Skip to main content

Sit Down Please

 




There are instances in life when someone achieves something in sports, where there are those who want to take credit for it. Or think that they could've done a better job at playing and or at coaching it. I am certain it happens quite often privately inside sport loving minds. Yet, I've witnessed it publicly.  And I'm not directing this to the aspect of social media.   I'm speaking of the pseudo-coaching-parents criticizing from the bleachers. If you ain't helping. Guess what? You ain't helping.

Helping is watching.  Helping is, if you know something that lacked in your child's body movement that he/she could be aware of.  And it is something that you could discuss at home prior to the event, then fine.  As well, knowing it could be congruent with a coaches’ thinking. Perhaps, it’s something simple like bending their knees to prevent an injury and getting a better result. Or perhaps to quash a child's frustration. If the coach is unavailable, that might be a feasible prospect that you as a parent may have experienced and understand.

Trust me, it's one thing to discuss something after the event, privately. Perhaps, later at the dinner table as the child may bring up why they hit the ball a certain way. Or why they are saying, even when their team won, that they themselves think they didn't play well. Even if no one on the team says anything of the sort to them, after the event. If the child brings it up, then it is open for discussion.  It’s quite another thing for a parent to criticize a player or a coach while seated in the bleachers. Even if the coaches, the players, nor the referees are in earshot, the spectators do hear it. I’ve seen parents barrage the coach after a meet or game with ‘woulda’, ‘shoulda’, ‘couldas’ to the coach. I find it not only uncool. Yet unethical, as the parent seems to be lacking in self-discipline, aligned with their own self-importance and a flair of arrogance, to boot.

Losing a game, a match, an event, etc... is part of the lessons from the school system that demonstrates once again an important aspect of life and living.  Playing sports, is just that. Its playing. Learning to take instruction from someone other than a parent, outside of academia. The coach may not appear perfect, but they have that coaching position most times for a good reason.

By the way, plenty of times high school coaches coach out passion for the sport first. The other two areas that might be reasons for them becoming a high school coach, are making a few more dollars, and school politics. As this does actually show the administration that the teacher who takes on a coaching job, that he/she truly wants to go the extra mile, showing teamwork and loyalty to the school system. If that is their agenda, so be it. It can be and most times is a noble agenda to have. ---Jody-Lynn Reicher

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow
2 comments
Read more

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to
Post a Comment
Read more

It's About the Soul And...

  ...perhaps the soles of our shoes. My father-in-law used to say the feet are what soldiers depend on, as we do food. He said that to me in 1985 as I stood in his home office.  My husband, Norman was a shoe guy. And it was all about the soles on the shoes.  For me, the way I have stayed on my feet was soul deep. Sometimes praying every step of the way, to not fall over out of exhaustion. The approximately 170,000 miles of running, many of which Norman had witnessed or known of. He wondered how I stayed standing working on my feet all day. Only to come home, and go for a second run at midnight at times.  Often Norman would give me a lecture on good shoe care. It was about the soles of the shoes. He'd point out stitching on a shoe that was done wrong. Therefore commenting, "...giving a shoe less time of wear on this earth."  He'd remark quite often. "You have to buy good quality shoes." I have to say, there was absolutely something comedic about his shoe obse
Post a Comment
Read more