I have coached eight different teams in the last three years and it is as if someone double downed on the drama each fall. It is never the kids. It is always the parents. I have drafted teams based not on talent but which mom would not yell at me. Which dad would not text me F-Bombs.
All I ever wanted in coaching is for every kid to get a chance to excel and every kid to want to play the next year. Too often parents get in the way of both. Too often which kid plays is not determined by who works the hardest but who knows who.
Tyler and Cooper are step-brothers (not those Step Brothers). They shared a bedroom every other night when they started 4th grade. The first fall of their new life together they ended up on my football team. They had never played, did not have parents in the in crowd, and often used football practice as the swop spot between homes.
Small, sheltered and naïve, these two boys ran through brick walls for me. Both had a nose for the ball and loved to hit, I mean loved to hit. They might have weighed 65 pounds soaking wet, but when asked to put a helmet on a guy twice their size, they got excited. Moms and dad from the "in-crowd" let me know that they had never heard of them before, they had never seen them play and it was only their first year (read 'maybe they should be benched or worse still they ought not to be starting over their son who cried the moment they buckled up their helmet.)
No one had ever given these boys a chance. No one had ever encouraged them to unleash the fury inside them. Even worse, people around them discouraged it. They were downright mean about it. Sound familiar? Until me. They had permission to let it rip....to go crush somebody...to be who God made them to be, undersized and underprivileged or not.
God has placed a dream inside of you. For many, we have never been given permission to go for it. We have never been encouraged. Yet, even when we mustered up the courage to play at a high level of life, people around did all they could to drag us down.
Unleash the dream. Get in the game. You have permission from God to get in the game and give it all you have. Distance yourself from the petty voices that tell you to stay in your place. Now is the time. Unleash the dream. You can do it.
All I ever wanted in coaching is for every kid to get a chance to excel and every kid to want to play the next year. Too often parents get in the way of both. Too often which kid plays is not determined by who works the hardest but who knows who.
Tyler and Cooper are step-brothers (not those Step Brothers). They shared a bedroom every other night when they started 4th grade. The first fall of their new life together they ended up on my football team. They had never played, did not have parents in the in crowd, and often used football practice as the swop spot between homes.
Small, sheltered and naïve, these two boys ran through brick walls for me. Both had a nose for the ball and loved to hit, I mean loved to hit. They might have weighed 65 pounds soaking wet, but when asked to put a helmet on a guy twice their size, they got excited. Moms and dad from the "in-crowd" let me know that they had never heard of them before, they had never seen them play and it was only their first year (read 'maybe they should be benched or worse still they ought not to be starting over their son who cried the moment they buckled up their helmet.)
No one had ever given these boys a chance. No one had ever encouraged them to unleash the fury inside them. Even worse, people around them discouraged it. They were downright mean about it. Sound familiar? Until me. They had permission to let it rip....to go crush somebody...to be who God made them to be, undersized and underprivileged or not.
God has placed a dream inside of you. For many, we have never been given permission to go for it. We have never been encouraged. Yet, even when we mustered up the courage to play at a high level of life, people around did all they could to drag us down.
Unleash the dream. Get in the game. You have permission from God to get in the game and give it all you have. Distance yourself from the petty voices that tell you to stay in your place. Now is the time. Unleash the dream. You can do it.