ok,, I'll take your word for it

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Colbert on the #Steelers RB situation: "Where we were in running game last year was indicative in the talent at the position.''

Why? Riddle is a troll and this is part of his trolling. Maybe he is gay in real life, though I doubt it. Maybe he is a she. Maybe he just put that in there to piss people like you off. But whatever Riddle may be, we all know he is most definitely a little douche. Not because he is gay -- that isn't cool to hate on him for that -- but because he is a troll.

As for the argument, I am too young to have a son. But I do know there are few things better than a summer night spent playing tennis. A well played tennis game is intense and personal. The only person you can blame for failure is yourself. I love the fact that the best players in the world are complete players who use the whole court. I love Roddick, but the power serve only game is not nearly as aesthetic as the game Nadal/Djoker play. When I was a kid I wanted to be like Andy. I focused on hitting big serves. I now appreciate more of the game.

Plus, it opens up connections. Former C.J. Rehnquist (RIP) would only hire clerks who were Tennis players. Now, it is highly unlikely any of your sons (or daughters) will clerk for a SCOTUS justice, but a sport like tennis opens those kind of doors.

No need too. Like I said, OP hasn't stated what you thought, to not be the case. Just don't know why it's a big deal, either way. I wasn't raised to give a thought to how people wanna live their life, behind closed doors.

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I actually did both, and ended up a working musician for almost a decade. A lot of the ethos picked up in athletics fueled my time as a musician, and kept me afloat. I have a daughter, but if I end up with a boy at some point, he's not to play full contact til 8th grade at the earliest. He will be exposed to the game, but not forced into anything. Beyond that, it's up to him.

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“If we don’t change 8-8, if we don’t change the roster that produced 8-8, we’d be silly to expect a better result if we have the same group of guys … We’re not married to any of these guys.” - Kevin Colbert

If the football programs that your kids were thinking about entering was similar to the program I played for in high school, I'd tell you to let them play with absolutely no hesitation. Unfortunately, in the 12 years I've been out of high school, I've come to realize that not many programs were like the one I played in, which is unfortunate.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I had the great opportunity to play for a fantastic coach who had experience coaching Division I college football (at Air Force and Idaho). So, by high school coach standards, he had a brilliant mind. But more importantly, he understood that football, was the second most important thing he taught. He spent just as much time teaching us about life as he did about football. He made sure he got the best out of us on the football field, but also made a huge effort to make sure we knew that it was even more important to better off of it.

So what lessons can football possibly teach?

Focus

There was absolutely no talking before games. That meant that from the time you stepped into the locker room (or on the bus, if it was an away game), until that ball was kicked off, no one said a word. The odd thing is, in my 4 years playing for this coach, I never once heard him talk about it, As far as I know, it wasn't some rule he had. We just all kind of knew that we were supposed to be focusing on the game instead of socializing. We once had a cocky-ass sophomore decide he was going to break this unbroken rule and start talking to people. One of our seniors slams him up against the wall and threatened his life if he didn't shut up. It was that serious.

The lesson I learned from that was that when you have a big task in front of you, it's extremely important to be ready and focused to take it on. To this day, if I know I'm going to have a grueling day of work ahead of me, I'll spend a good half hour of my morning not talking to anyone, and thinking only about what I need to do to get everything done.

Effort

If you weren't actively doing something, then you weren't doing enough to help the team. Knock your guy on the ground? In his words, "Don't stand there admiring your work. Knock the shit out of someone else.". I still feel strongly about this. I work a desk job as a software developer now, but when I used to work on an assembly line, I was more active than anyone there. If nothing needed done at my station, I was at someone else's station helping them. There's always work to do, so find it, and do it. I've never claimed to be the most knowledgeable at any job I've had over the years, but I'll damned if I'd ever let someone outwork me.

Responsibility, Commitment, and Accountability

We didn't do conditioning during the season. Ever. We never ran one lap, wind spring, or suicide after before, during, or after practice. Why? Because the coaching staff expected you to be in shape before the season started. And they didn't waste time monitoring your offseason work-out regimen. They didn't need to. It'd be obvious on the first day of training camp if you did the work or not. If you were serious about earning a starting job, then you'd take the initiative to be in shape before you took one step onto that field.

At my current job, we're constantly integrating new technologies into our software system. And when I find out we're using something new that I haven't used yet, you can bet your ass I'm using every free second I have to get caught up to speed on it. I refuse to the weak link when it comes to start grinding out a new project.

Lead, but also allow yourself to be led

Everyone who follows football likes to see the guys get fired up in the huddle and start yelling at each other to get the adrenaline flowing. We all like seeing a player miked up and listening in to their pregame speeches and rants. It makes for good TV. And teams do need leaders, that part is obvious. But there will always come a time when the leader needs to follow, and the follower needs to step up and be a leader. Our team had a pretty defined set of leaders. As is so often the case, they were mostly made up of the most talented guys. And were very successful with that. We opened our season with 5 straight wins, were ranked #5 in the state rankings, and were heading into a game with our biggest rivals, who were ranked #6. Unfortunately, things in that game weren't going as planned. We weren't getting good bounces, and frankly, were just getting beat by a team that was playing better. As a group, we started coming unhinged. The guys we normally relied on to be leaders were jawing back and forth at each other, and pointing fingers towards everyone but themselves. Finally, the game ended, and we got our asses whooped. That was when I, our generally quiet and reserved center, stood up in front of the locker room, looked every one of our leaders in the eye, and, using some fairly colorful language, made it very clear that we could never turn on each other again. Me calling them out was only half of the equation, though. What truly made it work was that people who were used to do doing the leading, took a step back and understood that this was a moment when they needed to follow someone else's lead. And they did. And we didn't lose another game that season because we all supported each other through thick and thin.

This is still an important lesson today. I've been a project leader, and I've also worked for other leads. I have absolutely no problem in either role. When you have a group of people together working towards a common goal, no matter the context, you need people who can be flexible, and willing to do whatever role is needed at that moment. When you have enough people capable of doing that, things go much smoother.

Pride

This one's also probably pretty obvious to anyone who has played football. Pride is always a big rallying point when it comes to games, in any sport really. Pep Rallies, Letterman jackets, cheerleaders, the fans...all those things center around having school pride/spirit/whatever you want to call it. But I do want to share one anecdote. I was with the linemen doing some drills. It was a very hot day, and we were having a pretty lousy practice. We started the infamous Oklahoma drill (two offensive lineman versus one d-lineman, for those who don't know), and the first few groups were very lackadaisical. So our line coach snapped and went into a rampage. He called us pussies, cowards, and everything else you can think of. That didn't affect me much. But, I just happened to be the next in line to be the defensive player, and as I was getting into my stance, he yelled "Have some God damned pride!". I'll never forget those words, or his face when he said it. For some reason, my anger level went through the roof. I was only 5'9", 165 pounds, and I was going against two guys who were in the 220lb range. On the first play, I pushed both of them backwards 3 yards, but missed tackling the bar carrier. On the second play, I unleashed everything I had and tore through both guys. No moves, no finess....nothing but pure willpower, and stuffed the ball carrier 5 yards behind the line. As I walked to the back of the queue, the coach started jumping up and down saying "That's how you do it. Right there, that's how you do it!".

Now, any time I don't feel like doing something during the day, I think of that line from that coach. "Have some God damned pride!". It works every time.



So yeah, I learned a ton of things from my football days that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. Yes, I do have some injuries from those days. I have lower back pains that can get downright awful times. I occasionally have headaches and short memory spans that legitimately worry me about post concussion symptoms (I've had roughly 7 or 8 over the course of my life). But I don't care if I drop dead tomorrow. I strongly feel that I'm as successful as I am because I played football for that particular coach. And that's my reservation about telling anyone "yes, you should most definitely let them play", is that I have no idea what kind of programs they'd be getting involved in. In talking with friends who have played for other teams, I get the strong impression that they didn't get nearly as much from their programs as I did, which is a damn shame.

You can possibly make the argument that other sports can also teach these things. But I just don't know that that's true. I've played other sports, and have observed other sports, and I just never get the impression that those sports, at the high school level, really require the dedication that football requires. And I know there's some elite soccer/basketball/baseball/etc players out there who legitimately work their asses off. But I'm talking about the average athlete in each sport. I've seen far too many people start for high school soccer teams who don't give two shits about soccer. It's pretty rare to find someone doing that in football. The only other sport I've seen where it's that rare is wrestling (not coincidentally, it's also another ultra-physical and grueling sport).

So that's my long winded explanation of the importance of football, to me. Hope that was insightful enough to be worth the write-up.

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Just an excellent post, Crosby.

If someone ends up having to deal with college and pro level issues regarding the safety of football and their son, that's not the worst kind of problem you can have.

I didn't grow up here, but my son wrestled for Clearfield. It has a great wrestling legacy and a huge following. I was able to once again live and breath wrestling, even though it was vicariously.That smell of the mat is like heaven on earth. Through his wrestling he knows most of the guys on Penn States team, he used to practice at Penn State every Sunday with Quentin Wright. My grandson is also three and we wrestle all of the time. As of now, he says he's going to be a wrestle (fingers crossed).

Jeez, b/c we want to know if we're supposed to apply homophobic or misogynistic stereotypes on your in order to marginalize your opinions. Don't you know anything.

I am not mocking homosexuals or women, I'm mocking the reactions of others to that revelation

Great write-up C4L............in case it looked too long to read...here it is again. Nice thoughts and memories and how it relates to life.

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I agree but I suck on the following two which is something I should be able to do now. We're debating on sending the boys to golf and tennis camp. Loved all the sports that I played when a kid but they don't do jack shit for me now. I think the more sports the better when you're young.