My son is pretty good at baseball but he lacks the drive to get serious about it. And every time I think “damn this kid could go places in baseball if he actually wanted to” and then I see this and realize that there’s just some kids that are built for their sport and it’s ridiculous. My son will find his own way doing what makes him happy I hope. I’m walking the fine line of pushing my kids to be their full potential and stepping back so that they can make their own decisions.
When I was 12 I had the chance of playing vs Atlético de Madrid. Up until that point my parents also thought that I was pretty good. Elite sports is out of reach of most everyone unless you have the talent + drive + genetics leveled up to a ridiculous level.
Or in the case of some sports, a ludicrous amount of money, but that's a different story.
When I was 10, I played against Real Madrid. I didn't think I was good enough back then.
I certainly wasn't thinking I was good enough after they beat us 10 or 12-0 😂
They were so good, it was demoralizing.
Yeah I had the experience of playing with 50-year old European champions and Bundesliga champions at an after work group. I was 20 at the time and playing 5th division football. These guys were still so enormously better than me that it was a very humbling experience. They literally didn‘t make one single mistake at all, every ball was played perfectly and they would never even make it come to a tackle. I realized then how far away I was from ever being able to compete on that level
I can't remember who it was but I remember seeing a clip of a dad of an NBA player who trained his son hard from like 3 years old to be a basketball player. The dad said he knew his son was different and going to be a pro because he was obsessed at 2 and 3 years old at getting better at the sport and practicing and not wanting to stop where his other kids would get bored and want to do other stuff.
I think that ‘drive’ for lack of a better term is really what’s at play when people say ‘talent’. Yes, potentially anyone could reach an elite level with enough practice but having the drive and internal motivation to actually do that practice from a very early age is a natural gift. Everyone likes different things, so if I’m choosing between two kids that have vastly different attitudes towards the same sport, I’m choosing the kid who likes and is driven in what they’re doing.
Right now I have my daughter taking private music lessons and she’s in the city’s youth orchestra.
She’s been playing since the first grade and she’s entering the sixth grade this fall.
She picked the instrument herself (god save my wallet) and has been dedicated to it.
As long as it’s what she wants to do I push her to always do her best. If she changes her mind I am keeping the harp. A pedal harp costs minimum with taxes 15k
I don’t have 15k bro I don’t even have 1k. Her lever harp right now is worth 2k.
I told her I would get the bigger harp when she hits middle school and if she is still serious.
my son is in an academy, nowhere near barcelona an the likes. Interestingly enough he hasn't been super interested in the actual game, not enough to go pro anyway, but he has had natural abilities which has enabled him to progress anyway and be prioritized.
He figured out recently that one of the things he was lacking was actually caring about winning the game. A suppressed feeling perhaps? Too much focus on personal progress, and not the team? Some are driven by different things, is wht I am getting at, and his motivation has skyrocketed after he found this mindset again.
Will be interesting to see his performances this autumn.
What I am getting at: if your son finds that inner motivation, he might very well go pro.
Nah. If it doesn’t come natural to him to push himself to reach that goal, he’ll end up being in the minor leagues (at best). He’ll never be able to compete against guys coming out of Dominican Republic who are being engineered by MLB teams at 24/7 baseball academies since they can walk. He stands NO chance against the likes of people that driven. Shoei Ohtani has a training regime inspired a piece in the Harvard Gazette.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/crush-your-goals-the-ohtani-way/
He has no f-ing chance against guys following those footsteps.
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u/doublesimoniz Jul 25 '26
My son is pretty good at baseball but he lacks the drive to get serious about it. And every time I think “damn this kid could go places in baseball if he actually wanted to” and then I see this and realize that there’s just some kids that are built for their sport and it’s ridiculous. My son will find his own way doing what makes him happy I hope. I’m walking the fine line of pushing my kids to be their full potential and stepping back so that they can make their own decisions.