Dan Hurley's Secret To Winning Back-To-Back National Championships? Don't Recruit Kids With Annoying Ass Parents
It's basic human nature for parents to want the best for their children. You want that child to succeed and you're going to be It's basic their biggest supporter along the way. Maybe sometimes that support tends to make you a little biased when evaluating their capabilities. But there's a difference between parents who support their athletic children, and those who think their little Timmy or Johnny is the greatest athlete to ever grace the sport. And somehow it seems like there are more of those parents than anything out there.
I don't think it's too far to call it an epidemic in sports. Parents who think the sport would cease to exist if their kid stopped playing the game. Who think their kid can do no wrong out there, and will find any little excuse they can use if things aren't going their way. Not winning games? It's because he doesn't have good enough teammates, time to find a new team. Not getting playing time? It's because the coach has it out for him, time to find a new team. Not getting playing time on the new team? Well it's because he rolled his ankle back in 2009.
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Again, it's not all parents. But it sure is a shit ton of them these days. And it's one thing for the parent to think that way. That's their kid and obviously they don't want to admit that maybe they didn't give birth to the greatest player ever. But once that mindset of having a total lack of accountability seeps its way into the kid's mindset? Well that's where it becomes an irreversible issue. It's a cycle that is damn near impossible to break in today's age where coaches are barely even allowed to raise their voices at players.
So instead of having to worry about breaking that cycle of never taking accountability, Dan Hurley is out here making sure he's recruiting kids who already have a strong character foundation. He's only bringing in kids who get it because their parents didn't spend the past 18 years of their life making them think that nothing was ever their fault. You don't have to scream at your kid the entire car ride home telling them how much they suck. But maybe ask them what they think they could have done better during the game, or what they could have done more of to prepare themselves during the week. Ask them if they're going hard at practice every day instead of just rushing to find a new club team to play for because the coach isn't putting them in.
Or you could continue to be an annoying jackass and the Dan Hurley's of the world will just recruit someone else. Your call.