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Welcome to Coach Dad. For dads, coaches, and sports family trying to look better at home in the stands and on the field. Here's your host, Jim Miller.

— When did the game become a burden?

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You probably remember the first time you saw your kid put on the uniform. Remember that? The hat was too big. The jersey went down to their knees. They didn't ever want to take it off. They wanted to wear it to the grocery store, to their friend's house, to school, and even to sleep in. It was like the coolest thing that they had ever seen. It was cooler than their Spider-Man costume. Right, Micah? So sports were fun. But gradually over time things changed and practices got to be a grind. Games were emotionally challenging, and instead of the sporting day being the most anticipated day of the week, it turned into just another date on the calendar. And then eventually it probably became a big deal again, but not in a good way. And then one day a conversation happens.

— “Dad, I don’t want to play anymore”

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Dad, I don't want to play anymore. Or Dad, I hate this game. Their little annoyances with the work, the struggle, the failure, have grown to become something more than they can manage. And as a dad, that's when we want to step in. In our house, it might have sounded something like, well, the millers aren't quitters. Or millers do hard things. As a dad, we want to push them through the struggle, and we want them to push through the struggle. And we refuse to allow them to just quit. There's a lesson for them to learn, and by golly, they're gonna learn it. I'm gonna teach them. We don't want to give them the luxury of quitting because they need to know that it isn't okay to quit just because things get hard. But in many ways, this is the wrong conversation to have. For now. The obvious problem is that my

— The problem behind the problem

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kid wants to quit sports, but that's only the external problem. This problem really has three different levels. Let's break it down. Okay, first, there is the external problem. My kid wants to quit their sport, right? But that's the elephant in the room. But the second one is the internal problem, and that's the battle going on inside of you right now. And you're wondering, what am I supposed to do? Should I push them? Should I let them quit? Would that be teaching them perseverance, or do I need to help them create boundaries? And then finally, third, there's a philosophical problem. Sports should be a place for kids to learn failure, struggle, selflessness, and growth. It shouldn't be a place where they feel that they are gaining or losing value. Sports are here to serve a greater good. For an extremely small percentage of kids, it'll be something that they play until high school. That number is around 10% of the kids in Little League. And for college, that number is even smaller, around 1%. Other sports are a little bit bigger percentage, but in the grand scheme, it's still really tiny. So the odds that we're raising our kids to play college baseball to earn that scholarship is and especially professional baseball is minuscule. But either way, if your goal is to get your kid into college, you're playing a short game. Because life after baseball is gonna last far longer than their time playing the sport. The love they're going to, uh the life that they're gonna live after the game, after sports is ended, that is a long game. Remember what we always say the mission is bigger than the game. One day

— Dads want to fix it

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I was trying to fix my water heater, and things were not going very well. First, I replaced a motherboard and it seemed to work, but then it didn't. And next I started replacing other parts. Eventually, I was several days into cold showers and dirty dishes with hundreds of dollars in parts when I finally had a thought, I wonder if that new motherboard was a lemon. And sure enough, replaced it again, and everything has worked right since then. Now, our dads uh as dads, our first instinct is to fix things. We want to get in, plug in the gaps, replace the parts, and get things running again. But I really want to encourage you that some things need to happen before you put on your Bob the Builder hat.

— I’ve been on both sides of this

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As a coach and a dad of three boys, I feel this tension. I've coached teams in middle school and in high school from Little League all the way up. From football to track and volleyball to baseball, the toughest stage, honestly, was the middle school groups. That's when you really start to see kids that love the game all their lives. But now the passion is gone, and many of them resent being out there. The struggle is that you often see the kids that have amazing potential to play, but maybe even they could play at the next level, but their heart isn't in it. And it shows.

— Step 1: Get curious before convincing

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I just encourage you to do these three things. Step one, get curious before you get convincing. Don't start with, hey, we don't quit. Or you made a promise to your teammates. Instead, start with a question. Hey, tell me what's making you feel that way. And then listen. Not so that you can figure out how to influence them or how to change their mind, but listen because you're trying to understand your kid. Is it the sport? Is it the coach? Is it playing time or pressure? Maybe it's fear fear of failure. Or are the expectations too high? Or are they just tired? You can't solve a problem that you haven't identified. Look at my water here, for example.

— Step 2: Hard season or dead dream?

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And then step two, separate a hard season from a dead dream. Wanting to quit doesn't always mean that they should quit. Sometimes a kid needs help. A kid needs help doing hard things. And there's a value in finishing what you started and persevering through difficulty. We all need a place to discover that we can do hard things. But there's a difference between this is hard and this isn't mine anymore. That job isn't to immediately decide which one it is. Our first job is to help the kid figure it out.

— Step 3: Remember the real finish line

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And then step three, remember the real finish line. Okay, what is our goal? So your kid's athletic career has an expiration date. Game ends for everybody. It even ended for you one day, right? Now maybe that ending date is middle school, or maybe it's high school, or maybe it's college or professional baseball or professional sports. But even if they play in the big leagues, the uniform will eventually come off. So ask yourself who am I trying to help them become after the uniform comes off? I've recently connected with an old friend of mine. Um he played 15 years in the big leagues. He was an all-star for two different teams, played with some of the greatest players ever in the game. And right now, he's a pastor in the Houston area, where he's been on staff for 30 years. And if you're good at math, and I'm not, you'll quickly realize that he has been a pastor twice as long as he played in the big leagues. So the season ends for all of us. And the question that we need to answer is who am I training my kid to become after they hang up their cleats, so to speak? So what's the biggest danger

— What happens if we get this wrong?

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that we're facing in the moment? The danger isn't just that your kid may quit their sport. The danger is that we are teaching them the wrong thing. If our kids think their approval rises and falls with their performance, then we lost. If our kids think that we love them more when they wear a certain uniform, then we lost. If our kids ever wonder about their relationship with us, if they ever wonder about their relationship with us, then we lost. So maybe we think that they are trying to get away from the pressure when really they are just trying to get away from a certain version of us. Don't let the sport become the bigger concern. Keep that 40-year-old version of your kids the spotlight and make your goal to raise the best version of that person. So here's

— Do you want this more than they do?

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a question for you to sit on for a little bit. Do you want this more than they do? Is there a part of you that wants to be a sports dad more than you want to be just a regular dad? Do you love seeing your kid in the uniform to the point that it changes the way you're treating them? Let's be honest. We all get a dopamine hit when our kid does well in the field or on the court. It feels good. And maybe you're like me when they do something great and you stand up and yell, that's my boy, or that's my girl. And we mean it. Now, there's a part of us that is reliving the glory days. And we love being a dad with a kid that plays football or basketball or soccer. And but there isn't anything wrong with that. But don't let that become the driver that keeps your kids in sports. We have to put aside our own desires for the greater good of our kids. We have to play the long game. There is a pretty famous teacher that talked about this quite a bit.

— Change the definition of winning

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One of Jesus' most famous quotes says that to really live first, you have to die. To really truly live, you have to die first. And then to drive the point home, he talks about a seed. And if you take that seed and you put it on a shelf, it doesn't do anything for you. Stick it in the fridge, it's no good. Nothing. Throw a party for it, tell it you love it. Nothing, right? For the seed to benefit you, you have to take it and bury it. It has to die. Now, when that thing dies, something incredible happens. It really starts to live. It really starts to live. And in the same way, our kids are gonna see when we are still trying to live through them, and it's uncomfortable. They feel a pressure that they can't define, and they're gonna really struggle to live up to it. And eventually it can make our kids want to get out of the sport altogether. And so, to really help our kids, to really benefit them, uh, what we have to do is we have to die to living through them in an unhealthy way. Now, what should that look like in our family moving forward? Let's try to answer that question.

— Imagine a different car ride home

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So imagine that our kid has a terrible game, and we all climb into the truck or into the car, and you can feel it. I mean, there's a part of you that kind of dies when that happens, right? But instead of analysis or a replay, what if we were to take our pride and we were to swallow that pride for the moment and see our son or our daughter there? Not the athlete, but see the person that they're gonna become down the road, the father, the mother, the provider, the leader, the helper. Who's the adult that they're gonna be? And instead of talking to the kid that struck out or the kid that missed a free throw or uh the kid that just botched the play altogether, let's talk to that future person. How do we help them move from a kid that wants today to be over to a young man or a woman that sees this as an opportunity for growth, that sees this as a chance to learn from the struggle? Because the truth is that we are taking a young man or woman that will soon forget that this day ever happened, and eventually they're gonna turn into an adult with a family of their own, God willing. So, would a great dad say? What would a great dad say in this situation? I want you to put on your great dad hat and you tell me, what would you say in this situation? So, sports

— The real win

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are temporary, but your relationship isn't. Your child's statistics will eventually disappear. The trophies will collect dust and the uniform will get packed away. But the person your kid becomes and the relationships that you build while they were becoming that person, they're gonna last a long time after the game is over. So there's a verse that I keep coming back to, and it says, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth. 3rd John 4. Um, that is playing the long game, right? So it's not whether they played varsity baseball or not whether they made the select team, not whether they got the scholarship or played professionals. Uh, those things can be great, but they're honestly they're not the finish line. We're raising people. We're not raising just an athlete, you're raising a person.

— This week’s challenge

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So, dad, sometime this week, ask your athlete this question. Say if you could change one thing about your sport right now, what would it be? And then just listen. Don't defend their coach or attack their coach. Don't explain why they're wrong or they're right. Don't fix it. Just listen. Their answer might tell you something about what's going on with them, something that you needed to hear. And then take stack, excuse me, take stock in the fact that you are playing the long game. Don't let one game or season negatively affect who they are, who they're becoming down the road. Use the struggle as a chance to press into becoming a better person, a stronger person. And then if you wouldn't do me a favor, please, if you know another dad or a coach who wants the best for their kids, but sometimes they struggle to know when to push and when to listen, then please send this episode to them. If you think that something in this episode was helpful to you, then please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel. Since we're just getting started, it really helps us out. Because remember, the goal isn't raising kids who never quit, right? Ultimately, the goal is raising kids who know who they are and they know what matters. And they know that their dad is in their corner, whether it's win, lose, play, or sometimes decide whether they're supposed to walk away. And remember, the mission is bigger than the game, and it starts at home. See you next time.