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Monday, May 22, 2006
Parents stepping over the line
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Item: The family of Reggie Bush, the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner, allegedly lived in a house for which they paid no rent. Bush’s stepfather, it is further alleged, was in cahoots with the home’s owner to start a sports agency with his son as the star client.
Item: Jimmy Clausen, a high school JUNIOR, decides that he will tell the world that when the time comes he will sign at the University of Notre Dame. Clausen did not make the announcement in his native California. He and 15 members of his family were loaded into a stretch Hummer and pulled up to the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend, Ind., where cameras and microphones were atwitter. An L.A. public relations firm handled the press conference.
Item: Josh Portis, a freshman who backed up an All-SEC quarterback at Florida last season, decides to transfer to Maryland. As they head out of town his mother, Patricia Portis, told the Gainesville Sun: “The bottom line is the (the coaches) won’t let his talent be shown on the field. He needs to be at an institution where all of his talents can be taken care of.”
What do these three incidents have in common? In all cases parents of talented athletes have ceased to act like parents and have started acting like agents.
Coaches will tell you that one of the biggest changes to college football in a generation is the advent of parents who see their son not as someone to be loved and nurtured and supported through the college experience. More and more they see the child as a huge financial investment and their ticket to the good life. And when the coach or the school won’t get with the plan it’s time to pull up stakes and go somewhere else.
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with using college football as a stepping-stone to get to the NFL. If a guy is blessed with a lot of talent then by all means he should use the opportunity of college football to make his dream come true. That kind of idealism is the province—and the right—of the young and gifted.
But the parent has to know better. The parent has to know that reaching the NFL is the longest of long shots. The parent has to temper the child’s idealism and remind him to take advantage of the opportunity that is right in front of them. The parent can’t afford to get caught up in the dreams of big houses, limos, and fancy cars.
In other words, a parent has to act like a parent. A parent has to live in the real world and not in the one where teenage children give press conferences.
