Should I let my son quit football?

Has he ever quit another team before this?

 

I can't really add anything new to this discussion except to reiterate that as a teen there were many times I wanted to quit things, then stuck them out (due to parental "encouragement" or through my own will) and either ended up enjoying them or at least had an appreciation for the fact that I saw the activity through. As for the time spent on activities, I don't see that as too big a deal. Young people can handle a lot more than we give them credit for sometimes.

Also, football is a team sport. I believe that when you play a team sport it's no longer just about you, but about what's best for the team. I would encourage your teen to stick it out because of the commitment he's made to the team. Even third string players have a role. He's two injuries from being an even more important part of the team. If he doesn't want to play after the season, no big deal.

 

My 15-year-old son, a sophomore, has his first junior varsity game tonight. He's a big kid -- already pushing 6-foot-2, size 13 shoes, etc. -- but he's lean. I figure he goes around 185 to 190 pounds. He loves the roughhousing bit that football includes, but as he gets higher up the commitment gets heavier and heavier. I am not optimistic about his chances of ever making/contributing to the varsity when the time comes. His school is an emerging top-division power here in Texas, and that performance curve is damn steep.

Last spring he talked about not playing anymore, but in talking with him it became clear that he didn't like spring practice nearly so much when he knew his buddies who were on the golf team where out strolling the links. It was simply a matter of comparison. I told him it was his decision, but I advised him strongly to keep playing so long as he enjoyed it on its own merits. My reasoning, as stated to him, was that his football-playing days were already nearly at an end. If one wants to have that experience, now is the time, because football's probably going to be over in a couple of years. Golf will be there for the rest of your life. (Oh, and those three/four hours a day in the summer playing video games? Trust me on this one, son, if that gets whittled down to an hour or so here and there, you'll live).

I understand about the commitment bit, though. My son is, so I understand it, quite talented with the cello. His school has a very prominent orchestra program, and he's already in the second-highest orchestra, which hardly ever happens with sophomores (my older daughter, who just graduated, only made that orchestra as a senior, and that was likely by the slimmest of margins). For my son to do both orchestra and football this year, he had to go to summer school to keep his academic track on sequence (he's in all the AP/pre-AP stuff, but there would be no room for the other stuff, so he took public speaking and health in summer school). If he keeps at both, he'll be in summer school next year as well.

I would advise your son to stick it out, because he really hasn't experienced the full football thing yet (this assumes his safety is not an issue and his coaches aren't sadistic tyrants). It won't hurt him, and if he ultimately decides that football isn't his thing he'll be doing so with full information.

BTW, I don't buy into the "quit now and you'll be a quitter the rest of your life" cliche. I quit my high school football team prior to my junior year and I've fought through plenty of tougher, more consequential challenges many times since.

 

Just let the kid decide what he wants to do. If he wants to quit, let him quit. It's freshman football. Maybe he'll generate more interest in the next year or so and can revisit it.

"Hey coach, I suck and I don't like it. I'm out." Done.

That said, parenting is easy when you don't have kids. Good luck.

 

That's a great point. We had a freshman on our team once who got scared in drills and decided not to run hard but to hold up and try to dance around. A couple linebackers knocked him out hard and he was having convulsions on the field. He never played again.

I'm presuming it was your son's own decision to play the game, so you'd have to maybe get him to go back and look at why he made that decision and what has changed since then. He'll either rediscover what he wanted to gain out of the game and refocus, or back away knowing that his heart isn't in it. Either is acceptable, though if he does start feeling like he's a part of the team there's nothing better.

Otherwise, are there different ways he can achieve everything with his time management? Is the morning workout session mandatory? Your son is getting his cardio and some of his strength (through pushing the sleds, etc.) at practice any way. Maybe he just works out on weekends during the season and hits the gym in the summer. Hell, I know I'm in Canada and we're not as football-mad, but I got college offers as an O-lineman and I never did that during the season.

 

I would say encourage him to stick it out. I played football my freshman year and went out for the sophomore team. I wasn't good and I decided to quit and, at 15, got a part-time job after school. Forty years later, I now regret my decision because playing a sport (or other club/activity) is something you get a chance to do in high school. You have all of your life to work.

I think taking biology and chemistry at the same time is really hard. If it is his first year of high school, there is a period of adjustment whether he plays football or not. The weather will get cooler, the practices will probably be easier when the games start, he will get to see how the plan works and get some competition, and he has friends on the team. Stick this season out and then make an evaluation after the season. It's not as long as he thinks.

 

If we have kids, the only thing I'll force on them is piano lessons. If a kid wants to play a sport, great, but you should finish the season. If you didn't enjoy it, fine; don"t go outfor the eam next year.

Every time I've quit something or failed to finish some endeavor of some magnitude, I regretted it later. Some times immediately; some times much later in life. That's something a young person lacks the life experience and wisdom to understand.

I wouldn't force him to stick it out, but I would strongly encourage it.

 

Next time, I'll rfrain fom posting and juust wait for Gold to say it better.

 

Stick it out.

 

He should quit algebra.

 

Mizzou summed up exactly how I feel. I have a cousin I love very much. He's basically like a younger brother to me. But he started a pattern at some point in his teen years of bailing on stuff he just didn't like. Quit freshman football. Quit JV basketball. Left school after one trimester at Oregon. Graduated from another school, and got an internship with a U.S. Senator. (He's super smart.) Three weeks into the summer internship he calls and tells me he's going to quit because it's just not what he thought. I love the kid, but I kind of let him have it. I explained that the reverse of what Mizzou said above is also true: If you fight through something difficult once, it gives you the strength to draw on next time. You know you're capable of enduring when shit is hard.

The cousin took it to heart. Finished the internship and realized sometimes life is about survival, not pleasure and comfort. Now he's in med school, and one of the top young soon-to-be docs in his class at a major school.

Not every situation is analogus to this one. But I always tell myself: I can do just about anything for a few months. Give me an end date and I'll endure. I think there is real value in that, because a lot of life requires inner strength. And juggling. Past experiences where you proved to yourself you can survive are like a down payment on your future toughness.

 

The other thing is that when the kid wins a Nobel Prize for Medicine and comes up with a cure for cancer, his biographer can say he had talent for football, but devoted himself to the betterment on the human race.

Buck, thanks for your nice comment. That may have been the nicest thing anyone has said about me, except for a lawyer representing me trying to urge a judge for probation rather than prison time.