The Wins Mean Nothing If They Lose Themselves

In every game, there’s more at play than points on the board. There are failures that still sting, wins that came too late, the sucker punch of injury, the existential spiral that follows, and the brief euphoria of a clutch moment that feels like redemption… until it doesn’t.

Where an athlete finds themselves along this emotional and cognitive spectrum changes constantly. Some days they’re resilient and unshakeable. Other days they’re fighting off unraveling. And let’s not pretend this is only a young athlete’s problem. Adults just cover their own performance wounds with better camouflage. We use careers, relationships, and perfectly curated Facebook posts to mask the internal battles.

The variables that shape a young athlete’s inner world are infinite: upbringing, culture, coaching styles, peer influence, locker rooms, social media fame, and we can’t forget the  beloved referees, who may or may not be living into their own volatile or fragile ego.

But there’s one variable so consistently present, I’d be negligent not to name it: parents.

So, parents, this one’s for you.

Whether you’ve connected the dots or not, your voice echoes in your child’s mind like background music they never chose but can’t seem to turn off. The tone of your encouragement, the sharpness of your criticism, the silence on the drive home, all become the architectural blueprint for their self worth.

What I hear from athletes, time and time again, are internal monologues that sound like:

“I’m not confident.”
“I always mess up.”
“What if I’m not good enough?”
“I don’t know why I can’t score.”
“Dad said I wasn’t trying hard enough but I was playing hard.”
“Nothing I do is ever enough.”
“My parents are hard on me because they want me to do well.”

These aren’t fresh thoughts. They’re the chorus written from someone else’s expectations. They’re the residue of long forgotten fears. Narratives recycled from generation to generation.

What I hear from parents is a different kind of soundtrack:

“He’s just not aggressive enough.”
“She gets too emotional.”
“He shuts down when things get hard.”
“She doesn’t work hard enough. I don’t think she wants it badly enough.”
“I can’t get him to shoot.”
“They don’t have that killer instinct.”
“I don’t know what to do with her.”
Or the classic, “They don’t understand what it takes to be great.”

These statements often lead to the comments made to an athlete on the car ride home. It has become a sacred rite of passage in the Church of Post Game Parental Disappointment. At times it’s a full play by play breakdown of when and how the athlete underperformed that lasts from the moment your foot hits the gas and continues an hour after you’ve been home. Other times it is no words at all. Just the deafening hum of the A/C, the smell of stale french fries, and the slow, painful realization that the silence screams louder than any halftime speech.

Maybe Dad’s chewing his gum like it wronged him. Maybe Mom’s offering feedback disguised as compliments: “You looked… well you played really hard.”

Whether it’s spoken through gritted teeth or stewed in awkward silence while waiting for a chicken sandwich, the message plants itself quietly, deeply. Like emotional crabgrass. It grows roots in the athlete’s soul. It’s tangled, stubborn, hard to weed out years later when they’re wondering why every missed shot feels like a complete dismantling of their spirit.

Welcome to the longest fifteen minutes of character development known to man.

These moments become the interior design of your child’s self conception and self perception. For us who have stepped into deep self work we realize these were ripples caused by other peoples own internal storms.

Parenting an athlete is a paradox wrapped in a riddle. There’s a fine line between guiding your kid toward their fullest potential and steamrolling their soul in the name of ‘I’m just trying to make them better.’ Parenting is not coaching. It’s not micromanaging. It’s not branding. It’s a lifelong relationship in which your child, especially the ones who seem stoic or aloof, are quietly wondering:

“Am I more than my performance?”

So let me be as direct as possible.

Your words matter.
Your tone matters.
Your body language matters.

Your child can sense performative parenting like sharks smell blood. Except the blood is your unresolved insecurity. They’ve grown up in a world of algorithm fed filters and fake affirmations. They know when your pep talk is more about your disappointment than their development.

Here’s the part they don’t put in the parenting blogs:

You must learn to hold your child accountable to their goals and giving them the freedom to fail, all while communicating clearly, consistently, and unconditionally, that their worth has absolutely nothing to do with their stat line.

Because let’s kill the myth right now: There is no such thing as “tough love.”

There is tough, and there is love. They are not the same. And trying to mix the two creates neither.

And for the love of all things sacred, stop selling “mental toughness” like it’s the holy grail. Like you are or were the epitome of it. Most of what’s labeled as mental toughness today is just repressed emotion in a compression sleeve. We are trying to keep the muscle from tearing so we can get another bucket in the scorebook. Screw their health. They’re getting tough! When misused it doesn’t forge resilience, it breeds shame. It’s like duct taping your emotions in the trunk and calling it leadership.

So instead, teach them to feel without drowning, to fail without imploding, to process and recover without having to pretend they're okay when they’re clearly not.

We don’t need more emotionally detached competitors. We need authentic humans who know how to carry both fire and fragility.

There are a few keys to helping your kid feel empowered by your words and actions. One of the most significant gifts you can give your child is the space to find their own passion. Don’t hand it to them with your fingerprints all over it. Let them stumble into it, wrestle with it, fall in love with it on their own terms. If they choose baseball, the very sport you’ve spent a lifetime not understanding why anyone would love, then learn to love it because they do. Let their joy teach you something new.

Their dreams are not your second chance. It’s not a redemption arc for your unlived storylines. Praise God for that. Because what a tragedy it would be to raise a child who can succeed, but not feel. Who can achieve success, but not dream freely. Let their passion be a fire of their own making. Not one you lit, named, and insisted they keep burning for the rest of their life.

Your job isn’t to carve their path.

It’s to help clear the overgrown brush, walk beside them, and remind them, lovingly, that the journey is theirs.

The other piece I would encourage you to do is to have these two phrases embossed on the front of your parenting playbook:

“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know.”

Said with sincerity, these statements are not signs of weakness. They are blueprints for trust.

“I’m sorry” teaches accountability. It tells your kid that mistakes aren’t moral failings. They’re simply part of being human. And you, their parent, are just as human as they are.

“I don’t know” models humility and curiosity. It shows them that not having all the answers doesn’t disqualify you. It makes you real. It makes growth possible.

Lastly, don’t be the parent that is unwilling to examine yourself. In the past you may have found yourself allergic to reflection, apology, or change. I can't express or encourage you enough to step into this work because if you resist you’re not just limiting your relationship with your child, there’s a high likelihood that you are shaping their performance from the shadows with inherited fears, expectations, and insecurities that were never theirs to carry.

So don’t just develop their skills. Help them discover their voice. Their identity. Their joy. Don’t tell them who they are. Walk beside them as they figure it out for themselves.

As they navigate this road, celebrate their victories like a diehard fan, not a scout analyzing their game. And when the losses come, as they inevitably will, don’t rush to fill the silence. Sit with them in it. Let your quiet presence speak what words can’t. Resist the reflex to fix, solve, or analyze. Show them that life, with all its imperfect radiance, holds both triumph and failure. And neither has the power to separate them from your love.

Because sometimes, what your child needs isn’t another post game analysis or your surefire roadmap back to greatness.

Sometimes they just need your arms around them, and the quiet, sacred knowing that you’re still there with no conditions attached.