How Friday Night Tykes Reminded Me of My Life
School’s out! Nothing to worry about but what team you are going to face next.
For those of you who do not know what the Netflix series Friday Night Tykes is all about, I am going to tell you what it is all about and the way it reminds me of my own life.
Friday Night Tykes is a documentary showcasing Texas youth football teams, where kids from the youngest age of 8 face grueling demands and pressure from coaches and parents to win. These kids face pressure from extreme training drills, heckling from fans, and balancing on-the-field expectations with living a typical childhood away from the gridiron. While a lot of these kids may be shy, not physically fit enough to do what the coaches ask of them, they are pushed and pulled through 90 to even over 100 degree weather where they battle it out to their max level. Could this be the closest thing to hell in real life?
From watching the coaches, I would describe them as ruthless, intense, gruesome, and any other word that deals un-enjoyable.
Now even though these practices and every day training is very brutal, that is not to say every kid doesn’t enjoy pushing themselves to the limit and battling it out with their teammates and opposing players. Some kids could view this as an opportunity in their life where they can just learn and learn and get better as a football player for the future by doing that in a way that is the most grueling and painful tasks to accomplish. Or they could view this as their parents wanting them to get out on the field and become stronger and build toughness.
I played basketball all through my life and I still am playing and even coaching today. Even though basketball and football may share a few similar details, such as you play with a ball, and you either throw or pass the ball to your teammates, the two sports also have a lot of differences. My personal experience is similar to Friday Night Tykes because I was pushed to my max level as well. I pushed myself through so much adversity and in the long run I approach many different things now thinking that I won’t give up and I will reach my goal.
My freshmen year of high school I thought there was nothing much I needed to work on. My thoughts were,”I’m strong enough, I’m quick enough.” Well, I was absolutely wrong. I found that out quick when my first day of conditioning occurred in the spring time outside on the track where we would run and run and run. We had a new coach that had came into our school and he was a very outspoken person that didn’t give a shit about how tired you were or how bad things hurt.
LET ME TELL YOU RIGHT NOW THAT THIS COACH CHANGED MY LIFE.
This coach changed my life because he turned my work ethic all around. He changed my attitude towards specific things relating to basketball as well as a wide variety of things relating to life. This coach taught me to stop going through the motions and suck shit up and get better each and every day. A quote that I still remember today that he always said was, “Practice doesn’t make perfect. A perfect practice makes perfect.” This means that going through the motions at practices won’t help you at all. You have to work for things, you will never get anything handed to you. Now every practice may not be perfect, but doing things with a purpose with the most amount of energy, positive attitude, and many other contributors is how you achieve that.
The same thing goes for this youth football league. These coaches could just say, “Ok guys, go do two laps and throw the pigskin around for ten minutes and then we will go eat cookies and drink milk together.” No, instead these coaches push their players to the best of their ability and that pays off now as well as in the long run.
I could not thank my coach enough for everything he did for me. He made me a better player on the court. He made me a better person off the court. This is exactly what Friday Night Tykes shows in the documentary. It shows how these workouts and practices are so mentally and physically challenging, but they are making each other a better player on the field as well as a better person off the field.
Life is hard. Nothing will EVER be handed to you. Everything that you want, you have to go get. With these players training and being pushed they are showed how hard things will be for each and everyone of them. Just because they are busting their ass now doesn’t mean that everything will be tulips and roses in the future, but they do learn how hard you have to work at all times, and that is how you should go about every damn day of your life!
