I just want to apologize to Brandon and Maddie, my two kids. My children by DNA and birth.
I love coaching you and I know that I am hard on you sometimes for things you do, but I am also hard on you for things you don't do. Why? Because I can coach you, I can't often coach other parent's young kids the way I do you, or the way they need to be coached.
So I have to coach their kids through you.
That's right, I will coach some younger kids through my own in a way that I know if I tried with your child, would make you very unhappy. It's not fair to my kids (who are 11 and 8), I get on them harder than anyone else's already, and then I have to get on yours through mine, it makes it hard for them.
Why do I feel the need to do that? Because I have coached long enough to watch and hear the reaction of parents whose younger kids get coached. They are inflamed over the behavior of a coach towards their child even though the child is behaving in a way they as a parent would never tolerate.
I often wonder if anyone notices that I do this? I believe that people are so blinded that they just see me getting on my kids and probably thinking I am too hard on them. When in actuality, I have lost my patience with the behavior of their child.
Here I offer my apologies Brandon and Madison. Society will not allow me to coach younger kids today the way I was coached or even the way I coach you.
I love you guys very much and appreciate all the time and effort you put into your sports. I also appreciate that 90% or more of the time when I get on you about something, you do what a good athlete does, you listen and try to be better.
And you even understand through our conversations what I am doing by coaching through you. I know you don't always understand or like it, but you understand generally and you accept it.
That makes you pretty awesome kids.
So I want to apologize for doing this, and yet, maybe not because I believe it is making you even tougher for real life. And really, isn't that what youth sports are for?
