outside of practice. What that is, is nothing he specifically needs to do. He doesn’t stretch. He does try to get to the gym and lift more. He doesn’t study. He does watch film clips–mostly on insta and tik tok though. He is not there mentally.
I think he can turn it around. It is only going to happen when he digs deep enough to want it more than he wants anything else–anything immediate. He is not there yet.