#for fundamentally changing your perspective on football and your love of it disappoints you?

[doux-amer]

So, has Iniesta and/or his team actually addressed the situation or not? A friend texted me asking if I heard because I still had him as my Twitter display pic this afternoon while I was working, and just. I’ve been super down about it for the past few hours and my mood kept dipping lower and lower because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Like...do I stop loving him? Can I stop? But I can’t ignore it and I can’t stop thinking about it. 

[sassycloudmoneyflap]

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Higher Perspective

Oct. 07, 2017 04:56AM EST

10+ Habits of Toxic Parents and How They Ruin Children Without Realizing It

When you have a child, your entire life changes. Suddenly, everything is for the baby. Every parent wants to be able to do right by their kids.

But there are many things that stand between you and being not a good parent, but the kind of parent your child needs.

That's the right way to look at it, in my opinion. Good and bad are relative. But all kids need approximately the same thing in order to grow into happy, healthy, successful human beings.

Parents neglect to give their kids what they need for a lot of reasons. I've seen parents read so many parenting books that they end up not knowing which way is the right way.

I've also seen parents who just don't care, letting their kids do whatever they feel like, or even worse, neglecting and abusing them.

One thing is for sure, there are a number of truly toxic behaviors that imprint on our kids and deeply, profoundly impact their life growing up.

These are habits and actions that you should be avoiding at all costs. Some are physical, some psychological, and some are social.

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If you know someone who's recently become a parent or is about to be, be sure to share this article with them to help them be the best parents they can be.

1. Not Respecting Boundaries

It's important for parents to think about the boundaries they've set for their children.

When I was young, my parents established some very important boundaries.

Stay out of the parents bedroom. Stay out of mom's office. Stay out of dad's man cave.

There were good reasons for those rules! You're adults, you own things like porno mags and marital aids. You don't want kids getting into that!

But kids also have things they don't want you to get into too. You can't expect kids to feel like respected individuals if you also don't honor their personal space and their boundaries too.

When your kids get older into their teen years, you should not be snooping.

They don't go through your underwear drawer, you shouldn't go through theirs either.

They're old enough that simply talking to them about worries you might have are good enough. Use your words. Don't be intrusive.

2. Failing To Provide Affirmation and Security

A lot of parents, stereotypical macho dad types especially, think that punishment is king.

It takes tough love to shape and sculpt especially young boys into strong, capable young men.

But tough love isn't how you make sure your kids can take care of themselves. Teaching them to take care of themselves is how you teach them to take care of themselves.

Simple, right? By punishing your children over every little thing, you cripple their ability to be strong in the face of life's challenges, because any sign of failure will be met with swift...something.

Not punishment, but...something. Disappointment. Frustration. Anger. Withholding.

We should be teaching our kids about the world as an adult.

When you're an adult and you fail at something, you don't have some authority figure that takes away your gameboy until you do better.

You try harder to do better, and that comes from within.

3. Being Overly Critical

We all have dreams and goals that we don't achieve.

Maybe you wanted to be a football star but you tore your ACL in high school and all that went out the window.

Maybe you were almost the math league champ but didn't quite make it. One thing is for sure: you should not be projecting your failures onto your children.

You can't force your kids to be something that you wish you were. When you do that, you crush their self esteem.

When you project what you want for your kids onto them without letting them choose, and when you level unrealistic expectations, you don't make them better or stronger.

You make them weaker and less likely to be empowered with the tools to take on the challenges of their adult lives.

4. Not Following Through

Parents want to be their kids' best friends. But that's not what kids want.

You don't want to unintentionally raise a terrible adult, and one of the ways you avoid that is by setting rules and actually following through with them.

If you're a new parent, it's good to experiment a little; to see what works and what doesn't.

But at some point you have to see what guidelines and rules work and actually follow through on them. I get it. No parent wants to punish their kids.

No parent wants to tell their kids what's what and see those tears well up. But you need to be able to not manipulate but adjust the mindset of your kids through these guidelines.

You don't want to crush bad habits but develop and incentivize good habits.

5. Not Offering Space

As your kids get older, they need more space from you. This is an important part of growing up.

At some point, you have to stop telling them what to do and you have to stop doing important things for them.

You can't do their homework. You can't write their college entrance essay.

At some point, you need to look at your kids and say, "figure it out. I'll help if you need me too." But even then, make sure that you're not doing anything of the figuring out for them.

Be ready to let your "baby" go when they know they need to figure things out on their own.

Parents who deeply love their kids find it hard to let go the part of their life where mommy and daddy are crucial for every little thing.

But to impose yourself long after that kind of parenting is needed is wrong.

6. Serving Your Kids

You should have a strong sense by now that the right form of parenting is somewhere in the middle of both extremes.

You don't want to throw your kids to the wolves but you also don't want to serve them. When your kids are old enough to learn to cook, teach them to cook.

When your kids are old enough to do laundry, have them do laundry. When your kids are old enough to drive, for God's sake, teach them to drive.

It is important that you don't pamper and serve your kids forever. They need to learn vital skills to maintain themselves as adults.

One of the things I find myself bemoaning the most is how much skill has been lost between my grandparents and me.

There are a lot of skills they had that I just didn't have instilled in me. It's important to give your kids the knowledge that you were given, and pampering them won't teach them anything good.

7. Threatening and Intimidating Your Kids

It's frustrating dealing with the little things with your kids.

They often become afraid and unsure at things that are simple and second nature for you.

They don't always succeed at self control which can be endlessly difficult for a parent simple trying to parent the right way. But what you absolutely can't do is level threats.

"If you don't _____ then _____." "If you ever ____, this is what's going to happen to you."

Under this kind of authority, you've completely destroyed your child's confidence in you.

They won't feel like they can come to you for help because a threat has been leveled.

How can you really talk to a person candidly and honestly about something you're going through if you feel like the result is going to be a punishment of some kind?

8. Helicoptering

The millennial generation will tell horror stories of helicopter parenting.

Check out any reddit thread about helicopter parents and you'll see the carnage they leave behind in the form of adults who don't know up from down and left from right.

When you have a baby, you have to do everything for it. You have to do everything in your power to care for it and make sure it survives.

But you have to let some of that go as time goes by.

You have to honor their mistakes and appreciate their successes and let them grow into independent people.

If you don't, you've raised an adult who doesn't have the skills necessary to succeed on their own.

9. Not Listening

I'll let you in on a secret: kids aren't stupid.

They can read sarcasm and tell when you're condescending and not listening to them because you think they're just some dumb kid.

Parents: you need to listen to your kids. It's hard to find value in the babble they sometimes send off into the world through their faces but it doesn't matter.

When you listen to your kids, and I mean really listen, it tells them that they're unique individuals who have something to offer this world that we're living in.

True, a 4 year old probably won't ever have something particularly compelling to say to you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't show them that what they say is important, because it actually is.

Stuff that seems mundane to you might be absolutely mind blowing to them.

If a child tells you that she saw a brown dog that day, hear what they're saying. That may be a first for them.

They want to talk about the incredible experiences they have the same way you do. Listen to your kids.

10. Being A Lazy Parent

For some parents, kids come into the picture and it's so overwhelming that they just kind of hit cruise control and zone out.

Lots of frozen TV dinners and movies in the car.

It's easy to park a kid in front of the TV for 6 hours and then just sit around and be lazy, but being a parent takes work.

It's the hardest job you can possible have. But you have to actually teach your children things. You have to spend time with them, cook with them, and instill all these healthy habits.

It's hard to get your kid to eat well, but you have to. It's hard to get your kid to brush their teeth and floss, but you have to.

It's hard to teach your kid to manage their own homework, to drive a car, to get a job, but all of these things are so fundamentally important that skipping just one can cripple your child for life.

Don't be a lazy parent.

11. Being Friends With Your Child

Not long ago, I was reading about how many kids entering college, when asked about their relationship with their parents, they said their parents were their "best friends."

This is not the kind of relationship that any child should have with their parents until much, much later in life.

A 17-19 year old fledgling of the house should not see their parents as friends but as parents.

You are your child's world to give them guidance, structure, and rules. When our kids, in their volatile teen years, lash out at you for your rigidity, it is not a sign to let up.

It's also not a sign to clamp down. It is a sign you're doing the right thing. You're teaching them, and sometimes these lessons are hard to learn. Your kids should not view you as a friend, but as a parent.

Are you still searching for your life purpose? You won't believe what the science of Numerology can reveal about you!

That's right, the numerology of your birth date, regardless of what month you were born, can reveal surprising information about your personality.

Unlock the messages hidden in your Personality Code now with your free personalized video report!

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If you found this article interesting or entertaining, please remember to SHARE the content with your family and friends on Facebook!

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[needsmoresarcasm]

A Review of Crazy Rich Asians Before Seeing Crazy Rich Asians

And several years ago, she had been e-mailed a humorous list entitled ‘Twenty Ways You Can Tell You Have Asian Parents.’ Number one on the list: Your parents never, ever call you ‘just to say hello.’ She didn’t get many of the jokes on the list, since her own experience growing up had been entirely different.

That’s the passage that sold me on Crazy Rich Asians. I know, it’s no “Life lilted to the sounds of her soliloquy, skipping across lily pads, seeking to fill her soul with elusive validity” or whatever nonsense collection of pretty sounding words sells people on books these days. That’s all to say, for me, the thrill of Crazy Rich Asians does not rest in sparkling prose but in its revolutionary ordinariness.

You see, in that passage, Rachel, a first generation Chinese American, is reflecting on the differences between herself and other Asian Americans, as a result of considering her differences with Nick, her Chinese Singaporean boyfriend.  A character in a story saying “I’m not like all the other [girls/boys/teens/football players/handsome men named Chris in a comic-book based superhero movie]” is hardly new ground. But an Asian American character specifically contemplating her differences from other Asian and Asian American characters? I feel pretty comfortable betting that you can’t even name another instance of it. Because that would require at least two Asian American or Asian characters, and then a recognition that those characters did not encompass the entire experience of all Asian Americans.

I’m confident making that bet because there are so few mainstream stories that include enough Asians to make that opportunity possible. Only 11 percent of network TV shows in 2015 even had more than one Asian actor in its main cast. There have only ever been three network sitcoms featuring an Asian American family. Ever. There have been that many network sitcoms featuring a group of predominantly white friends with the word “Friends” in the title in the last decade. And that’s not even including “Friends”! (Best Friends Forever, Friends with Better Lives, and Friends with Benefits, in case anyone was wondering. Yes, I watched every episode of them all, in case anyone was wondering again.)  And TV is the medium where Asian actors are doing the best. Want to know how many major studio films featured an Asian actor in the leading role in 2015? Zero. None. In 2015, only 3.9 percent of characters were Asian, the same as in 2007, despite the fact that Asians are the fastest growing demographic group in the US.

That’s hardly shocking, I hope, because we’ve all been outraged about whitewashing for like a solid two years now. It’s exhausting, and I don’t know that I need to rehash it. But, for the sake of propriety, let’s just see how many movie characters were whitewashed in say… the last ten years: Allison Ng in Aloha (Emma Stone), Mindy Park in The Martian (Mackenzie Davis), The Ancient One in Doctor Strange (Tilda Swinton), Light Yagami (nee Turner???) in Death Note (Nat Wolff), Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell (Scarlett Johansson), Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness (Benedict Cumberbatch), Hae-Joo Chang in Cloud Atlas (Jim Sturgess), Boardman Mephi in Cloud Atlas (Hugo Weaving), the Archivist in Cloud Atlas (James D’Arcy), Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender (Noah Ringer), Lena in Annihilation (Natalie Portman), Goku in Dragonball Evolution (Justin Chatwin), Keiji Kiriya in Edge of Tomorrow (Tom Cruise), Kyo Kusanagi in The King of Fighters (Sean Faris), everyone in 21, and everyone in Speed Racer. In the last ten years. And that’s not even counting the characters who were not necessarily whitewashed, but were still inexplicably white: The Last Samurai, The Great Wall, the random white person POV in the Bruce Lee biopic Birth of the Dragon, those seven seconds on the Internet when the Mulan script had a white dude. I guess what I’m saying is, thanks Ed Skrein for opting out of Hellboy.

And so, Crazy Rich Asians is revolutionary. Sure, its satirization of class is nothing that Pride and Prejudice hasn’t done. And it’s got a Game of Thrones convoluted web of familial relations. And a Tolkein-esque love of a tangential backstory for a tertiary character (no one ever needs to know anything about Bernard Tai). But it’s not a bunch of white people in Regency era England or Westeros or Middle Earth. It’s a bunch of Asian people in the 21st century. And so when Rachel says she doesn’t identify with a Buzzfeed list, I not only get the reference, I feel it. It’s a mundane aside that feels written for me--not written for an Asian audience generally, but written for me specifically. It’s the kind of representation you only get when identity assumes the role of a character’s foundation, not a character’s personality: when you can no longer win a game of Taboo by giving the hint “the Asian one.”

It’s the type of representation that allows me to feel no pause about decrying how Eddie should just be written out of Fresh Off the Boat (send him off to college, already) because that show still has the rest of the Huang family. The Fresh Off the Boat gag about not knowing the dishwasher was more than a drying rack? That’s the hardest I’ve laughed at a TV show in ages, as a person who hadn’t run a dishwasher until he was 24, despite having grown up with one in the house. The extended bit about having to prepare for Asian glow? Still funny, but I’ll die of alcohol poisoning before there are any signs that I’m visibly drunk. When every joke is from the perspective of an Asian American family, I don’t feel lost when a few aren’t for me.

I love Fresh Off the Boat because it’s a great family sitcom. It’s funny and heartwarming and totally accessible. And as a network sitcom entering its fifth season, that’s all it needs to be. Because if you’re looking for a different flavor of representation on TV? Try Master of None or Kim’s Convenience.  Or The Good Place, in case you identify with a sweet, dumb molotov cocktail or a fancy British giraffe. Or Superstore, for either sass or sadness personified. There might not be a buffet of TV sitcom representation, but at least the prix fixe menu has some decent options.

And books are much the same. Crazy Rich Asians (and then China Rich Girlfriend… and then Rich People Problems) is fun, pop spectacle. It’s propulsive, with drama escalating through multiple storylines until they can’t help but burst into each other. It’s a great beach read. It’s a story you could live tweet. But you’d be disappointed if you were looking to read a rumination on identity and place in America or scrolls of lofty prose. The great thing about books, though, is that there are so many of them. So if you want those things? You could probably find it somewhere.

I don’t know that I realized how truly powerful it was to feel like something was crafted just for you until devouring Chemistry by Weike Wang. Chemistry is about an Asian American PhD student who leaves her PhD program in part because she feels like she lacks the motivation to dedicate her life to answering single research questions. She’s frustrated by lab work, by the unpredictability of scientific research. When she leaves her program, she tutors kids in science - and she so clearly loves science, as she peppers scientific trivia throughout the narrative. Her voice is deadpan and her thinking analytical. Switch some pronouns around, and I’m pretty sure I just wrote an autobiography circa 2012.  

It’s hard to describe just how much feeling that catered to entirely changes the power of a piece of art. Honestly, it’s not something I’ve had much occasion to think of. Of course, Chemistry is great for so many more reasons. The writing is breathtaking in its economy. As an author, it feels like Wang can take the same five words and rearrange them into the world’s best joke and the world’s saddest tragedy. Every observation feels elemental - like chemistry, a fundamental truth of this world that Wang has just discovered. And as any good scientist, Wang has published those truths for the benefit of the public.

Celeste Ng has a similar knack for observation that’s on full display in Little Fires Everywhere. Now, Little Fires Everywhere is not primarily about Asian American characters. The only prominent Asian character does alight the most dramatic narrative in the book - a custody battle smoked in class and race wars. Still, I can’t say I particularly identify with the character, a Chinese immigrant so impoverished she leaves her child on a doorstep. But that’s not to say I don’t identify with the book. Because Little Fires Everywhere is a book about white identity, written from the outside looking in. Set in a midwest town in the 90s, race smolders in the background. Instead of merely being the default setting, the characters’ whiteness is a clear choice. It’s on full display. Much as it’s impossible to not notice the Asianness of a Mr. Miyagi, it’s impossible not to see the Richardsons’ every move as coded with whiteness.

And that perspective - the one that notices when things are particularly white - is something I can identify with. Little Fires is much more subtle about noticing whiteness than I am though. Where I muttered “this is some white nonsense” when a bar trivia category was “songs with the world ‘sail,’” Ng has the McCulloughs promise to feed a child Chinese food to connect her with her culture. Or has Lexie, whose boyfriend is black, declare that it’s so great that no one sees race in their town. Or has Mrs. Richardson feel entitled to barrel headfirst into affairs she has no business being part of. It’s in the claustrophobia that builds from the deliberate confines of the setting: a utopic, white-picket fenced community decidedly apart from the less desirable fringes of the town. A subtly observed us vs. them, where the central characters are almost certainly the “them.” In its hyper-awareness of whiteness, Little Fires gives its reader a sense of what every person of color lives through.

For me, Little Fires Everywhere and Chemistry and Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off the Boat are excellent forms of representation, even as they’re all incredibly different. And I am so grateful that all of these things exist. They’re great as independent works of art. And they’re even better for me, because I get to have the joy of being on the inside of the inside jokes.

But still. Not a single character in any of the works I’ve referenced is Japanese American. Not a single character in any of those works is a fourth generation Asian American. But I don’t blame those works for that. Those works are at least giving me something I recognize - an outsider's perspective on whiteness, a former PhD candidate, an exasperation with Buzzfeed lists, a family that doesn’t use their dishwasher. I would just like more. And when it comes to movies, I would just like any. Crazy Rich Asians is at least something. And all I’m asking for is something. And then, well, and then I’d like more something.

Because I am so glad that a story exists where an Asian person sees-and then rejects-a list of items that attempts to encompass every Asian American. Oh and as a last note? My parents really don’t ever call me “just to say hello.”

[usabsportdevelopment-blog]

The Bright Lights of the Big Leagues: Your Dream or Your Kid’s Goal?

FUNdamental Skills 

By Darren Fenster / June 1, 2018

Twenty-four years ago, I graduated from Thompson Middle School in Middletown, New Jersey, and as was tradition back then (and may very well still be today) my classmates and I would sign one another’s yearbooks with a short note reflecting back on memories of the past three years, and added well wishes for the next few in high school and beyond. Skimming through the pages of mine, still to this day, I am amazed to read the number of entries wishing me luck as a professional baseball player, in addition to the many ticket requests for when I got to the Major Leagues. I had just finished the eighth grade. Little did I know at the time that my professional career would begin some seven years later, because at that point, the bright lights of the Big Leagues were just a dream to me. 

A dream… like just about every single kid has when they don their first youth league uniform.

Looking back to that eighth grade yearbook, clearly as a 12- or 13-year-old kid, I was talking - and probably talking often enough for people to mention it as much as they did - about wanting to be a baseball player when I grew up. It’s very easy at an early age to pick any far-fetched, odds-against profession, and say, “I want to be this,” or “I want to be that when I get older,” but at one point or another, reality sets in for most and those dreams remain just that- dreams. For a very fortunate few, myself included, there comes a point and time when that dream becomes a realistic and attainable goal. Now while I am not sure of exactly when that was for me personally, what I do know is that it would have never happened without the support of my parents and coaches, as cautiously optimistic as they may have been.

To be honest, when sights are set so high to the point of turning a dream into a reality, there are going to be naysayers every step of the way. Being part naïve, part driven, and probably part stupid, negative talk from those who didn’t have my trust did nothing but motivate me even more. Truth be told, the only people who I actually would have listened to had they told me I couldn’t do it were the exact ones who never did. I cannot underestimate the importance of those close to you truly believing in you when setting your sights on something, whether it be in sports, or any other challenging facet of life.

I mentioned the cautiously optimistic support of those around me, because that’s exactly what it was. By no means did those who I trusted above all others give me blinding support, without any idea of how difficult accomplishing such a lofty goal would be. While their support was unwavering, it was more along the lines of, “OK… if you want to do this, then you have to work harder than everyone else, and figure out exactly how you plan on getting there,” rather than, “you’re the best and it’s just going to happen for you.”  They made me well aware of the things I needed to do, and the challenges that were going to cross my path, and as long as I was willing to go about it the right way, then they were going to be behind me, because this was my dream… NOT theirs.

And therein lies one of the biggest differences I have seen between today and what I experienced some 15-20 years ago when going through the same process of working to advance in the game. So before moving on, I’d like to ask one simple question:

Are those bright lights of the Big Leagues your dreams, or your kid’s goal?

My name is Darren Fenster, and as a self-proclaimed baseball-lifer, I have lived a pretty cool life in the game, having worn a number of different hats over the course of my years on the diamond. From a playing career that garnered All-American honors as a shortstop for Rutgers University, in addition to twice being named a Minor League All-Star while coming up with the Kansas City Royals, to becoming Director of Baseball Operations, Assistant Coach, and Recruiting Coordinator at my alma mater before returning to professional baseball as a hitting coach in A-ball, to my current position as Minor League manager with the Boston Red Sox, I have enjoyed a wide array of experiences around baseball that have helped give me a very unique perspective of the many different sides of the game. In those roles over time, I have witnessed firsthand the change in the way both players approach the game and their futures, and the unrealistic, uneducated, and ill-informed support and expectations of those around the player, where many have come to believe that a college scholarship is a foregone conclusion, and that playing professional baseball is like signing up for a youth league.

The odds are staggeringly against you when it comes to moving up the ranks:

2,200,000 play in youth leagues. 455,000 play in high school. 48,000 play in college. 5,480 play at a Division I college on a baseball scholarship. 1200 get drafted. 750 play in the Major Leagues.

.03%  of youth leaguers will play in the Major Leagues. .2% of high schoolers will play in the Major Leagues.

Also consider this when looking into playing in college:

Every year, the maximum number of scholarships Division I baseball teams are allowed to offer is 11.7. That’s not 11.7 scholarships each year for each new recruiting class of players, that’s 11.7 divided among 27 players within a program. One of the biggest misconceptions out there is the full scholarship. They are about as common as a solar eclipse: for the most part, they barely exist. Baseball is not like football (85 full scholarships) or basketball (12 full scholarships), but rather a sport that is forced to divide up their scholarship allotment amongst an entire roster. So when you hear every Tom, Bob, and Harry brag about their kids getting full rides, well unless their last names are Trout, Harper, and Kershaw, well then I’d be willing to bet the only thing that is full is them… of hot air.

10.5% of all high schoolers will play in college. That includes Division I, II, and III, all junior colleges, and NAIA schools. 1.2% of high school players earn a Division I baseball scholarship.

These are stats that your kids must see. By no means are they meant to deter them from going after it, but rather for them to understand the true difficulty in doing so. For the ones who will move on, those numbers will serve as motivation to work harder, and for the ones who get depressed after seeing them, it was probably never meant to be.

To many parents and coaches, those numbers will mean nothing and have little impact, leaving them unfazed in their conviction that their kid will have no trouble making it. To many players, those daunting statistics will barely even register, since in their minds, the odds won’t apply to them, because they have been told how great they are by those same parents and coaches who have no idea what it actually takes to make it. And therein lies the problem…

There is a fine line behind blind optimism, cautious support, and downright naysaying that will kill any and all hopes, but there are a few things that can be done to create reasonable expectations and attainable goals for your kid’s future in the game.

CREATE A BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS

Knowing what you want to do is great, but knowing how you plan on getting there is better.  You have a starting point. You have a finishing point. What happens in between? Write down all the steps needed to climb toward the ultimate goal. Focusing on short-term goals is much easier and much more doable than just looking at the end-all, and not having a clue of how to get there.

KEEP THE GAME FUN

The game is supposed to be FUN. The younger the kid, the more fun we, as coaches, have to make it. Players and parents shouldn’t even think or talk of scholarships or the draft until the sophomore year in high school, at the earliest. One of the more frustrating things to witness during my time as an assistant coach at Rutgers was going out to games where the players were more concerned with who was in the stands watching than they were actually going out and competing between the lines. Their joy of playing was, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. On very rare occasions, I would get a chance to see teams who had been playing together for years, playing the game the right way, playing the game to win, and most importantly, playing the game for fun. It’s disappointing that those teams are the exception in this day and age, and not the rule.  Bottom-line: in order to advance in the game, you have to love to play, because the higher you go, the more time you will spend out on the field. If you don’t enjoy it, then why play at all?

BUYER BEWARE

Be careful. In an age where baseball has somewhat turned into a pay-to-play sport, be very cautious with ANYONE who makes promises of scholarships or getting drafted. The only people who have that power are members of a college coaching staff, or professional scouts. Too many times have I heard stories of empty promises by private instructors or travel teams who sell their connections that will get the exposure the player needs. Here’s the simple truth about exposure: if the player is good enough, he will be found. Period. Money can buy some of the most overblown evaluations ever written, and the majority of coaches will not invest limited scholarship funds on a player he’s never seen. Just because the guy you’ve been paying since little Johnny was six for private lessons says he’s the best player ever might not mean anything other than he enjoys cashing your checks. Consider the source before trusting it.

GO TO A GAME. GO TO A FEW.

As you get older, and college and professional baseball are legitimate goals, it is vital to get a feel for what collegiate level is best for you, and how talented those in the pro game truly are. There are various levels of the game just within Division I. Some conferences and programs could be viewed as comparable to low-level minor league baseball, whereas others are barely a step up from high school. I cannot tell you how many times we got calls from coaches, players, and parents saying how their kid is a perfect fit for us (when he wouldn’t even survive the first day of walk-on tryouts). We would respond with the question, “Well, have you ever seen us play?”  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the answer was no. Well then how on earth do you know that little Johnny is perfect for us when you have no idea how good we are??

HONESTY IS STILL THE BEST POLICY.

As noted above, the guy who’s been on your payroll since little Johnny’s 3rd grade is not an unbiased party. Coaches of their own players will almost always give rave reviews, where the spotlight can be on him or his team. Search out an objective third party coach and ask for an honest evaluation. An opposing high school coach who may have seen some of the best players in the area over the years would be a great reference. Maybe there is a professional scout or player who can watch you play and note the things that must be improved upon in order to reach whatever level you are looking to get to.

GET AWAY FROM THE GAME

With the explosion of travel baseball and private training facilities, while the game itself has not changed, the approach to it, has. We have moved into a culture of specialization and sport-specific training year-round, and it is saddening to see that the three-sport athlete is all but extinct, while the kid who plays two is now an endangered species. Players now have access to work on their game twelve months of the year, and had I have the same resources available to me when growing up, I’m sure I would have become one of the Joneses as well. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. Major League Baseball players- the very best in the world, who play from the start of spring training in mid-February well into October if they are lucky enough- DON’T play 12 months of the year. From that very last day of their season in the fall, they will pack up their gloves and bats, and not pick up a ball for a couple months. So if the most well conditioned athletes in the entire sport don’t train year round, then how on earth is it appropriate for kids ages 8-18 to do so?? If you have your kid pick one sport too soon, and you’ll risk him playing none before all is said and done. It’s amazing how much more they will appreciate the game when they don’t have to play it every single day.

My story is unique, and by no means would I expect anyone to follow the same path as I have over the years to get to where I am today, as we live in a completely different world. But there are definitely experiences that SHOULD translate to today’s player, and first and foremost it all starts with having a love for the game and a passion to play it. For me, while growing up, playing baseball was 100% about having fun playing a game, and it remained that way even when it became my job. I couldn’t get enough of it because I loved to play, not because I wanted the exposure to college recruiters and professional scouts. One of the best compliments I ever received as a player is the one that I enjoy giving most now as a coach: you show your love for the game by the way you play it.

In my current position with the Red Sox, I am fortunate beyond belief to be working with some incredibly talented players, from completely different walks of life, with completely different paths into the game, but all with the same goal that I had just a short time ago: to get to the Big Leagues. Beyond their athletic ability, there are three things that stand out with those who do move up and eventually make it: they absolutely love to play the game, they want to work at getting better each and every day and they will compete at all things, at all times. The simplicity of those three things is really amazing. If you don’t love the game, you aren’t going to make it. If you don’t work hard, you aren’t going to make it. If you don’t compete, you aren’t going to make it.

Now, let’s think about this one again…

Are those bright lights of the Big Leagues your dreams, or your kid’s goal?

For more resources, check out the links below:

Online Education Center USA Baseball Mobile Coach Long Term Athlete Development Plan  Keeping Perspective  The Play Ball Parent Building a Baseball Experience

Darren Fenster is a contributor to the USA Baseball Sport Development Blog, and is currently the Manager of the Boston Red Sox Double-A affiliate Portland Sea Dogs. A former player in the Kansas City Royals minor league system, Fenster joined the Red Sox organization in 2012 after filling various roles on the Rutgers University Baseball staff, where he was a two-time All-American for the Scarlet Knights. Fenster is also Founder and CEO of Coaching Your Kids, LLC, and can be found on Twitter @CoachYourKids.