Coaching Clinics
Check out our list of instate coaching clinics here.Article: Kids Nowadays
Do you remember a time when a player would run through a wall for a coach? Do you remember when kids were actually respectful to adults? Do your remember when they dressed better and listened to music that wasn’t vulgar? If you do, what year was that?It seems that kids nowadays aren’t held in high regard. They are often compared unfavorably to kids from generations past. But is this fair? Have kids really changed? If you can remember when a kid would just do what he was told without asking any questions, then you must have a good memory. Consider what Duffy Daugherty, Michigan State’s legendary football coach, wrote in his 1974 autobiography:
“In earlier times, the coach could operate much like an old-fashioned father. He simply told his children what to do, and they did it without questioning him. It was incomprehensible that they would ask “why?” It was none of their damned business why. He said it, and that was the law of the land. Coaches had pretty much that same kind of authority.”
Can you believe that Duff Daugherty was saying the same thing over 30 years ago that many coaches say today? We are still left wondering just what year it was when kids would run through that proverbial wall?
Maybe a closer look at the music that kids listen to would give us some idea of when times changed After all, today’s singers can sometimes be seen wearing make-up, acting bizarre and singing about sex and drugs. That didn’t go on back in the good old days did it? Well, not unless you listened to bands like Kiss who came to Cadillac all painted up back in 1975. Their lyrics like “can I take you home, there’s just so much we could do” were pretty easy to decipher. Around the same time Detroit born Alice Cooper was wearing makeup and singing about “Dead Babies”. Fast-forward to the late 70’s and you can find questionable lyrics such as those in Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine.” What about before the 70’s, perhaps the 50’s or 60’s? Remember Fat’s Domino who sang about how he “found his thrill on blueberry hill” in 1956? Well that song actually hit number one in 1940 when it was sang by Glen Miller. Do we need to keep going back?
There is no doubt that times have changed. Things that used to be subtle, like lyrics about sex and drugs, now leave little to the imagination. Perhaps kids have changed some too. But let’s remember that we adults have also changed a lot since we were kids. I’m not saying that we should accept inappropriate behavior from adolescents, however it may help us work with them if we come to some understanding of their behavior. We can begin by realizing that we were once a lot like them. Perhaps we wouldn’t run through that brick wall either.
Sources:
Duffy: An autobiography by Duffy Daugherty with Dave Diles
www.darklyrics.com / www.azlyrics.com / www.rockhall.com /www.oldielyrics.com / www.history-of-rock.com
