I can’t say how I’m going to raise my kids because I’m too self-absorbed at this point in my life to think about anything or anyone but my own well-being. But I think I’ll find the happy medium between Participation Trophy and Adrian Peterson.
I empathize with parents these days. It’s gotta be difficult to instill values and discipline in your kid when you can’t lock them in the basement without food or water when they don’t score a touchdown in Pop Warner. Parenting is a fickle beast, and at the very least, I just hope I do enough so that my son doesn’t put a 26.2 sticker on his bumper or wear weight lifting gloves to the gym.
I think all prospective parents can take a page out of Nick Saban Sr.’s playbook when dealing with a piss any kid who hasn’t yet won five national championships. At the weekly Wednesday news conference, Saban told a story about how getting dumped when he was a teenager helped mold him into the man he is today.
When asked about his Alabama players from the Houston area who’ll be close to home on Saturday at Texas A&M after the devastation the hurricane brought, Saban recalled a story about getting dumped as a teenager and how to avoid problems mounting on each other.
“It’s kind of like my dad used to tell me when I used to go to work at the station, my girlfriend broke up with so I was treating the customers bad,” Saban said. “He said ‘What’s wrong with you today?’ I said ‘My girlfriend broke up with me.’ He said ‘Well, you’ve got one problem, but if you keep treating the customers bad you’re going to have two more. I’m going to fire you and then I’m going to whip your ass for getting fired.
“So, you’re not going to have a girlfriend, you’re not going to have a job and you’re going to get your tail whipped.'”
In conclusion: the Hurricane sucked, but losing would suck double. Winning cures all. Except hurricane damage.
[h/t AL]