How A Sports Injury Will Affect My Parenting

Summary

• I played multiple sports growing up. Depending on what season determined who I was. Football player in the fall, runner in the spring, and a soccer player the rest of the year.
• During high school football practice, my cleats got caught in the grass as I dove for the ball. My knee was injured. Out of socket as I lay on the grass.
• That day didn’t mark the end of my sports career. I rehabbed my knee after surgery and got into college to train as a decathlete.
• My knee was not well enough to compete at a collegiate level. That day I quit really ended my sports career.
• I had no sports to compete in at a high level. I had lost my identity.
• It took many years for me to realize that I was more than a sport.
• Now I have kids of my own. I want them to play sports, but they must understand that they are NOT the sport. They are an athlete. An athlete has many characteristics that can be applied to many things in life.
• Sports careers will end. Hopefully they are long successful careers. However, an athlete will always be an athlete.

Full Transcript

Hey, what's happening? Today we're talking about my injury and the experience I went through and how it's going to affect how I raise my kids. My name is David Sabi here with kids athlete to help parents raise athletes. And my injury was a big part of how I'm going to be raising my kids to become athletes. So let's start at the beginning. I played sports since I could remember and my dad coached me and he also encouraged me to play anything and everything. So I played multiple sports, but when I got to high school, I narrowed it down to three football, soccer and track. And I loved them. And so every day I would be running or kicking the ball or doing something to help improve in those sports. But then one day during football practice, my senior year of high school, I went to go dive for a ball.

My cleats got caught somehow and my knee pops out of socket. I popped my knee back in and my knee cap because that wasn't in the right spot. But that was it. That was my injury. I had hurt my knee and I didn't think anything of it. I mean, yes, I missed the rest of that football season and we did very well. We were CIF champs, but I didn't feel part of that because again, I was injured. I wasn't able to play and missed the rest of basically my senior years of high school sports rehabbing my knee during track season after surgery and it didn't really... It just felt like I was just overcoming an injury. And then a college coach came up and said, "Hey, I think you'd be a great decathlete." And I thought, great. So I get into college to be a decathlete, which let me tell you, if you don't know what decathlon is, it's 10 events in track and field and it is no joke.

I have never worked that hard in my life. But the one nice thing is if you've got A.D.D. like me, oh it's the best thing you could ever do because you will never get bored training for a decathlon. But I wasn't able to really train that hard because my knee just was not going to hold up. So at one point I had to say, "This is it, I'm done." And that's when my injury really hit me. Now I'm not competing in anything, at least at a level that I wanted to. And that's when I realized this really is something a lot bigger. And for years after I had stopped doing track and field, I just felt lost. And I think it was because I set my identity, I set who I am as a... Well decathlete. I mean it didn't matter what sport I was either a soccer player, football player or a track athlete and I always said that's who I am.

One thing that I want to teach my kids, listen, you are not the sport. Your sports career will end. Hopefully you have a long sports career. Hopefully you have like a Tom Brady sports career where it's very successful and long. But it will end at one point. And I don't want you to hold yourself up and think that's all you are. On the other hand, if you consider yourself as an athlete, right? So what I'm doing is separating athlete and sport. You consider yourself an athlete. My definition of that, an athlete is somebody with strength and control in physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. And so if you think about that, if you are strong and have a lot of control over yourself physically, mentally, emotionally and socially, you can conquer pretty much anything, right? You can either school to career or business. It doesn't matter what you decide you want to do.

And so that's what I want to teach my kids is you are an athlete and I am helping raise an athlete. I am not raising a tennis player, I'm not raising a swimmer. I am raising an athlete. So if they want to decide that they want to play tennis or go swimming or what, you know what? They can do that and be great. But what I as a parent want to focus on is raising an athlete. And that's my goal.

And I hope I can help other parents encourage their kids to be the best athlete and not be so focused on a single sport or a single, just their identity as that because they are greater than the sport. I hope this helps. My story helps somebody out there and I hope you can help your kids become great athletes that can take on sports, take on school, career, business, whatever they decide. And if you share this with somebody, hopefully it can help them. But thanks for listening. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button, and please leave a comment. Let me know what you're thinking. Let me know what you thought of this as well as what you're doing to help your kids become athletes. So until next time, I'll see you soon.