I used to be a writer. Roughly nineteen years ago, I wrote for a local suburban journal type paper. I started writing for this paper in 1994 during my senior year in high school. I continued writing for a few years while attending Parks College of Saint Louis University. As the responsibilities in my life started changing, my writing career ended.
Here I am- 19 years later- my age doubled. I am no longer a high school/ college student whose biggest worry in life was “should I go out with my friends tonight or stay home and play NHL 94 on Playstation”. Instead, I am now a 38 year-old married father of two whose job responsibilities include how to keep my two kids from arguing with each other every waking second of the day.
By now, if I’ve kept your attention in reading this article, you’re probably wondering “who is this guy and why do I continue to read this article”. Fair question, so let me get the point. My name is Jeremy Donald and this is the first of what will be a weekly blog that will be posted at www.cnrbasketball.org
The reason for writing this blog is simple. I believe I can help people- specifically- parents with kids who are participating in sports. Quite frankly, there are many things I’m not very good at in life. I’m not a handy man. I can’t perform many basic household functions. I’m not big at performing yard work. If you ask my wife, she can probably add to this list ten-fold. However, if there is something I can specialize in, it would be sports. I loved playing them as a kid. At age 19, I was hired for my first coaching job. For the next 18 years, I coached a variety of sports at the junior high and high school level- with basketball being the one constant.
Today, I am no longer a high school coach. Instead, I am a high school administrator, coordinator of both the CNR Basketball and Fox Basketball Leagues, coach of a 3rd grade boys’ basketball team, and finally- sports dad. Just as my life changed in the past nineteen years, so has the evolution of youth sports.
When I was a 3rd grader, I played baseball for the St. Joseph Khoury League in Cahokia, Illinois. It was a relatively simple process. They had in-person registrations on one or two Saturdays in late April or early May. My dad took me to sign up and paid the $70 or so registration fee, he volunteered to coach a team, the league administrator gave him 10 or 11 more kids, and that was it. We probably practiced once or twice a week before the season started- and then we played games. We were done playing at the end of July- and moved on to the next sport.
Fast forward thirty years later, for kids currently entering the 3rd grade, many baseball clubs are holding tryouts in late July for their teams for next summer. However, before getting to next summer, many of these teams will play another league in the fall, will have indoor practices starting in January, and in between- many kids will have individualized hitting and pitching lessons. As I say all of that, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. I am a believer that a kid participating in sports can only be a good thing. If a kid is spending an hour at an indoor baseball practice in January, that means it’s one less hour playing a video game on their couch.
Everyone has a different opinion as far as what is best for their kid. Which again- is the reason I am writing this blog. The one common denominator about all basketball coaches is that we are all thieves. We steal ideas from each other. If someone scores on a good inbounds play against me, rest assured, I’m probably installing that play for my own team during our next practice. That’s the beauty of the internet. It’s much easier to steal good ideas of what everyone else is doing.
I feel I have a unique set of perspectives that can provide others with some ideas that may help their own situation. I have been that grade school, junior high, high school, and college athlete. I have coached basketball for 18 years, with ten of those being as a head varsity girls’ basketball coach. In addition, at the high school and junior high levels, I’ve coached baseball, softball, golf, and track. As I mentioned earlier, I am a coordinator of two basketball leagues that serve kids ages Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade. After teaching for 12 years as a special education teacher and as an alternative school teacher, I am entering my fourth year as a high school administrator. Finally, I’ve watched my son play youth sports for the past four years.
So why am I writing this blog? Besides the fact that our webmaster on our CNR Basketball website said we need to find a way to generate more traffic to our website, I’m doing it because I think I can help people. Youth sports is a vital part in a young person’s overall development. Learning how to deal with adversity, being a part of a team, being happy for the success of others, and displaying proper sportsmanship are all important things that take place in sports. However, it is important that your child is put in a position where they can succeed. Hopefully throughout these series of blogs that I write, there are questions that parents have out there that I potentially help answer.
If you have a question or a topic that you think would make a good blog, or you have an individualized question involving your child, please e-mail me at donaldj@fox.k12.mo.us.
Next week’s blog: Is there such a thing as too many sports?