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'Why I'm raising my son to be a nerd'

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Jun 28, 2011.

  1. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Yeah, but you'll spend what you would have saved on the scholarship on lessons and greens fees.
     
  2. CarltonBanks

    CarltonBanks New Member

    My niece is a 4.25 student (weighted classes) and was just voted captain of the swim team for her senior year. For four years now she has had the same schedule...wake up at 4 a.m. to go to the pool. Swim for 90 minutes before school. Personal trainer (which she pays for herself) for an hour after school. Work for 5 hours (lifeguard at indoor pool) before going home, studying and going to bed. Needless to say she is quite the overachiever, and getting scholarship offers from every DII and DIII school in the state (not fast enough to swim DI). The DIII scholarships are all academic because they cannot give athletic scholarships.

    Her brother quit football after sixth grade. He is going to be a junior and decided to go to the vocational school because he hates homework. He did play varsity baseball as a freshman, but that's it. If he would have stuck to sports there is a much better chance he would have his sister's discipline.
     
  3. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Doesn't sound like your niece has much of a social life -- which could be a good thing, I guess.
     
  4. JonnyD

    JonnyD Member

    Girls swim teams are a social life in and of themselves.
     
  5. secretariat

    secretariat Active Member

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  6. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
    Rainier Wolfcastle: My son returns from a fancy east coast college and I'm horrified to find he's a nerd.
    Kent Brockman: Haha, I'm laughing already.
    Rainier: It's not a comedy.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  7. Jake_Taylor

    Jake_Taylor Well-Known Member

    I was an academic all-American ... at a JUCO. So I have no idea what category that puts me in.

    Seriously though, I don't want to be one of those parents that pushes my preferred activity on my kids, but I find myself dreaming about them being Ivy League athletes. If they get their mom's brains and height and my decent amount of athletic ability and love of sports, it's not a total pipe dream.
     
  8. CarltonBanks

    CarltonBanks New Member

    You would think, but she was a junior homecoming court attendant and her boyfriend, well, ex-boyfriend, is going to a DI school on a full football scholarship. She loves high school...and that's another thing for her parents to worry about. I hope she is not one of those people who cannot let go of high school and it becomes the peak of her life. I see people like that around town, usually at the local bar trying to pick up girls half their age (the guys, I mean).
     
  9. JonnyD

    JonnyD Member

    If a former Homecoming queen wants to hang around bars picking up girls half her age, that's not creepy. Just awesome.
     
  10. jlee

    jlee Well-Known Member

    Yeah, sorry about that ...
     
  11. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    We don't push much on our 4-year-old.

    But there are tons of books around. He goes to the library every week for storytime. We read to him all the time. We help him sound out letters and try to learn to read at his pace. He LOVES stories. That's probably the closest we get to "pushing." My wife was her high school valedictorian. I was a slacker who still managed a 3.5/4.0 in high school and just pulled a 4.0 in grad school as an adult with a kid.

    However, the neighbors see me hitting him grounders in the front yard, or pitching to him, or wielding a hockey stick with some makeshift "goalie pads" (basically, a hockey glove, a baseball mitt for a trapper, and two ancient defenseman's shinguards to keep my legs from getting scuffed) in front of the homemade net in the driveway, and they probably think I'm pushing sports on him -- without realizing he completely directs all of the play. He *wants* to play baseball/hockey.

    Balance is key. Sports teaches the lessons on teamwork, time management, how to deal with a pressure situation. However, the classroom is most important. That's why we push reading (and we're starting with some basic math) so hard right now. However, my son is tiny for his age -- he can still fit into 2-year-old shorts at nearly 4 1/2 -- so I don't think he'll be getting an athletic scholarship even if he becomes a good athlete. But he very well could get some academic money -- his parents are a teacher and a journalist, so need-based aid could be coming -- and his status as a minority could help.
     
  12. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Best pure athlete I ever coached had the same problem. No discipline, no ability to work with the team, never tried to learn the sets ... but she was 6-1, amazingly athletic and could shoot the 3 and rebound like it was nobody's business even giving less-than-stellar effort. Quit the team before her junior year ended, was with child within another year.

    Had she taken the lessons on discipline, teamwork and time management instead of resisting us and doing her own thing, she'd have gone to just about any college she would have wanted for free. Kinda sad.
     
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