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MY SON IS A FRESHMAN in high school, and I’m beginning to be more purposeful about his baseball aspirations. But after dropping $85 on a one-hour pitching lesson, I was wondering, was my money well spent?
My search for an answer began with the Netflix series Receiver. I tuned in to see football player George Kittle, a former University of Iowa Hawkeye and bigtime professional wrestling fan. Kittle was kind enough to send autographed memorabilia for a softball fundraiser we had a few years ago. He’s now a star for the San Francisco 49ers.
I learned about Kittle through a mutual friend, Steve Manders, who was a walk-on for the Hawkeyes for three years before he began professional wrestling. During my wrestling career, I tagged with Steve for a period of time, and learned a lot about hard work, grit and perseverance from being around him.
While I watched Receiver to learn more about Kittle, the Netflix series was also my introduction to Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. What caught my eye was his dad, John Brown, a former Mr. Universe. I subsequently listened to the father’s podcast and interviews. It became clear he had strong opinions about parenting, including how parents need to take charge of the direction of their children’s lives.
It was eye-opening. I always like to have my beliefs questioned. And when someone has results, I’ll listen with an open mind. And oh my, does the older Brown have opinions:
I remember hearing World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Hall of Fame broadcaster Jim Ross speak. He said that, if all you do is the standard amount of practice or work, you’re going to get the standard amount of success. When I heard that, I immediately thought of my formative years in wrestling, when I was attending wrestling school in Dallas.
Alex Pourteau was the guy who got into the ring and trained with us. He showed us physically how to do the moves and execute them. One day, a male stripper came in and trained with us. He wasn’t part of our class. But he worked out with us and, when he walked out the door, he handed Alex some money and said, “Thank you, brother.”
I thought nothing of that moment until I heard Jim Ross’s speech. We only went to wrestling school on Wednesday for an hour or two. I did the minimum. I was struggling to gain traction, to get my first match. I was stuck and couldn’t think of a way to get better. After hearing Ross speak, it was crystal clear how I could have improved, how I could have gotten in more practice.
I could have taken an extra $50 or $75, and asked Pourteau if we could train on Monday and Thursday evening as well. Just me and him. Money was tight, but I could have got a second job and come up with the extra cash.
Pourteau was signed by the WWE a few years later and was an excellent young wrestler. I would have improved immensely by working out with him one-on-one. But my mind wasn’t there at that time, it didn’t get creative when it ran into obstacles. I was struggling. It was the first time in my life I was pursuing something that I really cared about but where I wasn’t succeeding. I didn’t know how to handle that.
As I’ve spoken to other parents about the price of travel baseball, clinics and lessons, all I get is a shrug of the shoulders—an attitude that it’s the price to be paid if you want to support your kids. When folks ask me how I handle the bad tenants who inevitably come along and trash a unit or don’t pay their rent, I give them the same look I get from these parents. It’s the cost of doing business. It can’t be escaped and it’ll happen at some point, no matter what precautions you take.
Many parents say that, if you travel any distance for a game, you’re easily looking at several hundred dollars for a weekend once you factor in gas, meals, hotels and tournament fees. It’s understandable why they have little sympathy for me and the $85 I spent on a quality one-on-one session with a Triple-A baseball pitcher, one who played for four years at a Division 1 college. It’s the price you pay for excellent coaching.
And besides the technical skills my son learned, how much access does a typical high school freshman get to a world-class athlete? What are the intangibles that kids get from spending time with those who have worked hard at their craft, excelled in a difficult endeavor and graduated with a degree from a first-class university? My son’s trainer is a great young man: positive, encouraging, a tremendous work ethic and well mannered. My son has played with a few players who were the opposite: arrogant, not helpful to the young guys, lazy and entitled.
I’ve been around some of the greats in pro wrestling, along with many other wrestling pros. I’ve come to learn that these interactions provide valuable lessons.
So, I’ll continue to spend money on my son’s baseball lessons. I’m going to keep listening to John Brown and his message of tough love: “There’s no such thing as lazy kids, only lazy parents.” There are moments when I’m listening to him that it feels like he’s talking directly to me and the lazy parenting I’ve been guilty of in the past.
I often simply dropped off my son at practice, and expected the coach to transform my son and his teammates into solid ball players. But that’s a lot to ask from one or two coaches. Now, I’m doing what I can, such as hitting the weights with him, cooking better meals, and getting in extra reps on the weekends at the batting cages and ball diamonds. And opening up the wallet as well.
Juan Fourneau’s goal is to retire at age 55. When he isn’t at his manufacturing job, he enjoys reading and writing about personal finance, investing and other interests. Juan, who is married with two children, retired from the ring after wrestling on the independent circuit for more than 25 years. He wrestled as a Mexican Luchador under the name Latin Thunder. Follow Juan on Twitter @LatinThunder1, visit his website and check out his previous articles.
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As a 49ers fan and a USC alum, you had me at George Kittle and Amon-Ra St Brown.
My kids were musicians/theater people and not athletes—our Labrador Retriever, descended from champion hunters, was by far the best athlete in the family—but we invested a lot of time and money into their lessons, practice, shows, and choirs. I did hit a wall with my younger daughter, though. She was and still is very musically talented, an excellent singer, and picked up instruments quickly and easily, compared to her also-talented older sister. But she was so resistant to practicing the piano, and it became such a battleground for our relationship, that I finally let her give it up. I struggled with it at the time—she’s too talented to let her quit, and she’s too young to make a good decision about this—and still wonder if I took the easy way out. Parenting is tough.
Great article, Juan. Always love your point of view. Chris
Thank you for checking it out!
Great to hear from you again, Juan. How’s your retirement goal coming along?
Thank you! Slow and steady. As a parent of a Junior and Freshman in high school I’m also coming to the realization that their choices on college will dictate my retirement by a couple years. But that’s fine, their grades are outstanding so I want to support them as much as possible.
In addition to continuously developing talent and the execution of, I’d add that teaching young people how to be professional in life skills is equally important and a lifelong journey that they hopefully stay open to and practice. Sounds like your son is blessed to have good family coaching.
Thank you for the kind words. I agree on being professional in life skills!
I enjoyed this article. I can’t offer any parenting experience, but I’ll say $85 for excellent private coaching is a good deal, and well spent for someone who’s coachable and is working to get better.
After a few sessions it became apparent it was a good deal. And I think my son will look back on this off season work and reflect on the things he learned for years. And honestly as many of us do, an opportunity that could have been maximized even more. But that’s all part of the “process” as we say. Thanks for reading!
Smart dad!
You might heartily enjoy (and find your thinking validated in) the documentary “First Position” on what it takes to become a world-class ballet dancer (currently on several streaming services). For the dancers. For their parents.
Choose any endeavor, look to the collection of people at the peak and several rungs down from there. You’ll find talent, passion and support.
When my third-grade twins asked if they could go to an after-school baton twirling class, my only comment after figuring I could handle the cost was, “Sure, as long as I don’t have to drive you anywhere.” Was this my choice of athletic endeavors? No way. Did they have natural talent? Questionable. Was it the optimal use of my limited discretionary funds to apply to child-rearing? Arguable.
As it turned out, their after-school instructor was herself a national class athlete with a world class athlete of a coach who soon was my twins’ coach too. By happenstance we had stumbled into an opportunity to experience world class athletics and competition for the next dozen years, many where sports competitions consumed most “vacation” time and money that might have gone for a new car. As the years rolled along it was obvious how rare and valuable this opportunity, seeing other young athletes travel from across the state and country to train with “our” coach. (Imagine life as a teenage performer on nationally televised games, or weekly in a stadium before thousands of fans.This is college for feature twirlers, albeit mine decided to spend their college hours in studios and labs instead.)
How rare the chance to learn and compete at such a level. And what is the value as a parent of offering youngsters a chance to explore the limits of their natural and developed talents? To be world-class “fit”?
I didn’t make them continue in this sport, and one even dropped out for a year before returning for two final seasons. This was their call, made fresh each year.
It is a natural bias to look back at how we’ve spent money and think we’ve made reasonable choices. Still, I’m glad to look back and see that I was willing to give them a chance to be contenders.
Thank you for the comment, I found the documentary and look forward to seeing it. Your last paragraph is good to hear and one I hear from many parents whose kids are raised and out of the house. They rarely regret the time, traveling and money they invested in their kids extracurricular activities, sports or passions.
Parenting, whether as a mother or father, isn’t an easy job. This is especially true when one of your children seems to be more talented than average either in sports, music, or art. While we always want our kids to have every opportunity to succeed, some careers have such a tiny number of people reach the top relative to the number of aspirants, that the chance of actually getting there is remote.
In music for example, there are around 137 symphony orchestras with a budget of $2.5M or more, able to pay their members well. To put this into context think about the number of kids walking home from elementary school carrying a violin or some other instrument. There are a couple of thousand orchestras, so there are outlets for musical energy, even if it turns out to be an avocation.
My younger son became interested in music in middle school and was playing the clarinet. Eventually, there were lessons, and finally a $4000 instrument. He did well, however, eventually, when he was in high school, a private teacher advised him that because he hadn’t started with the clarinet when he was four years old, he was never really going to be good enough to make it as a career.
Fortunately, he was also smart and good at math and there were other directions he could go to succeed in life.
My other older son was also interested in music, played 4 instruments, had a band, etc. He started university as a music major, but quickly grew disenchanted, and is now a doctor.
As a parent, it is hard to know if your child is the one in one hundred thousand, or one in a million with truly world class talent. For most of us, there will be a time when we realize that he or she isn’t that one. We then have to help them understand how the world works and that there are alternatives..,,,,
Thank you for sharing your personal family stories. $4000 is a lot for an instrument, something I never would have thought of as I see my daughters orchestra concerts and some of the students who pursue their music with a serious purpose.
As my son’s trainer almost apologized for his fee several times I simply told him I just wanted my son to work hard at something he had some talent and passion for consistently during his high school years. I hope he can look back at these years and have some lessons he can draw upon when he faces the inevitable resistance life provides when learning any craft, career, practice or job.
Many kids do well in private schools. I know a few teachers who have worked in both public and private schools that have told me the parents of private school students are, as a group, more involved than those of public school parents. I think this supports your contention that parents matter.
I can’t sing but music was always present in the house. Somehow my daughters had a natural ability to sing, and enjoyed acting in community theater. We invested in voice lessons from a qualified coach. To this day my kids are two of the finest singers I have ever heard. In 1988 we somehow we heard that Les Miserables was holding auditions for young Cosette, so off to New York we went. Long story made short, my age 8 daughter ended up touring with the company for a year. I’d agree that the money invested in the vocal coach was well spent.
Having said that, I think overzealous parents can inflict harm onto their kids. Parents must be careful not to cross that line.
What an amazing opportunity and experience for your family! It’s amazing what some private lessons can provide in any field.
Thankfully baseball was a sport I played but it was never my passion. It has helped keep me from being a bit overzealous. Also seeing how talented my sons trainer is, how hard he has worked for so long drives home the difficulty it is to make it the MLB.
Dan – that last part speaks volumes. Don’t cross that line to overzealousness.
Hopefully, parents would be zealous, but not overzealous.
Juan, Your money is well spent if your son is enjoying his sports journey. Youth sports should always be about the kid’s journey and not ours as parents. Hopefully, you enjoy watching his games, catch some balls with him and take him to batting cages for hitting practice.
I wrote an honest book about youth sports and the challenges here:
https://www.amazon.com/Win-Youth-Sports-Game-Ordinary/dp/1510763457/
More about the benefits and cost of youth sports in Humble Dollar here:
https://humbledollar.com/2019/03/no-free-ride/
Good luck and enjoy his journey as a child’s sports experience can be one of the great joys of parenting. One last thing specifically for young pitchers is to make sure his Coach properly manages pitch count.
It’s been one of the most fun parts of being a dad. The time after practices or workouts has always been fun, meals afterwards and music on the drive home. The ups and downs as well. He was a heavy kid, slow, and didn’t get picked on a few travel teams. But his dedication and interest in the game kept him going and as he has matured physically and hit the weight room he is looking more like the good ball player he always was.
From a physical therapy perspective, I want to highlight John’s last statement. Staying healthy is essential to a long and successful athletic career.
It’s been interesting to see how much of my son’s one hour session is dedicated to warm up, athletic movements, drills and not just slinging a ball. As a parent spending $$ I could see some folks wondering why there isn’t more throwing. But arm care is essential for all pitchers, especially young ones.