A PARENT’S JOURNEY THROUGH YOUTH SPORTS:
Age 5: “He’s got a cannon.”
Age 6: “He’s the fastest kid out there. Coach said so.”
Age 7: “Rec ball isn’t challenging him anymore.”
Age 8: “We tried out for select. Obviously made it.”
Age 9: “$2,800 for the season. Plus uniforms. Plus tournaments. Plus hotels.”
Age 10: “Cooperstown is basically a family vacation, right?”
Age 11: “He needs a hitting guy. And a pitching guy. And probably a mental performance coach.”
Age 12: “I’m not a crazy sports parent. The OTHER parents are crazy.”
Age 13: “We changed schools. For academics. (And also baseball.)”
Age 14: “Showcases are a requirement at this age.”
Age 15: “Ya his ranking just ticked up. We’re cooking.”
Age 16: “He just needs to get seen by the right school.”
Age 17: “The D1 schools want him to walk on. He’ll earn a spot by sophomore year.”
Age 18: “Okay, D2 is actually really competitive.”
Age 19: “He’s redshirting. Strategic.”
Age 20: “He’s focusing on school now.”
Age 21: “You know what? He’s so much happier.”
Roughly 7% of high schoolers play in college.
About 1.5% of those get drafted.
Less than half of draftees ever play one day in the big leagues.
The odds of our kids going pro are somewhere between “struck by lightning” and “find a $100 in old shorts.”
I love youth sports (all my kids play a bunch of them) just keep a good perspective my friends. ✌️
Major cheat code for life: Be fully where your feet are. When you're at work, work. When you're with family, be with family. When you're resting, rest. Most people are physically present and mentally everywhere else.
Underrated life advice: Have more hobbies and fewer opinions. Learn an instrument. Plant a garden. Build something with your hands. Cook. Paint. Run. The happiest people I know spend less time debating life and more time actually living it.
@americanair diverting a plane to Tulsa on a flight from JFK to DFW with no plan beyond that is awesome. Flight 1953, no gas, no gate, no update. #GetAPlan#CommunicateAPlan
@TheDallasNation I’ll select C. All of the Above.
C’mon friends, both things be true. Stars looked disinterested tonight - awful. But 29 is not the answer and it’s a “body of work” thing, not a reaction. Been saying it for years…Deboer wasn’t wrong.
NEWS: Weatherford ISD announced Lovejoy OC Marshall Williams as the Roos' next head coach. He is a former head coach at Keller Timber Creek.
FULL STORY: https://t.co/a0xFnp1YjW
NEWS: Weatherford ISD announced Lovejoy OC Marshall Williams as the Roos' next head coach. He is a former head coach at Keller Timber Creek.
FULL STORY: https://t.co/a0xFnp1YjW
I'm going to say something that doesn't reflect well on me or my wife.
We let the kids have the iPad for too long. Way too long.
We realized that it was ruining their personalities.
I watched it happen and I didn't act fast enough.
We took the iPads away. Took the phones. All of it.
And I got my children back.
They’ve been de-zombified. The difference was immediate and it was dramatic.
So let me give credit where it's due.
Shout out to Jonathan Haidt.
Shout out to Kara Swisher
You think you're giving your kid entertainment.
A way to decompress. Something to keep them occupied.
You're handing them something that is quietly rewiring how they think, how they feel, and how they connect with the people right in front of them.
Take it away. You'll get your kid back too.
I promise you won’t regret it!
Take it from me, a recent empty nester:
The Good Old Days don’t feel like it at the time.
It feels more like hard work and struggle. The days are long but the years fly by.
Then, one day you wake up and the house is quiet.
One of my most cherished memories is coming home from work each day and opening the creaky back door to our 1947 craftsman home.
My 3-year-old daughter (now 21) would drop her toys and run down the hall—her footsteps booming on the old wood floor—to greet me.
I love my life and don’t want to go back, but I do wish I could pass one message across time to 35-year-old me:
You’re living the Good Old Days right now. Savor every moment.