TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mom & Dad's Job............................................................................................................ 1
All The World's a Critic................................................................................................ 7
Is Now a Good Time Coach...................................................................................... 15
Meet the Parents........................................................................................................... 23
The Internet: Or InterDON'T..................................................................................... 29
If You Ask Me Sweetheart......................................................................................... 35
Don't Get Me Started On Your Coach.................................................................. 41
What's Your Coach See in Susie............................................................................ 47
Apples & Oranges......................................................................................................... 53
Remote Control Dad.................................................................................................... 59
The Parent Coach: Enter With Caution.............................................................. 65
Perspective: Hard to Keep, Worse to Lose........................................................ 71
Check out the excerpts below, to help give you an idea of what kind of content you can expect to find inside the book.
Chapter 2
All The World’s A Critic
We know how hard refereeing is just by listening to sports announcers on television, who, after watching a close play over and over at super slow-motion from five different angles still can’t figure it out and say something like: ‘I don’t know Jim, that could go either way.” Or one of my favorites: “That’s a good no call, he did get their early and hit him, but you don’t want to call that at this stage of the game.” What? Now referees are supposed to have two sets of rules depending on the time of the game, where it happens on the field or the score of the game? I think we can cut our youth sports referees some serious slack; they do a really good job overall.
Chapter 6
If You Ask Me Sweetheart
When I finally took my friend’s advice the change was very noticeable. After the game I would tell her I loved her, I was proud of her, and that I loved watching her play. That was it. The rest of the time we talked about other stuff, which wasn’t hard once I remembered that sports were only one part of our total relationship.
Usually, after a while, she would start to talk about the game and how she wished she had done this or that better. I just listened, and by the time we were home the game was behind us and we were ready to get on with our day. The most important thing to keep in mind was that she wasn’t looking for dad to fix the problem; she just needed her dad to listen.
Chapter 5
The Internet: OR The InterDON’T
On another note sort of along the same lines, but different, I want to end with a challenge, which I am sure for most reading this book won’t be hard. Once the game starts, put the phone or iPad down. Unless you are recording or taking pictures of your child. When your child looks over at the sideline for you, and they will, they are always looking for mom and dad, it is so important to them that you are looking back at them. With a smile and a thumbs up. It's in that moment that you are telling your child nothing in the world is more important than they are to you.
We don’t want our kids to look over and see us talking on the phone or with our head down texting. I think we can commit to giving our kids a couple of hours of our undivided attention. I have never seen a gravestone that was engraved with these words.
“If only I could Post one more cat picture on my Facebook.”
Chapter 12
Perspective; Hard to Keep, Worse to Lose
Here in lies the challenge when someone like me writes a book asking parents to “keep youth sports in perspective.” Most parents believe in their heart they are keeping it in perspective as they are seeing it from their experiences, their knowledge and their level of personal involvement or in other words, “their perspective.”
Is Duck Hunting a good thing? Do you mean from the Hunters perspective or the Ducks perspective? At the risk of irritating my son in law, I am on the Ducks side.
Have you ever watched a game you have no vested interest in, you don’t care who wins or loses? You don’t even know anyone on either team? Maybe you are waiting for your daughters’ game to start so you are just sitting on the cooler chillin’. Funny how a bad call by the ref or an obvious mistake by a player or what you see as a poor coaching decision doesn’t seem to bother you. As a matter of fact, there are times when it is kind of funny, or you may even have a moment of empathy for the ref or coach.
