Over the weekend, I watched an episode of Masterclass taught by “The Great One,” Wayne Gretzky. He talked about his growing up in Brantford, Ontario Canada and the positive impact his parents in particular his Dad had on his love of hockey. He described his Dad as a very mild mannered man, who had a career working for Bell Telephone. His Dad didn’t yell at him or criticize him after games and Wayne was very fortunate that each coach he had from the age of six until he retired at age thirty-nine, had same demeanor, which allowed him to play the same way from age six through age thirty-nine. That is pretty interesting….
Top two and bottom left, Wayne Gretzky and his father, Walter during his hockey career. Bottom right Wayne’s Mom & Dad in their home.
Conversely, about 40 years ago, a friend of mine, whose children played tennis observed a parent of a very well-known junior tennis player become verbally abusive to his son. Years later as she described this situation to me and it was very obvious as to how disturbing it was for other parents to watch this parent, verbally abuse his young adult son. The young man went on play on the professional tour, had a successful career, not playing at the top, but playing consistently just below the Grand Slam level, playing in all the major tournaments consistently for at least twenty years. Hearing the story made me wonder if his father had approached how he handled his son in a more positive manner, would his son have made it to that next level, possibly play in or winning a Grand Slam? We will never know.
We have all seen parents of children from the age of five or six into high school who wanted their child to have more success than their child wanted to themselves. You can’t do it for your kids. They have to want to do it. You can pay for the best coaches, the best trainers buy the best equipment, but if your child doesn’t have it in them to play the sport, the instrument or whatever it is, they do, then they’re not going to have the success and be happy about it, if it doesn’t come from them. I remember reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography and hearing about how much his Dad pushed him. Yes, he did have the success, but he was miserable most of the time. In raising his own kids with his wife and also a former professional tennis player, Steffi Graf, they have allowed their son, Jaden and daughter, Jaz to carve their own path. His son played baseball at USC and now plays for a MLB farm team in Germany and his daughter enjoys dance, horseback riding and considers herself a fitness enthusiast.
Andre Agassi with his wife Steffi and their children, Jaz and Jaden. Far right photo Andre in his early days as a professional tennis player.
Of course every parent wants to do what they can to ‘set their child up for success.’ making sure they get to bed on time making sure they eat properly making sure they do their homework making sure they get to practice making sure that they can do everything they can to help their child have a good outcome. That goes without saying. But there are certain things that the child has to do to be invested in whatever journey they take.
Kids have to have skin in the game. If they’re late for practice and they have to run laps the parent has to allow the coach to be the coach. Of course if a coach is being abusive or blatantly unfair well that’s another story but I don’t think that’s very common. Most people who coach don’t get paid enough or don’t get paid at all, they usually do it for the love of the game, so blaming the coach for a child not getting playtime or being nit picky is not a good thing. I recall parents as our kids were growing up, pulling their kids out of a skiing lesson when their kids didn’t get promoted to the next level the ski instructor explained to the parents that each child had to master certain skills in order to ‘move up,’ he referred them to the handout he had given them at the beginning of the season, but they proceeded to pull their kid out of the lesson because he was not promoted when his friends were. I remember thinking, at the time, this sends a horrible message to the child. The message I saw them sending was that the child doesn’t have to do what is expected of them in order to get promoted and that ‘mommy and daddy will defend me even when I don’t do what I’m supposed to do.’ Not a good lesson for a child to learn early on and not a good lesson for a parent to teach their child.
Wayne Gretzky’s father encourage all five of his children to play sports because of the benefits and lessons it taught them for life. Originally he didn’t have the expectation that any of his kids would play professional sports. He exposed his children, to hockey, skating, baseball, track, and lacrosse. For Wayne and the other boys, these sports helped train for hockey in the off season, but also the lessons learned playing sports would be lessons learned for a success, no matter their path. Wayne’s success came, in part, due to his first and most important coach, his father but also because he wanted the success himself, leading too many great days for The Great One.
