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Post by jgordon1 on Feb 20, 2009 7:55:41 GMT -6
Brophy made a good point about how we always complain about kids/parents. soo... here is my story. We have this kid on our team, boy does he have it tough at home. I know you all have these kids so I won't go into the details as you probably see this stuff too and it is really immaterial. He will sometimes walk over 3 miles to get to morning workouts and will not call to get a ride. He is maintaining a 3.0 average and has improved so much as a person in the three years I have known him. I could not be more proud of him as a person and a player. We are still on eggshells with him as he could blow up at any moment, but it has been so worth it to keep this kid on the team. I know he wouldn't have lasted at a lot of programs and if I was the HC, I probably would have done the wrong thing for this kid. Bottom line is that I learned much about myself too
Please feel free to add your story
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Post by superpower on Feb 20, 2009 9:03:08 GMT -6
Our only senior from last year that went on to play college fb was an average student in high school. He is a good kid who has really blossomed at college, and tomorrow at half-time of a college basketball game he will receive an academic excellence award from the athletic department.
One of my best stories happened over a four year period. We had a freshman who wasn't big, fast, or strong, and he really wasn't interested in working hard. At the time, that school had no lifting classes in the daily schedule, so we lifted after practice. We were in about the second week of practice and lifting, and one day Mom showed up at the weightroom. I was anticipating the worst, but Mom surprised me by telling me that while her son wanted to quit, she and Dad were not going to allow him to quit. Well, he didn't quit, but he still hadn't really bought in. However, he did survive the season and showed up a little bit bigger, faster, and stronger for his sophomore year. Unfortunately, his work ethic still hadn't been developed, and he frequently (almost always) pretended to be experiencing severe asthma attacks when it was time for conditioning. One day as we lined up for sprints, I called an asst. over and told him to watch this young man. I said that he would pretend to be dying so he could avoid the sprints. Sure enough, after 2 sprints, he was rolling on the ground claiming that he can't breath. (I've always wondered how a kid can talk when he claims that he can't breath.) Anyway, I unloaded on him, telling him to get the h--- of the field and give up on playing football. That motivated him, so he got up and finished the conditioning with the rest of the team. After practice he approached me to say that I was out of line in berating him the way I did, so I called the asst. coach over and asked him to share with the player what I had predicted before we started conditioning. That was the turning point for that young man. As a junior he was a quality back-up for us on the defensive line and was our most improved player. In fact, he made a huge stop for us late in a play-off game. As a senior, he was an all-league tackle. In the 2008 season he and his dad drove 6 hours to come and watch my team's Homecoming game. He graduated from college last spring with a teaching degree in math, and he was an asst. jr. high fb coach last fall at his first teaching job. On New Year's Eve my wife and I attended his wedding.
Thanks for allowing me to share these two stories.
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