As an athlete, I’m sure you get tired of hearing me explain to you what you should be doing with your athletic development outside of training with us. My kid is probably sick of me making sarcastic remarks about if she would do what I ask and practice her dribbling daily on her own then the ball wouldn’t have been stolen from her in the game.

You probably hear similar things from your coach or parent. I’m sure having listened to this a lot as you are growing up, you probably assume that when we were young athletes that we were practicing what we are preaching to you.  

In our down time, we were dribbling basketballs in the rain until our moms called us in. We never missed a practice and gave 100% all the time. Understood what working hard meant from Day 1 and this led to us accomplishing all of our athletic goals we desired.

For 99% of us, that is hardly the case.

We were probably just like you as young athletes. We would put effort in a lot, but sometimes we’d rather lie on the couch then go outside and shoot 1000 shots. The fact of the matter is that we want you to have a better athletic career than us and we tell you these things not so much because we were doing them when we were young, but because we DIDN’T do them and we assume if you do them, you will have a better chance of being the athlete you WANT to be.

Looking back on my athletic career, I worked hard the more I understood what my potential was (basically the older I got) and what type of opportunities my teammates and I had to accomplish. But, I was also lazy plenty of times. I was by no means the perfect athlete that I try to get you to be.

That being said, here are some of my “mistakes” as an athlete that maybe you can chuckle at. Maybe you can realize it is alright not to be perfect all the time, but try to keep your not-so-smart decisions to a minimum.

  • Freshman year in football was an eye-opener once we started full pads. I tweaked my ankle on a Saturday practice and had to sit out the rest of practice. Sunday was off and I remember trying to re-sprain it so I wouldn’t have to practice on Monday. I wasn’t successful in doing that and was back at getting smacked by the upper classmen on Monday.
  • My sophomore year I had an opportunity to secure a varsity basketball spot.  We won the state football championship that year and the Monday after that we had one day of tryouts to solidify where we might land.  I chose THAT day to fake sickness so I wouldn’t win the “Never missed a day of school” award at graduation ceremonies.  Not smart!  I started off JV and had to battle just to sit bench for varsity that year.
  • In track, we had partnered up to run distances for a workout. My buddy and I tried to keep a good pace that we were comfortable with and make it look like we were really running hard. The problem was we kept talking to each other, “Is this good?” Our coach could hear us and yelled to shut up and run.
  • There were always the sprints for conditioning in any sport I played where you tried to time it right by running “not-as-hard” when the coaches weren’t looking, but sprinting all out when they definitely were.
  • The best are the “Captain’s Practices.” We’re older and think we can lead these by ourselves. It was basically our opportunity to do some type of running hard for a short period of time, yell at the underclassmen, and take way too long of breaks in between runs or scrimmages. Not the best use of time.

I understand that most kids will work hard for only so long. They will only take the initiative on practicing only so much. The point of this is to tell you that I was much like you and I understand.

That being said, I get on you for “laziness” or not doing things on your own because you have goals. You ask me to do a job. If you want to accomplish those goals, then you can’t be like me 25 years later knowing all the tricks to avoid working hard and thinking what if I hadn’t done that.

I want you to do everything in your power to make your goals a reality. That way you can look back with fond memories of all the work you put in and what it got you. Like I said, you don’t have to be perfect 100% of the time, but make sure when you pick an opportunity to be lazy or choose not to work hard, it doesn’t happen a whole heck of a lot.

Photo courtesy of Abdullah Bin Sahl on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76416192@N06/