They Have to Want it More

I’m at the Nike Nationals girls basketball tournament. It is the biggest tournament of the year for high school girls basketball. The best of the best players and college coaches are competing for scholarship opportunities and rankings.

Do you want to know the statement I hear the most? “They have to want it more than I do.”

I hear that from both coaches and parents. They are frustrated that they seem to want more for their athletes than their athletes want for themselves.

And they are right. Former NFL player and ESPN analyst David Pollack said, “There is only one person in the end who will determine if your kid will be great, and that is your kid - not you. Only your kid can decide if they will be great.”

So, what can we do? Kobe Bryant said:

“We have to try to put them in different things and expose them to as many things as possible, and then see if there is one thing that connects with them. Because if it does, you don’t have to tell them to do it. If they have that passion, they’ll go off and do it on their own because it’s just fun and they would rather do that than anything else. As parents, it’s our job to expose them to as many things as possible and see which one they gravitate to the most.”

One of my goals is to expose my girls to as many different experiences, on and off the court, as possible to see what they connect with. On the court, taking younger girls to see college and WNBA female athletes can connect with them and inspire them in ways that my words can’t. Hopefully, one of those connections will set something off inside of them  and that will motivate them to work hard without needing me to push them.

And hopefully the experience that we connect them with off the court will inspire them to do things outside of basketball than can stick when they are done playing.

What experiences do you create for your kids or expose them to to help them unlock passions in their lives?