Archive for Kids
An Outline for Passing on the Game
Posted by: | CommentsI promised an outline. So here we go. No doubt I might switch a few things around, but more or less, I have 20 things I would like to say. I know it won’t cover every detail, but I am confident that as we move through this outline, we should all be better equipped to serve our kids as we seek to pass on the joy of sports. I’ll begin with our first point tomorrow.
1 – Love your kids much more than the game. And make sure they know it.
2 – Love the game for itself, not for what you can get from it.
3 – Surround them with the game.
4 – Play first, teach second (or maybe teach 10th).
5 – Show more than tell. Then show some more.
7 – Emphasize the importance of practice.
8 – Make sure they have good coaching.
9 – Push without being pushy.
10 – Always be available to help.
11 – Fuel their dreams and keep a distance with your own.
12 – Keep the game in perspective.
13 – Teach the mental game.
14 – Watch out for the work beneath the work.
15 – Teach them how to win and lose.
16 – Always stay positive.
17 – Fuel Confidence.
18 – Make sure it stays fun.
19 – Use competition to teach life and character lessons.
20 – In all things, give them the big picture.
A Focus for Passing on the Game
Posted by: | CommentsI figure that in order for me to tackle this topic well, I need at least a two things: an outline and a focus.
The outline I will list in my next post. My focus I will explain right here.
Essentially, I have decided that in order to best address this topic, I will explain all I have to say through the grid of the game of basketball. Of course, sports in general are my focus, but I think I can serve everyone best if I use one particular game as one example through which we can make application to all other games (and hopefully, even other things in life). I have chosen to do this for a few reasons.
First, it is easily the game I know best and the one particular game that has always been preeminent in my family (and in my life). In fact, I don’t think it is exaggerating things to say that someone’s basketball season has been an important part of our family for something around the last 60 years. My Grandfather started it all with a College career and over 30 years of Coaching. My Dad continued to trend by playing and Coaching. My Uncles also did the same. My brother and I then moved things along by playing together at the collegiate level. My younger sisters are also still very involved in the game as well (my older sister coaches my younger sister with my Dad’s help). Not only that, but as far as I can tell, I will probably spend the rest of my life enjoying and imparting the game in some way, shape or form. For me, there is just no escaping the fact that I was created to spend my life in the world of basketball.
Of course, sports in general were always a big part of Crispin family life. We played (and my Grandfather and Dad and Uncle coached) baseball and football and soccer and others. But there was never any question which sport came first – basketball. In fact, when people ask me when I first started to play the game, I can answer honestly ‘From the time I could hold a baby-sized ball.’ In the Crispin family, it simply all came back (and still comes back) to hoops. Though we enjoyed other sports and often worked pretty hard at them, dinner conversations revolved around the game of basketball. The gym is where we headed first. Our backyard always had to have a basket. When my brother and I were kids, we thought the title ‘basketball ball boys’ was a badge of honor. There was just no escaping it. We grew up with the game. Though we were never forced to play, in hindsight, our decision to play seems somewhat inevitable. Basketball was simply the athletic air we breathed from our childhood on up.
There may have been times where our commitment to hoops was a bit out of balance, but in all seriousness, that was probably in large part due to me (more on that later). More or less, our love for the game has been a very healthy thing in our family, a uniting force as it were, and one for which I am very, very thankful. Indeed, I am thankful enough to want to pass it on.
Second, I think that by specifically addressing hoops, you will have an easier time making wise application to whatever your sport or ‘game’ may be. Of course, many principles are just plain obvious and timeless and applicable not only to sports, but to all of life. However, there are certain basketball practices that I will address in a very specific basketball way. I do so knowing that you know your ‘game’ better than I do. So I have to believe that you will be able to see how my basketball examples apply to your golf or baseball or whatever-your-game examples. If not, let me know, but I think you will see this to be the case. Not only that, but I think you will find such focus pretty helpful. I certainly hope I am right.
Passing on the Game – A Series
Posted by: | CommentsIf you are presently out of physical shape, you probably aren’t going to get back into shape without some sort of plan. And not just any plan, but a reasonable, semi-interesting one. I figure the same holds true for the blogger. And as I am so obviously a blogger that is currently out of good blogging condition, I have come up with what I think is a reasonable and very interesting plan.
My plan is a series of posts that I have chosen to title, Passing on the Game. I am not completely sold on the title, but when you are out of shape and need to get back to working out, you don’t get too worried about titles. Making the first few posts come first.
Anyhow, the focus of this series is one that I have wanted to write about for some time now. Essentially, I am planning on writing about 20 posts that focus on what it takes to healthily pass on the understanding and joy of sports to your children. I figure it is a topic that needs to be addressed for multiple reasons.
First, because healthy is usually not the first word that comes to mind when you look at American sports in general, and much of children’s sports in particular. A careful look through the sports pages each week will probably support that point. Or I suppose a more discerning look at your son’s next practice or game may do the trick.
Second, it seems to me that passing on anything worthwhile to your children is inevitably fraught with difficulty, particularly if you really want to do it in a healthy, life-giving way. I don’t care if you love Math and want to pass on the love of Math…or the love of God for that matter. It’s just not easy to thoroughly enjoy something and pass it on in a healthy way. After all, our tendency here and now is to desire good things too much. And can anyone disagree that this is often obviously the case when we want to pass on good things to our kids? We want them to enjoy what we enjoy so much that we might ram it down their throats and in turn, make it all the more difficult for them to enjoy it. This seems to be true especially with sports.
Third, this needs to be addressed by me right here and now because this is something I desperately want to do well. Very well. And this is true for me not simply because I want my children to enjoy sports (and yes, certain sports more than others I confess!), but because I myself received this gift from my fathers. Weird as it may sound, from my vantage point, the joy of sports (basketball in particular) is a generational gift that has been given and in some sense, entrusted to me. Not perfectly of course. Or in some sort of formal, serious way. But it has been passed on nonetheless. And I want to keep things going. Even more, I want to take all that is good and improve upon it for the next generation.
Fourth and probably most important, (this I am adding as an update to this post), I think we will find out that the principles or practices I set forth in my upcoming posts apply to much more than sports. No matter what it is you love and want to pass on, the principles are probably the same. And certain practices probably have their parallels. So although I will be addressing sports in particular, it is my belief that you will find much to apply to whatever it is you want your children to love.
So with those things in mind, I am going to write. I am going to follow (and yes, probably alter) the plan and hopefully learn a great deal as we focus on how we can best pass on the joy of the game. Is it easy? No way, but I am convinced that because of the unique nature of sports, it is well worth the effort. Not only that, but if you are a parent who to any degree enjoys sports, it is your plain old duty to do this well.
More on Boys Wrestling Girls
Posted by: | CommentsTwo more perspectives from two wise men.
Al Mohler points out the clash of worldviews involved. An excerpt:
This is insanity masquerading as athletic competition. The controversy over the Iowa state wrestling tournament reveals the fact that this debate represents a clash of worlds and worldviews. In one world — the world that increasingly demands the total erasure of distinctions between men and women — Joel Northrup is considered to be a religious nut. In this world, it makes sense that girls wrestle against boys and that society should celebrate this new development as a milestone in the struggle to free ourselves from the limitations of all gender roles. As if to make this point impossible to miss, Bill Herkelman, Cassy’s father, said: “She’s my son. She’s always been my son.”
John Piper says it straight, with particular focus on the fathers. An excerpt.
I just watched a wrestling instructional video on line, illustrating some basic moves for the takedown and pin. These two guys are pressing and pulling on each other with unfettered and total contact. And it isn’t soft. It’s what we do not allow our sons to do to girls.
Okay, dads, here’s what you tell your son. You say, “There will be no belittling comments about her being ‘a girl.’ There will be no sexual slurs. If you get matched with her, you simply say to the judges, ‘Sir, I won’t wrestle a girl. My parents have taught me not to touch a girl that way. I think it would dishonor her. I hope you will match me with a guy. If not, I am willing to be disqualified. It’s that important.’”
Be a leader, dad. Your sons need you. The peer pressure is huge. They need manly restraints. They know this is wrong. But then they look around, and the groundswell of conformity seems irresistible. It will take a real man, a real father, to say to his son. “Not on my watch, son. We don’t fight women. I have not raised you that way.”
Reilly on Female Iowa Wrestler
Posted by: | CommentsI usually like reading Rick Reilly of ESPN, but I don’t think he is thinking as clearly as he believes in his column this past week. If you haven’t heard, fourteen-year-old wrestler Cassy Herkelman, became the first girl in the state of Iowa to win a match in its state tournament. The problem, however, is that she won after her opponent, Joel Northrup, decided to default rather than wrestle her in the first round.
Apparently Northrup’s decision was largely based on Christian convictions. He said, “As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner.” Reilly apparently believes the 16 year-old Northrup needs to be taken to task for this. Among other things, he writes,
Does any wrong-headed decision suddenly become right when defended with religious conviction? In this age, don’t we know better? If my God told me to poke the elderly with sharp sticks, would that make it morally acceptable to others?
And where does it say in the Bible not to wrestle against girls? Or compete against them? What religion forbids the two-point reversal?
I could say a lot about these few paragraphs alone, but I want to point out two primary reasons why I dislike Reilly’s column.
1) Reilly wrote this column with a great deal of arrogance.
That might sound harsh, and I certainly want to be able to make this point humbly, but if you read his column, isn’t the pride obvious? After all, Reilly writes as if his insight into this matter were obvious and timeless. He acts not as someone who has really wrestled (no pun intended) with the issue of male and female and their places in sport, but as someone who believes that this issue is so obvious that everyone should easily subscribe to his beliefs. According to Reilly, his standard and his convictions are so clear that everyone should listen up and submit to him. That shined through his every word.
And though it is my belief that he is downright wrong about this matter, it is his arrogance that bothered me more than anything else. For an issue such as this is far from an easy one to think through, and I have no doubt that well-meaning people (and even Christians) can come to differing conclusions. To write as if the entire matter were simple and obvious points not only to a lack of wisdom, but more importantly, to a lack of humility. Though come to think of it, I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise as the latter is usually seen as a prerequisite for the former.
2) It is my belief that rather than being criticized, young Joel Northrup should be encouraged for doing exactly what a young man should have done (and what other young men should have done).
I want to disagree with Reilly humbly, but I still want to strongly disagree (and the two can and should go hand-in-hand). Contrary to Reilly’s thinking, I believe Northrup’s actions, rather than dishonoring her, honored her as a young woman created in the image of God. At the very least, we know this is what his motivation was. For his father, Jamie, a minister in an independent Pentecostal faith called Believers in Grace Fellowship, is quoted as saying,
“We believe in the elevation and respect of woman, and we don’t think that wrestling a woman is the right thing to do. Body slamming and takedowns — full contact sport is not how to do that.”
Now, I know full well people will disagree with me (and him) on this matter, but you cannot deny the motivation of the Northrup’s. You can only disagree with their general worldview and Biblical understanding of manhood and womanhood, and how we best honor one another. And that disagreement points to the real reason why this story is so prominent right now (or at least when I started this post!). A story such as this makes us ask fundamental questions about manhood and womanhood. And more often than not (and most importantly), how God created us in the first place.
As I already said, I share the same conviction as the Northrup’s. I assume this is because I share the same general, and I believe, biblical, understanding of manhood and womanhood. Contrary to Reilly’s absurd comments, I don’t believe Northrup made the right decision before God because the Bible is clear about wrestling rules, but because the Bible is clear about the differences between male and female, and that an understanding of those differences will lead you to conclude that boy vs. girl wrestling is not a good idea.
I could say more about this. And maybe I will at some point in the future. But I’ll end by saying this: no matter what you conclude about this situation, be sure to recognize that your conclusion flows from your basic understanding of male and female. And if you are a Christian, the nature of the God who created male and female (for biblically, it is very obvious that the nature of God is where the discussion really starts). So if you want to talk to someone about this issue, start there. Deal with the real issue. And then humbly dialogue and disagree with one another until you either both agree or until it is tough to move on to something else. And though this post doesn’t nearly cover all I could say, it is certainly that time for me.
