you’ll never know unless you try

I’m not a fan of the parenting “wisdom” that tells children, “You can be anything you want to be if you just try hard enough.”  It sounds great and inspirational; it’s just not true.  Kim gives me grief about being a dream-crusher, but I’d rather feed my children some reality before they get down the road.  I do, however, want to instill into my children a healthy value of the try.

Because you just never know what’s possible until you try.

Take my friend Kevin for example.  Like 103% of the boys in USAmerica (that stat may be inflated, my fact-checkers are looking into it) he wanted to be a professional baseball player, and a pitcher, to boot.  He had the size (he’s 6’8″ for cryin out loud) and desire, but only pitched 3+1/3 innings in high school.  For you non-baseball types, that’s 10 outs.  In his entire high school career he pitched about half a game (7 innings in high school games).  For whatever reason, the coach just didn’t put him in the game.

So he took his cleats and went home.  But unlike most of us who get rejected, when he got home, he went to work.  He threw countless pitches to his dad in the backyard.  He got up early and went to the gym before school.  He didn’t get the work that he wanted with his high school team, so he worked on his own.  He believed that he could play this game.

Of course, with no high school baseball resume, he got no offers to play ball in college.  Kev walked onto the field at a local junior college, which his parents paid for, and talked to the coach.  They had no idea who he was or what he could do.  He must’ve been convincing, because they let him play.  He threw 16+1/3 innings out of the bullpen as the closer (the pitcher who finishes games) in his freshman year.