The Unknown Parent- A Message to the Marvin Harrison Sr’s in AZ High School Sports

The Unknown Parent is a series of musings for Sports360AZ.com from an anonymous parent of athletes. The parent is an Arizona high school sports fan from their time involved in education, coaching and athletics. Want to have your questions or comments featured in future articles? Email TheUnknownParentAZ@gmail.com.

As Kevin Murray told interviewers at Kyler’s charity softball game, his goal is for Kyler to be known globally. But this week, in the midst of Kyler Murray launching a fashion line, he’s seemingly been benched for Jacoby Brissett. Every decent parent likely goes through the heartbreaks and disappointments of the life of an athlete alongside their child- even their adult child, but imagine how much more complicated those feelings get when you’ve entangled your worth and identity within your own son or daughter’s ability to perform to the level you’ve hyped them up to achieve. For all the noise Lavar Ball made about his sons’ greatness, his oldest son has missed over 250 games due to injury in the last 4 years, and has never made an All-Star team. And his youngest son loses two games for every one game he wins, assuming he’s not also injured. 

One pair of siblings you may or may not have heard of are the Newmans, Julian and Jaden. Their father, Jamie Newman, crafted their entire existence as young athletes, helping his son Julian and his daughter Jaden amass millions of followers on social media. His kids shattered records at small Florida schools where they were allowed to shoot at will. He even formed his own high school to help showcase their talents. The end result was modern-era social media stardom for both kids, but as they both reached college, would they live up to the branding?Julian Newman is a sophomore at NAIA Bethesda, where he averaged 6 minutes per game and shot 16% as a freshman last year.Jaden Newman is in her third year at Cal State LA, and has played 24 total minutes and scored one career basket. And Jamie Newman? He managed to secure himself a job as the women’s coach at Bethesda, where he made national news for losing yesterday, 103-13 to Cal State Northridge.

As a high school sports parent that has been around Arizona high school sports for a very long time, I’m always grateful that the extremely over-involved, brand-obsessed, parent has been few and far between… but we have had our share. And when you see a kid not live up to the hype of parents that have secured media coverage, hired documentary crews, moved their kids from school to school, and manufactured NIL deals… all you can do is pray for that child. 

Pray they can handle the backlash of other parents and fans messaging them on social media about not living up to the hype. 

Pray for the relationship they’re going to have to have with undoubtedly resentful parents. 

Pray for the high school coaches and educators that will likely be receiving the blame for failing to help an athlete achieve manufactured potential. 

What else can you do when you’ve watched yet another family put the cart before the horse only to be forced to reckon with the fact that the cart can’t drive itself.

I’m all for hype, if it’s substantive. If the media talks about your child’s great game, it’s deserved. But if you manufacture that hype, you might be able to also manufacture the blame for why it never came to fruition- but what will your child do? How will they deal with a decade of being told it’s “God’s Plan” for them to be an athletic standout, only to have their senior year end without a playoff appearance or collegiate destination to look forward to?  

It’s one thing when you have dads of NFL players injecting themselves into a conversation that isn’t about them, it’s another when your child hasn’t even had the opportunity to stand on their own two feet, and you’re out here planting the seeds of future adversity just to make their path easier today. 

I would say shame on you, but it’s clear some of these parents are immune to shame. 

-The Unknown Parent