Football, commitment….where are the dads?
Football is here! I enjoyed the opening season it was awesome. I love football more than golf, but golf doesn’t hurt so I can still play that and be competitive. This past Sunday was fun for me because I’m a die hard San Francisco 49er fan and ready for what looks to be another great season.
I went to lunch with my nephew Tuesday to catch up on his career in coaching. He is an Offensive Coordinator for one of our local high school teams and is doing an outstanding job. He and I have been meeting for the last few years working on his dream and what God’s purpose is in his life, so I guess you could say that I have been coaching him.
As we talked about football and life he mentioned something to me that I just had to put down and share with others. I am in the business of working with men and motivating them to be the man they are called to be along with that includes being a father and leader in their homes.
My nephew said to me, “I feel like I’m coaching a bunch of girls”, I asked why, “they act like girls because they’re being raised by girls, not women, but girls”. I asked him out of all of the kids on the team, how many of them had dads, and told me, “only one”. He told me that he was also, “the only kid that was getting good grades and showed respect for the coaches and didn’t have a filthy mouth.”
Now don’t get me confused with being a person against women, because that is not what this is about. Thank God for mom’s…I think women should have equal rights and it’s not their job to be a father. But this is about absent dads, deadbeat dads, abusive dads, heck, dads that don’t want to take on the responsibility of being a father. My nephew and I both understand the lack of fathering because we both went through it and understand the problems that it has caused in today’s culture. This is a perfect example of what it means to go fatherless.
We are both concerned about the future of football. In our community that happens to be a huge football community we have seen a significant decrease in football participation. Last year my boy played at another school because only seven kids signed up from his school and there were only three teams in our division as opposed to six or seven in the years past. His middle school is the now the biggest, by the amount of players, in our school district, which was once an average number of kids for all of the middle schools. His school is now playing outside of the district to play other schools with a similar size program.
The NFL has the largest margin of viewership of any sport. It is approximately 48% viewership with the next closet being college basketball at something like 18%. So why is it seemingly slowing down at the grade school and middle school ranks…I’m fairly confident in saying this, a lack of participation from dads. Moms don’t play football. That is not what they are designed to do. Today’s moms are playing the role of dad and mom and the studies are out, it doesn’t work. Mostly because the moms never had dads themselves, so they don’t have a clue what it looks like. It also might be that women aren’t men…just sayin!
I know there are moms out there that are doing a great job and the ones that are struggling is not necessarily their fault. Moms aren’t made to be dads. Boys especially, need a dad or at least a positive male figure constantly in their lives to model how men are to be men, but that positive role model still can not replace a father.
Friends we are beginning to see a generation coming up that will not know how to parent and live under conviction of commitment to a family. It’s seen on the football field, no commitment to team, no commitment to authority and certainly no commitment to sexual behavior and a host of other behaviors.
If you are reading this and you are a dad but no commitment to your kids, family and wife, shame on you! There is no excuse and you know it. I am sick and tired of the crazy stories of “well you don’t understand, she’s _____ and she did____” Look, you married her and said, “For better and for worse”, stand up and be a man or it will get worse!
I work with men at our local mission on a weekly basis. I have been doing it for over ten years now and the stories are almost always the same…98% of the men have no father. 98% of them are always fatherless or have a dad that physically abused them, sexually abused them, neglected them, or gave them their first experience with drugs and sometimes all of the above.
Men, it’s time to step up and be a father. I have made this statement a number of times and I’ll leave you with it. “Any male can be a dad, but it takes a man to be a father”!
Here is some curriculum that our men have used effectively!
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