Have you ever driven 75 miles an hour while changing out of your shirt and tie, talking with your boss on the Bluetooth and navigating the obstacle course called State Highway 114 like Dale Earnhardt Jr.?
If you’re a dad of a youth sports athlete, the answer is probably yes.
We’re really not trying to break the posted speed limits, but when practice is at 6:30pm and you leave Fort Worth at 5:45pm and it usually takes an hour to get home and the helicopter is in the shop getting detailed … well, you need to burn some serious rubber.
I’ve coached with dads who have to work past midnight because they begged out of work early to get to practice. I’ve coached with dads who made three connections – which included knocking over a Boy Scout troop while sprinting through Chicago O’Hare – to make it back in time for the kid’s game. I’ve coached with dads who were surgeons, accountants, IT specialists, construction workers, Secret Service agents, firemen and teachers. They all shared a common bond that their kids come first.
No one made me work an hour from the house. It’s my choice to live in Oklahoma and drive to Fort Worth every day. OK, it’s not Oklahoma. Just feels that way coming from Flower Mound. Usually it’s a drive that allows me to detox from work. But when flag football, softball, or soccer practice is scheduled for 5:30pm on a Wednesday, it’s pedal to the metal, get the blank out of my way.
If you’re reading this and happen to be one of the fine members of the Fort Worth, H.E.B., Colleyville, Grapevine or Flower Mound police forces, please know this really is an emergency.)
But this is nothing new to working dads around the metroplex. Moving meetings, canceling conference calls, ducking out before the final whistle … dads work as hard at getting to their kids’ sporting events as they do putting food on the table.
There are plenty of words written about overbearing bully dads who steamroll everyone in their paths in order to get their young prodigy into a Division I college. And, yes, they’re out there and they’re out of their minds. But the majority of dads involved in sports are well-meaning and quite sane. If you hooked them up to a polygraph, I’m sure most of them have dreams of sitting courtside for their son’s NBA debut or watching their daughter’s Wimbledon singles championship. But most of us know our kids’ athletic prowess may just scratch the surface of a college scholarship at best and, at worst, they’ll learn some valuable lessons about how to properly prank their teammates.
I’m guilty as charged of such dreams. But I’m also realistic enough to understand that at 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, my bloodlines are closer to Rudy of Notre Dame fame than Troy Aikman. Sure, the doctor recently gave me some hopeful news that my 7-year-old son will grow to 6 feet, but unless he starts showing signs of becoming the next Dustin Pedroia, I’m pretty sure he’s going to have to get a college education the old-fashioned way … college loans, summer jobs and lottery numbers.
This is by no means taking moms for granted in the youth sports world. Moms often are the ones driving the young ones to and from practices. But MANifesto is about dads most of all, and every season I witness countless examples of unsung heroes. These are guys who would leap over a moat filled with alligators to catch the final half-hour of pee-wee football and would gladly trade any client golf round for a good hour instructing a bunch of 5-year-old girls which direction to kick the ball on their first soccer team.
So if you see a silver Maxima streak past you, know that it’s for the right reasons and please refrain from giving me the middle-finger salute. Thank you.
