As I recently stumbled upon an article about fallen NBA Legend Allen Iverson, my brain started to stir. As I read about the demise of his career, marriage, mental health, and sobriety, I had an awakening. I started to think of all the young men (including my own) that are pursuing success through athletics.
These young men go hard, wanting to win is a constant, team minded, motivated, self starting, ambitious, hard working, and goal oriented, all to achieve fame and fortune…right? I mean, we can say all day and all night, make it sound real good, and pretend that the reason we encourage them is because we want our children to know how to get along with others, or how to be part of a team, or even to begin to establish a great work ethic, yup that all sounds great, real text book and Mary Poppins like, but not reality.
We want our children to be successful. To stand out and apart. To not need anyone for anything. As a matter of fact, part of it is pure ego – my kid is better than yours! Right? We prep them for games, coach them from the stands and the sidelines, send them to camps, clinics, one on one training, prep schools, AAU teams and little leagues. You name it, we do it. Just to push the innate drive to win. We also push them physically. We teach them how to workout and bulk up. We get their physical right, but what about their mental? Are we preparing our children for the fame?
Are we warning our boys about the people that will lie to them on a regular basis just to get on their payroll? What about the groupies? Are we preparing them for the thousands of women that will be waiting, preying on their pockets at the hotel rooms? What about just explaining to them that when they “make it”, that sports team will essentially own them. They will control their image, style of dress, and public persona. Are we not concerned? Are willing to sell our son’s souls just for the image, the dream, the belief of what fame really is?
Will it all be worth it? To hear their name called by that team. To hear their family scream with joy, because it was all worth it…the money spent, the sacrifice, the family time, the schedules, the draining practices, the studying to keep the grade, the training, the conditioning. Is it all be worth it? These boys work so hard for so long with one thing in mind – making it. But what if you make it just to realize the misery is killing you internally. That you worked and worked, only now to feel as though…what’s next? You’ve worked so hard towards the very thing that you have, only to ask, now what? Sounds crazy right?
A.I had everything right there. Only to slowly start to lose the very thing that he worked so hard to get. He started to implode. The pressure to please. The fakes, the phonies, the use of alcohol to numb the reality…implosion! At the end of the day, I feel as though we’re creating physical robots, but neglecting to get in their head and give them all of the details, heads up, and warnings. This world is cruel, and it will eat them up, use them up, and leave them broke busted and disgusted. Our boys are physically ready, game ready for sure, but are they mentally ready for fame? Are we prepping our boys mental? Did anyone prep Allen Iverson?