My youngest son sat upright on the couch as if he’d been shocked by electricity. Without warning, he shouted out (in a perfect Schwarzenegger voice), “It’s not a Toomer!”*

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing.

* My son was parodying this scene from “Kindergarten Cop”:

What made it harder? The myriad of ways we spent time together this Summer.

A “Rocky Summer
Back in April, my oldest son decided that he wanted to get into “football shape” over the course of the Summer months. In May, he stumbled upon Sylvester Stallone’s “Sly Moves” book, containing Stallone’s workout routines, diet tips, and general advice about staying in shape. (There was no mention in the book about his alleged HGH use, or the impact it may have had on his current physique.)

So, over the course of the past 4 months, our house has been subjected to “Rocky’s Cookies,” a home-brewed version of “Stallone’s Protein Pudding,” and a half-dozen other concoctions. Likewise, going to the gym with my son included a required listening to the “Rocky Theme,” or something similarly inspirational.

According to Gym
During his time at the gym, he pushed himself amazingly hard. Much harder, in fact, than I would have expected any 19 year-old to push themselves. By mid-June, he established a routine that had him at the gym by 6:45am Monday-Friday, and by 10:00am on Saturday. He took Sundays off from the gym, but generally ran a mile or two, did some sprints, or some similar football-related exercises.

One unexpected benefit of his workout schedule was some regular father-son time. Seeing him getting up early every morning and working out made it difficult for me to sleep in, so I started setting my alarm for 5:45am. In that way, I could be up in time to fix both of us a decent breakfast, gather together my work clothes, get dressed for the gym, and meet him there.

Now, it’s one thing to say that he pushed me to get back into regular gym attendance. He did that. It’s another to suggest that I was, in some way, “keeping up” with him in his workout regimen. The guy is an absolute workout machine.

In spite of my inability to keep up, there were several ways in which I felt that I was part of his workout. If he was lifting close to his max on squats or bench, he would generally ask me to spot him. We would discuss various strategies for working one muscle group on Mondays, another on Tuesdays, and so forth. On Saturdays, after his “speed work,” we played with the medicine ball.

Time for your Medicine
One of my least favorite things to help my son with, was what he called “medicine ball crunches.” To begin, he would lie on his back with his knees bent, and I would stand on his toes. He would then sit up, hold his hands slightly above his head, and I would “toss” him a 15 or 18lb medicine ball. He would catch it, lie back down with the ball behind his head, and then explosively perform a crunch, throwing the ball into my chest.

Now, if you’ve never been hit in the chest by a 15 or 18lb object, moving at a decent velocity, I can tell you (from experience) that it gets your attention. On my first “catch,” the ball went right through my hands, as I wasn’t expecting it to come at me that fast. It hit me right in the sternum, almost knocking me on my back. (Fortunately, there was a padded wall about two feet behind me.) I determined from that point on to actually get my hands on the ball prior to it hitting my chest.

Occasionally, my son’s throw would be slightly off target. Sometimes this was from fatigue, and sometimes it was because sweat on his hands would cause the ball to slip. Regardless, I had to be on my toes (as well as his), lest I risk some other portion of my anatomy to a 15 or 18lb pummeling.

Note: In spite of having determined long ago that I do not wish to father any more children, there are some parts of my body that I continue to be highly protective of. I determined that if I missed, I would miss catching high throws as opposed to low throws.

Summertime Blue
As of this past week, he’d made significant gains in all of his lifts, lost about 10 lbs, and improved his quickness. More importantly, he learned that he can discipline himself.

As for me, my condition hasn’t improved nearly as much, but I’m left with several powerful memories of this past Summer:

• Getting up before 6:00am to fix a high-protein breakfast for the two of us
• Spotting him on various lifts
• Catching a 15 or 18lb medicine ball before it damages internal (or external) organs
• Testing out various recipes from Stallone’s cookbook (some of these were REALLY good)
• Cleaning up the endless residue of daily protein shakes, protein pudding, morning oatmeal, eggshells, and so on that two adult men go through on a daily basis
• Sitting around discussing the various “issues of the day,” long before the workday starts

I’ve talked with several of my friends about their sons or daughters being home for the Summer, and how they found it frustrating because their children spent so little time with them. I’ve listened patiently, and tried to be understanding when they’ve said, “Well, you know how it goes… when they come home, they don’t want to spend any time with Mom or Dad, and so we’ve seen them even less than during the school year.”

No, I don’t know how that goes at all… and I’m glad.

P.S. Now you know some of why I’ve not been posting to my blog. I’ve had higher-priority things keeping me busy.

P.P.S. Logging this entry under “Flatulence” was not a coincidence. Buy “Sly Moves,” fix the “Rocky’s Cookies,” and you’ll understand why.

vs

In its defense, the NFL said:

…we are consistent in refusing the use of our game broadcasts in connection with events that promote a message, no matter the content

Interestingly, the NFL is perfectly tolerant of actions by its players that promote various messages, such as spouse abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, theft, and a variety of other criminal behavior. However, as with Reggie Bush’s unbelievable choice of cleats, they draw the line at churches using the publicly stated Christian faith of Tony Dungy (Colts’ head coach) and Lovie Smith (Bears’ head coach) to do anything that might promote a message other than what the NFL clearly stands for.

Notable are the additional comments and explanations given by the league for allowing sports bars to air the game on large screens, but not “mass out-of-home” viewings:

We have contracts with our (TV) networks to provide free over-the-air television for people at home,… The network economics are based on television ratings and at-home viewing. Out-of-home viewing is not measured by Nielsen.

I wonder, if I had paid $2,400,000 for a 30-second spot in tonight’s game, would I feel good about the market that the NFL has just said “no” to? Do the advertisers care if the NFL is effectively saying “watching the game in a bar where you’ll probably drink too much and drive home drunk is preferable to watching the game in a sanctuary or church dining hall, and sending the viewers out to feed the poor”?

Sadly, the advertisers probably don’t care either.

Note: The use of the tags “Football” and “stupidity” in the creation of this blog is not coincidental.

While the still frame of the team & coach were being displayed under this voice-over, a news blurb was running at the bottom of the screen:

Special Update: Coach Bobby Petrino to leave Louisville as Head Coach to lead the Atlanta Falcons.

I think Petrino’s making a mistake, and would have done well to have discussed this with UofL’s Men’s Basketball coach, Rick Pitino (Pitino had a… shall we say “less than successful” transition from UK to the Boston Celtics). On the other hand, Petrino’s worked in the NFL before (as a quarterback’s coach), so he should know what he’s getting into. In addition, his past behavior has not exactly shown him to be a man who felt obligated to stand by a written contract or his verbal commitment to the community, so this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to the community.

In the end, like it or not, college football is a business, just like the NFL, and the reality of this is that “business ethics” is generally an oxymoron. It’s a lousy message to send young men (both players and recruits), and I wish it weren’t that way, but that doesn’t change the reality.

It’s a simple word, and one that takes on a variety of meanings in today’s culture. For instance, we may “say grace” or say that someone “exhibits a certain grace” when they move.

Or, we might experience the strange wonder of undeserved forgiveness. This is what the Apostle Paul talks about in the New Testament book of Romans. Typically, parents expect to be the “givers of grace.” A more amazing grace is that which can be delivered by your child.

Not long ago, my youngest son touched a nerve. Actually, that’s not true. It would be more accurate to say that he hit the nerve with a hammer.

Now, to be fair, I had already had a lousy day. It was a frustrating day at work, and my patience had been tested many times. When I walked in from the garage, I saw my son playing a video game, surrounded by a dozen or so soft-drink cans.

“WHY? Why do we have to put up with this?” I demanded. By the second word, it wasn’t yelling. It was screaming. “You know, we don’t ask for much around here, but we don’t even get that. We ask for silly things like keeping the dirty clothes off the floor, picking up your dishes, throwing away empty cans… What part of that do you just not understand?”

I went on, but you get the idea. By the time I was finished, my 15 year-old, football playing son, appeared to be near tears. I stomped up the stairs, leaving him there… speechless.

When I got upstairs, my wife asked what was wrong. “He’s left a complete disaster in the basement, never does anything about it, and we’ve been after him for weeks to take care of it. And now I’m mad at myself for losing it.”

“Really?” she asked, “It sounded like you were in a bad mood before you came in the door.”

The only thing more annoying than being mad at yourself for doing something stupid is to have someone else point (accurately) out the truth of the situation. Her assessment didn’t help.

The Apology
I took a few minutes to cool off, and then went back downstairs to apologize for losing my cool. He didn’t say anything as I came down and sat near him. He paused the video game, suspecting that I had more to say.

“First of all” I began, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for losing it and talking to you the way I did. I may have had a reason to be upset, but I had no excuse for making it seem like there aren’t things that you do right.”

I continued, “You do so many things right, and your mom and I are so proud of you. I was out of control, and you caught all the frustration of my bad day. You didn’t do something to deserve that, and you deserve better than that from me. I’m sorry.”

The Amazing Moment of Grace
The heading here is a lie. There wasn’t just one amazing moment of grace, there were two. The first came immediately, when he looked me in the eye and said “It’s OK, Dad. It’s OK.”

The second moment of grace came a couple of weeks later. Sitting at McDonald’s, we were talking about some prospective football players for the high school team next year. My son mentioned a boy who has great physical ability, but hasn’t been involved in sports for several years. (Instead, he’s been hanging around with the stoner crowd.)

“I hope his dad doesn’t push him too hard,” I offered. “He and his dad haven’t had the best relationship in recent years, and his dad pushing him could make things worse. I think football could give him a chance to express who he is and establish his identity.”

My son then responded with a question that embodied grace. “Why is it that so many kids can’t talk to their parents Dad? Why is it that we can talk to you guys, but so many kids can’t?”

It took me a minute to respond. In asking the question, my son had given me a compliment that meant more than anything an adult could say.

“I don’t know for sure, but I think maybe some parents don’t really listen. Another thing that you and your brother have done is responded to us treating you like adults… by acting like adults. As you’ve become older, we’ve given you more and more freedom and you’ve been responsible with it. In other words, I think a good bit of the credit for this situation should go to you.”

My son smiled, finished his burger, and we headed for the car. I was smiling too.

That’s what grace feels like.

I’m convinced that negative feedback has been given a bad rap. Regardless of whether it’s in connection with correcting the behavior of children, players, or subordinates, I’ve seen evidence that some of the greatest in any particular field seem to draw inspiration and strength from past failures. Ultimately, where’s the balance? Why is it that negative feedback has such a positive effect on some, but such a negative effect on others? How much is it dependent on the recipient?

Shorting the Circuit
In electronics, the circuit designer has complete control of the input and the output and the feedback loop. In social situations, you can only control the output if you’re the coach/parent/instructor (the person in charge of applying the feedback). In contrast, if you’re the person receiving correction, you have absolute control over the input.

No, that’s not a typo. I meant exactly what I said. You have absolute control over the input. I can hear you saying, “Tim, I can’t control what someone else says or does to me.”

That’s true. You can’t (easily) control these things, but you can control your reaction to them. Ultimately, you do this by filtering what you hear. We do this all the time. We can hear the exact same thing from two people, one we respect, and one we don’t. We will give credibility to the one we respect, and take the words (praise or criticism) seriously.

So before you even hear negative feedback from someone else, take a look at what “lines of circuitry” you’ve established. Have you put resistors in the line between yourself and someone you dislike (discounting their opinion)? Have you put superconductors in the path between you and a trusted friend? Both of these conditions are common, and both can be flat-out wrong. Sometimes the people we love say things (in kindness) that are wildly inaccurate. Likewise, our enemies may have insight into subjects that we don’t, and can sometimes be brutally honest in a way that is very helpful.

So now you’re ready to hear the worst that someone else can offer up. Now you’ve prepped yourself for verbal assaults and verbose condemnation. What now? Here are three more things you need to do to be truly ready to hear negative feedback, and learn the most from it.

1. Be Your Own Worst Critic (But Be Fair)
In today’s “feel good” society, it’s common to hear people say “don’t beat yourself up,” or “give yourself a break.” While the people offering such advice generally mean well (I’ve caught myself saying things like this too), the words are dangerous, because they are an invitation to mediocrity.

The key here is to regularly examine the metrics you use to assess your own performance. Are you measuring yourself against an impossible standard? As a Christian, it’s easy to find myself saying “What would Jesus do?,” and thinking “He would have never gotten Himself into this mess!” The right metrics are ones that we can assess somewhat objectively. The “S.M.A.R.T.” acronym from goal-setting workshops applies here: Specific, Measurable, Aligned (to my goals), Realistic, and Time-bound.

At work, I don’t have to wait for my boss to assess my performance. I know what business we’re in. If I’m paying attention, I can figure out how my input affects the bottom line. Accordingly, when review time comes around, I should already know where I’ve succeeded and where I’ve fallen short. I should know what things I need to work on, and where I deserve a pat on the back.

Most importantly, I might be able to fool my boss or even my co-workers, but I can’t fool myself about whether or not I’ve really put forth my best effort. This is the reason being your own worst critic is the key to being ready to hear what others have to say.

2. Let Anger Drive (But Not Control) You
Anger is a terrific motivator. In his autobiography titled “So Good, So Far,” humorist Grady Nutt said that anger is “hurt [the emotion], looking for a way to get even.” This seems pretty accurate. Most of the time when we’re angry, what’s really happened is that something hurt us, and we want to find a way to “get even.” Consider how powerful an emotion revenge can be. Mountains have been moved, wars have been fought, and (possibly) millions of lives have been lost, all from someone motivated to seek revenge.

However, anger doesn’t have to be a destructive thing. We can harness the energy of our anger and focus it toward a goal. This is a bit of Eastern philosophy coming out here, but focused energy is almost always effective at accomplishing things. At times, I should be angry, and sometimes, I should be angry at my own performance. Here’s an example.

Several years ago I was performing some comedy for an audience, and I had not done the right preparation. I had the wrong material for the wrong audience, and made things worse by giving the wrong delivery! It was the ultimate in bad triple-plays. I walked away from that night angry. I was angry at the audience at first, because they had failed to appreciate my sterling performance. But with time, I realized that the audience is never “at fault” for not enjoying something. It is up to me, the performer, to make sure that I have the right material to perform (or recognize that I don’t have it, and save everyone the pain and suffering).

Those dreadful moments on stage are burned deep into my consciousness some twenty years later. I can remember vividly the horror of joke after joke bombing, and the stone-faced response from the crowd. I can see faces of the members of the audience, and the look of horror on my wife’s face in the back of the crowd as she stood there, helpless to save me.

Since that day, I have never approached a performance the same way. Now, I do more research on who will be in the audience, what some “hot button” topics are for them, and prepare accordingly. Instead of throwing something together at the last minute (see my “hero syndrome” comment from 11/8/06), I now go into every performance with 2-3 times the material that I’m likely to need. I always prepare at least one “backup plan” of material that is more generic (though less funny/entertaining), and hone my delivery for better effect.

At no point in time did anyone in that audience give me a nasty assessment of my performance, or a critical review in the newspaper. If they had, after I cooled off, I would have agreed with them wholeheartedly. The point is, my anger wasn’t directed at the audience, who were innocently showing up, hoping to be entertained. Nor was my anger directed at an external critic, even though you could argue that the audience had “voiced” its opinion by its silence.

Instead, my anger was totally focused on my role: material selection, audience research, and performance preparation. (Watch for a future blog entry about performances that have the “right stuff.”) The end result is that I am a much better performer now than I was then, and audiences reap the benefit. (There is a train of thought here that I want to explore in a post in the future, revolving around the requirement that good writers, speakers, and performers love their audiences.)

The takeaway from this horrible memory is to be angry about your performance before you get the feedback from someone else (see “Be Your Own Worst Critic,” above). Then, when you hear others’ comments, instead of getting angry at them, you’ll simply add more fuel to the fire you already started.

3. Set Unreasonable Goals (And Then Meet or Beat Them)
An interesting psychological tactic that some coaches use is to set expectations for players that are (apparently) impossible to reach. Other coaches simplify this by appearing to be impossible to please or satisfy.

The response from some players is to give up or quit, but others will become determined to not only meet the coach’s unreasonable expectations, but to absolutely destroy them with superb performance. When you hear a player say “I’ll show him… I’ll score the 14 points he’s asking me for… and TWENTY MORE!,” then you know that this player has caught a powerful emotion.

At first blush, this may seem to run counter to what I said earlier about S.M.A.R.T. goals, given that the “A” represents “Attainable.” Of the five words in the acronym, this is the one I feel is most abused and misrepresented, because we so frequently underestimate what is truly possible and what isn’t.

What would have happened if Roger Bannister had believed that the four-minute mile was not humanly possible? What about men walking on the Moon? What would be of any of the records of human achievement? What if Al Gore had not believed that one man could create the Internet, all by himself?

OK… the last example may have stretched the point a bit.

Regardless of Mr. Gore’s involvement (or lack thereof) in giving birth to the Internet, we underestimate not only what human beings (as a race) are capable of, we notoriously underestimate what we (personally) can do. This tendency toward underestimation is, like many things, a habit. We get in the habit of “going easy” on ourselves or others, thinking that we are somehow doing someone a favor. This brings me to:

Tolerance of mediocrity is a favor to nobody except the competition.

This applies to mediocrity in all areas of life. If I allow myself the “luxury” of a half-… baked performance, then it will only be a matter of time before it will come back to haunt me. If I allow an employee (or employer) to give me less than the best they can deliver, I am reinforcing (by my lack of response) that behavior, which leads to the maxim of “What you tolerate, you encourage.”

In contrast, if I am constantly in search of ways to squeeze that last bit of excellence, that burst of energy that drains me dry as I cross the finish line, I will be able to look back on a lifetime of ever-greater accomplishments. My successes may not be found in the Guinness Book of World Records, but they will be remembered by those who were touched by my life, big or small.

Summary
It is possible for negative feedback to be truly beneficial, and a learning experience. However, true growth accelerates even more when we search out the unvarnished truth, and actively seek the opinions of knowledgeable and worthwhile “feedback sources.” Whether this comes in the form of constantly searching for informed, dissenting opinions–things that challenge my current thoughts and beliefs–to a training partner in a sport or other competitive activity that will objectively assess and evaluate my (hopefully) improving skills, to a peer at the office who “cuts you no slack,” positive sources of negative feedback are something to be treasured, not spurned.

First, prepare your inputs for corrective action, as I’ve discussed here. Then, find those feedback circuits, and make those connections.

In contrast, changing the polarity of the signal and doing the same thing is called “negative feedback.” Done properly, this tends to reduce distortion at the output, and makes the amplified signal more closely resemble the input. Though not as susceptible to “runaway,” too much negative feedback in a circuit can be bad too, as it can completely negate any gain of the circuit. Nature abounds with systems that depend on both positive and negative feedback, and social systems are no different. After looking at the nature of both, I’m going to share three ways that I’ve found to make the most of negative feedback.

Are You Positive?
In parenting circles, “building the child’s self-esteem” has been all the rage for the past 20 years or so. Everywhere you turned, there was another book telling you how important it was to give your son or daughter regular, positive feedback.

As a result, the 80′s and 90′s saw an endless parade of “feel good” approaches to parenting. At the extremes, anything that suggested to the child that they had made a mistake was deemed “bad parenting,” and a generation of toddlers heard “Honey, Daddy doesn’t like you doing that” instead of a simple and firm “NO!”

The results varied (as is always the case in assessing parenting styles, isolating a single factor is problematic), but most of my friends who favored this approach came to regret it. Some of them did not see bad side-effects for a few years, but others saw problems immediately. Invariably, the “ultra-positive” parents found themselves saddled with spoiled brats.

Negative Implications
As is the case in electronics, too much negative feedback in a social context also becomes destructive. Who hasn’t witnessed the side-effects of verbal abuse? The poster-child for abusive coaching seems to be Bobby Knight, the former mens’ basketball coach at Indiana University. Interestingly, most of his critics are not students or former students, but are people who are embarrassed by the public perception of his behavior.

Regardless of your personal feelings about Bobby Knight’s on-court or in-practice behavior, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a vast majority of his players felt he pushed them to greater success than they would have had with any other coach. How was he able to be give such intensely negative feedback (what he’s so often criticized for) without creating resentment and hatred from his players? If you get past the flame and the heat, what else was present in his technique?

Below are some characteristics that I’ve seen in many coaches and parents. In each case, I am thinking of people who are consensus candidates for the “Bobby Knight” award. They are passionate, results-driven, demanding people. They are intensely emotional. Invariably, they create this strange bond with their players/children/subordinates. The “coached” involved seem to have little doubt about the love of the “coach.”

Strategy 1: Tune the Feedback to Specific Outcomes
Most coaches know the larger outcomes they would like: a winning record, undefeated season, consensus All-American players, and the like. Likewise, most parents know the ultimate outcomes they want for their children: good grades, graduate from high school and college, successful occupation, and so on. Along the same lines, most bosses know that they want their department to be successful, they want to be profitable, want to grow the business, and on and on it goes.

In contrast, the effective coach/parent/boss knows the “little outcomes” they want. They can describe to you, in detail, the smaller behaviors that they want to see. They may or may not have broken it down this way, but those behaviors are ultimately components of the larger outcomes that all of us look for. It’s the difference between seeing a skyscraper and saying “I want something like that,” and seeing steel-reinforced concrete and saying “I want this… with this, I can build a skyscraper.”

In short, you have to know all the outcomes you want beforehand. A sure sign of problems is when you say “I’m not sure what I want, but I know I don’t want that.”

Knowing what you want in the small outcomes makes it easy to identify what you don’t want. This allows for purposefully shaping the behavior and growth toward an intended outcome. It’s the difference between indiscriminantly cutting limbs from a tree compared to careful pruning.

Strategy 2: Tune the Feedback to the Actual Output
Have you ever had someone pick apart your performance in something, and think “Were they even there? None of that applies in any way to what really happened.” This sometimes is the result of a performance review, where the reviewer is trying to figure out what to say, and feels compelled to say something, even if it doesn’t really apply.

Experienced football coaches are famous for answering the question “What did you think of the game?” with the following response: “I’ll tell you after I watch the film.” It’s very accurate to say that, until you’ve watched the film (that is to say, carefully dissected virtually every play, using freeze-frame and slow motion), you haven’t really seen the game. On countless occassions I have felt that a player had an outstanding game, but upon reviewing the film, discovered that he only made a couple of spectacular, attention-grabbing plays.

Unfortunately, parents and bosses don’t usually have “game film” to review. This makes it even harder to base the feedback on what’s really there–on what really happened. However, it’s no less important.

If you give negative feedback that the recipient knows doesn’t relate to what they’ve really done, all you’re doing is generating resentment. This is equivalent to blindly applying an inverted (corrective) signal to a circuit that is not producing anything at that frequency. With people, the results are predictably bad, and will typically pivot around that issue.

Strategy 3: Time the Feedback to the Time of the Output
Almost as bad as giving feedback for things that haven’t happened is giving feedback long after the incorrect behavior happened. In electrical terms, we talk about “propogation delays” that keep a signal from reaching its destination in a timely manner.

In personal terms, it becomes the “Why didn’t you tell me that when it happened?” If it wasn’t important enough to comment on it at the time, why talk about it now?

Beyond the feeling of “dredging up the past,” delaying negative feedback makes it inherently less accurate. How likely am I to accurately remember the details well enough to give legitimate correction? Furthermore, there’s always a chance that the outcomes I’m shooting for will have changed. This can lead the receiver of the feedback to say things like, “If I’d known then what you want me to do now, we could have avoided this. Unfortunately, you’ve changed what you seem to want!”

Three Rights Make it Right
There are probably lots of parents, coaches, and bosses who use different strategies than the three I’ve mentioned here. Even so, the strategies I’ve shared here seem to be common to a vast majority of highly intense, frequently negative coaches, parents, and bosses. There’s obviously no guarantee that if you say negative things, the recipient will respond with increased focus/effort. In the follow-up to this entry, I’ll talk about the other side of the equation: How to Accept Critical/Negative Feedback.

This reminded me of when my sons played YMCA Basketball (where the players were required to stand on “X” markers placed on the floor), and other youth leagues where the already confusing rules of adult game become even more complex when the adults try to “help” younger players learn the game by coming up with countless variations of the rules.

Who Benefits?
Who are we helping when we take an already complicated game and make it even more so? John Madden once observed that the joy of playing sports as a kid is generally destroyed when adults get involved. How is it helping a child learn a game if they are taught one set of rules when they are 6 years-old, another set when they are 9, and yet another set when they are 12?

Here’s an experiment: Take 18 kids, ages 9 to 12. Give them 18 gloves, a half-dozen bats, and a half-dozen baseballs. Put them on a field with bases and lines. What set of rules do you think they will use? I would wager that they will want to play by major league rules. They may “localize” these to fit if there’s something special about the field (“second base is Billy’s book bag, and anything past that tree is a homer”), but they are not going to make rules like, “no lead-offs,” or “all the batters must bat around until everyone gets a chance, regardless of how many outs,” or the converse of “no more than once through the batting order, regardless of how many outs.”

Who Loses?
What benefit does this create for any of the players? Well, it clearly provides rules-based assistance for the child that isn’t able to learn the rules or isn’t competitive with the other players. Is that beneficial for them in the long term? What have we done beneficial, other than postpone them discovering the disparity between their ability and other players? Isn’t recognizing that disparity one of the things that motivates all of us to improve?

Instead of helping the less-skilled player, such leagues actually hinder them by masking their inability. True, there may be some short-term self-esteem increase, but it comes at a high price: We deceive the child to improve his or her self-esteem.

Perhaps there are some places where youth-specific rules changes make sense. If so, I would say only to the extent that they keep adults from “loading up a team.” In short, I’m beginning to think that, outside of monitoring for unsafe behavior (football without helmets/pads, soccer without shin guards, and so on) the less we adults are involved in the game… the better.

By wearing cleats that show a logo other than Nike or Reebok, Reggie Bush has violated one of the most important rules in the NFL: Thou shalt not market brands outside of our established relationships.

Unfortunately for the NFL, Nike, and Reebok, anything that happens from this point forward will result in a windfall of publicity for Adidas line of football gear. This is an effective “checkmate” by Bush’s marketing team. There is no response by any of these three parties that will do anything except give Adidas more (extremely inexpensive) market visibility.

As a bonus, the situation highlights the NFL’s lack of action against players who are convicted of domestic abuse, repeat substance abusers, and demonstrably incapable of dealing with the financial success that sports have afforded them. The harder the league comes down on Bush and Adidas (without taking even stronger action against those guilty of more serious crimes than taking money out of Nike/Reebok/NFL-marketing-team-kickback-recipients hands), the more incompetent they will be shown to be.

Perhaps a Master Card spoof is in order?

Adidas Football Cleats: $49-99

Fine for wearing “unauthorized” brand cleats in an NFL preseason game: $10,000

Making the marketing deparments of Nike, Reebok, and the National Football League look like morons while giving your fledgling brand of football gear unprecedented exposure: Priceless

The current issue of Stanford Magazine, a publication of the Stanford Alumni Association, has a series of interesting articles about kids, parenting, and raising/rearing children today. One of my favorite articles is titled “Good Sports,” and captures many of the reasons that I find sports involvement for kids to be such a crucial component for my sons.

Below is my favorite quote:

“Finally, most important of all, the whole point of coaching, the whole point of kids in organized sport: teach them to love the game, to love to play. The only measure of success for a coach is if the kids come back to play the next year. If they don’t return for a second season, you weren’t a good enough coach, period.

By this measure, I’ve been a successful coach, every year.