After the Game: What do you say?
April 20, 2017
By Kevin Wolma
Hudsonville Athletic Director
“I love to watch you play.” Those are the six words a son or daughter wants to hear from his or her parents after a game.
What if your child does not play? What do you say then? Parents can’t say, “I love to watch you play” when your child does not play, nor can they say other post-competition statements like:
“Did you fight like a dog?”
“Did you have fun?”
It is hard to fight like a dog when not given the opportunity, and we all know players have more fun when they play in the game. When you google the phrase, “what to say after a game,” there are all sorts of articles written with some of them backed by research. However, when you google the phrase – “what to say when your kid does not play” – very little comes out of that search.
Why?
This is a hard and very sensitive area for most parents to come up with the right thing to say.
Before we talk about what to say in this situation, it may be more important to discuss what not to say after a game where your child does not play. Some of the comments all parents should avoid are:
“Why have you not played in the last three games? Your coach must not like you for some reason.”
“Your coach is clueless; he has no idea what he is doing.”
“You are way better than Johnny! I can’t believe he is playing more minutes than you.”
“Did you see how many mistakes Suzie made? I know if you were given the opportunity you would not make those same mistakes.”
Parents will often say these things because they are frustrated, and parents think they are comforting their child by giving them an excuse. What these comments actually do is create a divisive culture within a team. After hearing these negative comments over and over again, the athlete will eventually believe it only to see his or her attitude and effort become negatively affected over time. That athlete turns into a selfish teammate.
Now let’s put yourself in the situation where your child comes home after a game after not playing. What do you say?
The first thing you could do is talk about the game itself. Recount certain plays and make note of individuals who played well for both teams. This initial conversation takes the uncomfortable nature of the situation and sets the stage to talk about how athletes feel about not getting into the game.
There may be times when your child will not want to talk about it because he or she is upset, angry or even embarrassed. These moments of silence give the parents an opportunity to talk about the importance of being a good teammate and how an athlete can have a major impact on the team no matter what role is played. They can teach how to be the first person off the bench to congratulate or give a word of encouragement to teammates. Parents also can point out that the harder athletes work in practice, the better it is going to make the team.
In other words, we have the responsibility as parents to teach our kids the significance of living life pointed out no matter the circumstance. Living pointed out simply means to put others before yourself in everything you do. Finding ways to make the people around you the best they can be. No complaining. No excuses.
Andrew DeWitt played two years of Varsity basketball for me at Hudsonville, and he rarely had the opportunity to play. Unfortunately for him, he was a good player on two really good teams with lots of talent. He understood his role and treated practices like games – playing as hard as he could.
He would elevate the intensity of practice every day. On game nights, he was our biggest cheerleader. His impact went way beyond scoring points or getting rebounds.
Andrew’s parents were great teachers as they guided him through those tough times where it would have been easy to make an excuse or complain. Instead, they taught Andrew he could always have an influence on other people’s lives despite the role he played. What a great lesson that Andrew can carry with him for the rest of his life.
At the end of the day, one thing every parent in every situation can say that will have a positive impact is, “I love you.” Many times athletes think they are letting their parents down because of their lack of playing time. Knowing that their parents love them the same whether they play a lot or not at all has a significant impact on how the student-athlete responds to adversity, and specifically not playing in games.
I challenge all parents to use these potentially negative situations as a way to teach student-athletes valuable lessons on what it means to be a great teammate – and more importantly in teaching them to live their life pointed out. There may not be a simple six-word phrase to say when your child does not play, but there is definitely plenty to talk about.
Wolma has served as Hudsonville's athletic director since 2011 and previously coached boys varsity basketball and girls varsity golf among other teams. He also previously taught physical education and health.
Parents Master Art of Schedule Juggling
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
October 18, 2016
If it’s Tuesday, it must be volleyball — or is it soccer or maybe swimming?
Time to check the calendar, the phone app or the white board.
To keep up with two or more students involved in different sports in the same season, families have devised their own ways for keeping track of schedules.
The Carpenters, who have sons Matthew and Alex at Kalamazoo Hackett Catholic Prep, use several calendars, including a master schedule in the kitchen.
The Perkins, whose daughters Lauren and Audrey attend Mattawan High School, rely mostly on the phone app Cozi to keep schedules straight.
For the parents, it’s a question of logistics and juggling, which sometimes takes a lot of creativity.
“We have electronic calendars and paper calendars to look at every morning,” dad Tim Carpenter said. “We talk about who’s going where and who’s going to do what at the start of each day to figure it out.
“I keep a sports calendar to share with all the family so they can see the different things going on. If we are ever home at night without a game, it’s a strange feeling.”
Besides the composite kitchen calendar, “We also have our iPhone calendar so we both can see one another’s calendar at the same time,” mom Julie Carpenter said.
“It’s pretty much Monday through Saturday, some game or practice. Sunday it’s Mass, groceries and laundry.”
The Perkins use a phone organizer app called Cozi.
“We try to get all the schedules in there so everybody knows where everybody else is,” mom Valerie Perkins said. “I usually have a white board on the kitchen counter that I update weekly, and it kind of tracks who’s got what when.
“The girls’ meets are on opposite days. Like Audrey will have something on Monday, Wednesday and Lauren has Tuesday and Thursday. Occasionally they both have Saturdays. Then we divide and conquer, for sure.”
With five children, the Carpenters try to split time evenly between all the activities.
Matthew, a senior, is Hackett’s soccer goalkeeper and Alex, a sophomore, plays junior varsity football. Oldest son, Josh, a sophomore at Michigan Tech, plays broom ball – and while his parents don’t travel to watch him play, the games are webcast during the winter.
The activities won’t end soon. Bennett, a sixth grader and Bethany, a third grader, both at St. Augustine in Kalamazoo, also are involved in sports.
The Carpenters try to attend all of their children’s games together, but sometimes that is not possible.
In that case, “We usually base it on who’s closer,” Tim Carpenter said. “If there’s one game south near where I work in Portage (at MANN+HUMMEL), I’ll usually go to that.
“If Julie (who works at Borgess-ProMed Physician Pediatrics in Richland) has only seen one of Alex’s games and I’ve seen two, she’ll go to Alex’s. We try to keep it even.”
Both parents were introduced to new sports once their sons got involved.
“(Our sons) haven’t done tennis or golf,” Julie Carpenter said. “Soccer’s got more action and excitement; basketball is similar. Skiing was neat because it’s such a close-knit community. Cross country was fun because it was a very team environment.
“I had not seen cross country before, but when Josh started cross country it was really exciting because we thought ‘OK, how much can you get out of cross country as a spectator?’ It was pretty exciting for us just to run from spot to spot. They’re such a close-knit group of kids.”
Whether there are five children or two, as in the Perkins family, parents face the same dilemma: trying to juggle work, practices and events.
“We usually try to trade off so we get an even mix of seeing the girls,” said Valerie Perkins, who works at Bronson Urology in Kalamazoo. “Sometimes Rob’s schedule dictates that. Sometimes it’s who’s ever closest.”
Rob Perkins, who works at TRW in Mattawan, said sometimes there’s a glitch.
“When they give us advance warning of what’s going on and it doesn’t change, then I can work around it,” he said.
“The only time it gets frustrating is when something changes at the very last minute, or maybe it was always the same and the girls’ stories change at the last minute,” he added, laughing.
Neither parent was familiar with the sports their daughters chose.
“With dive, Lauren started in eighth grade, so it evolved from a summer camp and she really enjoyed it,” Rob Perkins said. “We kind of fell into Kyle Oberhill, who’s the diving coach for (Kalamazoo College) and he manages the facilities for Western (Michigan University).
“He’s just really easy-going. (Lauren) excelled in it right away. As a freshman, she broke the school record. That kind of kept her motivated to keep going.”
Oberhill also had a workshop for parents to explain the intricacies of competitive diving, and that helped. Audrey, meanwhile, took on another sport new to her parents when she started playing volleyball in seventh grade.
“We didn’t know much about it, but the important thing to know about it is she enjoys it,” her dad said.
Rob Perkins said it would be much easier if volleyball and dive were not in the same season, but there is an upside.
“I would say, generally speaking, being in sports certainly builds their self-confidence, keeps them occupied.”
Their mother said she can see a positive influence of sports on their girls.
“I think sports have definitely improved them,” she said. “They’ve learned how to become leaders and work as a team, and I really appreciate that.
“I can see it develop in both of them over the years. Both are captains of their teams.”
And both sets of athletes said it’s important to see their parents at their games.
“It gives me more confidence,” Alex Carpenter said, “and makes me feel good that they want to see me play.”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mattawan parents Rob and Valerie Perkins cheer on their daughter Lauren during a recent swimming & diving meet. (Middle top) The Carpenters, clockwise from top left: Tim, Julie, Alex and Matthew. (Middle) The Perkins daughters, Lauren (left) and Audrey. (Middle below) Matthew, the Hackett soccer goalkeeper, looks to pass after gathering up a loose ball. (Below) Lauren Perkins dives during a meet. (Lauren Perkins head shot by Becky Anderson Photography, all other photos by Pam Shebest.)