Sports360AZ
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.
I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving week- I know I’m grateful for Arizona high school sports, and to be able to blow off a little steam by writing these columns, and I hope parents around the state have been able to learn from them… or at the very least, have been entertained.
As fall sports season comes to a close, and the football championships conclude- let’s talk about loyalty.
Every time I turned on the TV, or scrolled TikTok this week, I saw news about the college football coaching carousel… mostly about Lane Kiffin deciding to leave his team (Ole MIss) in the middle of a potential national championship run for more money and a supposed better opportunity at LSU.
I saw pundit after pundit decry Lane Kiffin for his lack of loyalty, but if you’re around youth sports as much as I am, the idea that people still think loyalty exists is the biggest surprise. It’s dog eat dog out here, and that system is rewarded time and time again.
Just look at the teams left in the Arizona high school football playoffs. You have two head coaches in the Open Division that left their previous school for the opportunity they have now. One of the starting QBs is on his second high school. The other is on his second college commitment, and the head coach of that second college just took a job elsewhere.
In the 6A championship, you have one QB who transferred from another school in the city to play for a head coach who dropped down from the collegiate level to take the opportunity he has now. On the other side, you have a QB that is starting because last year’s starter took another opportunity to play in California right before the season.
Don’t get me wrong- I don’t have a problem with any of this, and I’m not insinuating that it’s an issue, or immoral. I’m just confused as to how we’re surrounded all day, every day, with people leaving one opportunity behind for another like they’re George of the Jungle swinging from vine to vine, and we’re still surprised every time a coach or QB or star position player makes a move that will benefit them.
In case you think I’m insulting the players and coaches I mentioned above, I plan on having the same conversation I have with my kids every December. It goes like this:
-How have your academic, athletic, or extracurricular goals changed in the last year?
-Does your current school/social situation help you meet those goals?
-If not, what adjustments can we make to get those things back on track in our current environment?
-If a change does need to be made, what is it, and is it feasible?
You can accuse me of letting the monkeys run the zoo, but our kids aren’t animals. They’re capable of critical thinking, outlining achievement benchmarks, and sacrificing comfort for opportunity. I don’t shield them from that process, because in a world where everyone is looking out for themselves, you have to keep your head on a swivel.
Now, have my kids transferred schools? Not in the last 5 years. All of my kids attend public schools in the district we’re zoned for- but that doesn’t mean we haven’t considered it.
And truly, the only time the word loyalty entered our thought process is when asking the question, “are we being loyal to our values in this process?”
I’m more than aware that other parents and coaches might go about things in a very different way- or at the very least, the personal value that they show the most loyalty to is “maximum opportunity.” Honestly, if that’s the case- best of luck to them, the thing about athletics is that as much as we do to take shortcuts or skirt the system, eventually, it becomes merit based.
You certainly can’t accuse any of the coaches or players playing in this week’s championships of taking shortcuts this season. They each had to earn everything to have the opportunity they have this weekend- and the way they will display loyalty to each other this weekend is by going all out until the clock reads 00:00.
That’s an opportunity that Lane Kiffin gave away, and it won’t bother me if this particular short cut in his coaching career ends up being a dead end… but one thing I refuse to do is act surprised that a prominent man on a national stage acts just like the little league and pop warner dads I’m around every single day.
-The Unknown Parent
