Walk into the bagel store this morning and meet the father of one of my players on the line. A professorial type, he reads a lot, always hanging around the car park at practice with a book in his hand. Obviously, this is the worst kind of parent you want involved in your team. Of course, he loiters outside waiting to ambush me.
‘Coach, I was wondering if you’ve come across the 10,000 hours theory?’ he asks.
‘No, I can’t say I have, is it some Dutch or European way of teaching soccer?’ I reply in the tired voice of somebody sick of getting unsolicited advice from know-it-alls who read too much.
‘No, it’s the accepted scientific wisdom that a kid must spend 10,000 hours practicing in order to master a sport,’ he says.
‘Oh right,’ I say, feigning interest while making a mental note to draft a new coaching commandment about avoiding bookish parents at all costs.
‘So, I was wondering if you think my son has a chance of making it as a professional if he puts in 10,000 hours over the next few years.’
What can I say? His son is hopeless. A benchwarmer’s benchwarmer. So bad that after nearly a year I still haven't figured out which of his feet is supposed to be the good one. Do I lie and I tell his father what he wants to hear? Absolutely not.
‘Eh, eh, let me put it this way. If your boy practiced for 10,000 years he wouldn’t make it as a professional soccer player.’
‘You’re a funny man,’ he says, slapping me on the shoulder playfully before walking away laughing aloud.
A strange way for him to react. He did know I was being serious, didn’t he?
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