Cutting Kids
September 25, 2012
As an athlete, I dreaded the days. Even when I was a returning starter, I approached with anxiety the page taped to the locker room door that would indicate who made the high school basketball team (and, by omission, who didn’t).
As a coach, I refused to do it. I wasn’t even tempted to cut anybody from my squads. But I was lucky. I coached football and golf, and the outdoor practice venues gave us enough room for almost limitless opportunities.
As a parent, I’ve cried over it. Watching my older son be cut from a non-school basketball program for junior high boys (he switched to wrestling in high school and had a fine career). Watching my younger son be cut four times from the travel soccer team (he made it on the fifth try and started for his high school freshman and junior varsity soccer teams during the two years after that).
At no time have I been more deeply troubled and saddened than watching the world of sports, to which I devote my working life, say, “No thank you” to my sons, to whom I dedicated my entire life.
As an administrator, I grieve over the process every year. I listen to complaints of parents. I watch them go from allies to enemies of high school sports.
Why would we limit squad sizes for outdoor sports?
Why would we cut freshmen who haven’t even matured yet and have only a little idea what they might like or be good at?
Why would we not find room for a senior who has been on the team for three years and continues to have a good attitude and work ethic?
Why would we turn away eligible boys and girls who would rather work and sweat after school than cruise and loiter?
Why do we persist in shutting out and turning against us the parents who would be our advocates today and the students who would be our advocates in the future?
Fixing Things
October 6, 2011
Leaders of schools and school sports have rarely been asked to do more with less than is demanded of them today. Their plight has brought back to my memory that many years ago, a pastor from North Carolina, Stephen M. Crotts, told this story – one that I’ve kept in my files, and in my heart, ever since. He said:
I started my ministry in Charlotte County, Virginia. And there was a deacon in the church there named Harvey Milton who ran a seed and feed store in Drakes Branch. Harvey and his wife Margaret sort of adopted me and helped me along during those first tentative years of the ministry.
I remember one day after I’d been there nearly three years. I was struggling with trying to do too much, trying to keep everybody happy, trying to fix all the hurts.
I stopped by to see Harvey at his business and found him hunched over the back door replacing a broken hinge.
“What are you doing?” I politely inquired.
“Well, Stephen,” Harvey intoned, “there are four kinds of broken things in this world. There are those things that are broken that if you just leave them alone they’ll fix themselves. Then there are those things that are broken that are none of my business. It’s up to somebody else to fix it. Then there are those things that are broken that only God can fix. And finally, there are those things that are broken that can be fixed and it’s my job to do it. And this door is one of them. And that’s what I’m doing . . . fixing this door.”
Stephen finished by saying this: “When urgent calls, opportunities, pressure, criticism and thoughts of all I could be doing come, those words help me sort my duty.”
Perhaps those words will help you too.