Bad Dad

LaVar Ball the basketball dad says he could beat Michael Jordan in a game of one-on-one, “with one hand tied behind my back,” no less.  Personally, I’d make sure Jordan was ten years in the ground before bragging like that.

Ball, the father of three potential basketball stars (or busts), can’t or won’t stop with outrageous claims.  Anyone who’s been around youth sports knows the type.  When Clare played in college, I had to listen to a father talk about how widely recruited his daughter was in high school; I soon learned to stay away.  But the saddest dad was the one who delivered his son to practice in a Chrysler Imperial.

Clare had just started sixth grade, and I was her fall-ball team coach.  I was short a player and for whatever reason was given Cy (not his real name).  The dad told me how great his kid the pitcher was, what he’d done in travel ball, blah, blah, blah.  Then Cy proceeded to knock the glove off my catcher’s hand.  And he did to another after that.  So, it wasn’t all b.s.

As I recall, Cy struck out 27 of the 29 batters he faced that October.  He was hard to catch and almost impossible to hit.  In batting practice, the only hitter who could make regular contact off him was…you guessed it, Clare.  If only that had humbled the kid.  Instead, he was content to get by on what talent he had, which diminished a little more each year.  By the end of high school, he hadn’t done anything to attract a whole bunch of interest (that, and/or his grades sucked), so it was on to junior college, where his career officially ended.  Did I mention my daughter is employed fulltime at one of the leading business schools in the country?

Too bad cautionary tales are wasted on the LaVar Balls of the world.