Evolution of an Animal : How Athletes Have Changed

A few years back I had a quick talk with my late high school coach about players now and players back in the days that I was a pitcher for him. He certainly had his hands full with us. We were reckless, headstrong, prideful, arrogant and passionate about the game and being the best. I wouldn’t say he was the world’s greatest coach but he took an insane bunch of high school kids and kept us from burning down the stadium each week so he must’ve been doing something right.

Since he’s passed on to join the other players and coaches in Kevin Costner’s cornfield, I’ve looked back on what he said often. Rather than paraphrase the words of a man as influential in my life as Coach De Los Santos, I’ll quote him directly.

“… it’s a different breed of kid nowadays. Those guys during our run bought into the idea that the harder they worked the better the team would be. And they would hold each other accountable for working hard. They practiced harder than the kids I have today. I think now we have a group of kids who believe winning is cool but not a big deal if we don’t… which is a terrible way to be! I was always taught winning is everything and busted my ass to try and get there whether playing it or coaching it… but now I am told to tone it down. Different type of kid! Sorry to get on my soap box. Hope I answered you.”

Answer me, he did. He told me something long before I saw it with my own eyes. The modern athlete has been given more resources to achieve, more strength, power and skill than any other generation and yet, according to all observations, has less fire, grit and resourcefulness than ever. I’ve worked with athletes for over ten years now and the players I shared a locker room with are a completely different animal than the ones I write in on the lineup card today. Some of them have remarkable levels of skill; a level that I would’ve envied to share at their age. They throw harder. They hit farther. They run faster. They lift heavier. But when the game is on the line, the out needs to be made or the run needs to be scored, they buckle and fold far more often than they succeed. They’re slaves to momentum and motivation. When their backs are up against the wall, they panic or become ‘black-pilled’ and quit before the last out is made.

Coach De Los was far from the only coach I spoke to who made note of this. I’ve spoken to my old college coaches, friends and colleagues in the coaching world. They all give the same lineup of concerns. In my own coaching experience I’m watching ten run leads disintegrate with a single error causing a defense to implode. I’m watching players give up with a two run deficit going into the last inning. I’ve seen more balls sailing over the first base dugout after a bad throw by third base or shortstop than I ever thought I’d witness this side of a circus. It’s certainly bananas to experience. I’ve grown many a gray hair on account of it. Even the parents have changed.

Parents are every bit as willing to pay for the best resources for their kids to succeed but unfortunately for many, the wallet is where the dedication ends. Today’s parents are seldomly seen out on the field in the mornings or late at night to give their kids extra reps in the batting cage or with fielding. Fewer fathers are taking their sons out to play catch after work and a higher percentage of kids are seen playing Fortnite online with friends rather than scrapping together neighborhood kids to play wall ball, backyard baseball or catch. The few times a coach has the resolve to rip into a player for dogging it or playing lazy baseball, he’s dressed up and down by a hornets nest of angry parents who demand their kid be absolved of the consequences of their actions. This is a seismic shift from what I grew up with.

The animal that once stalked baseball fields and terrorized classrooms twenty years ago has now become ‘civilized’ by a series of tools build to soften and deaden his senses: the iPhone, the PlayStation, the iPad, social media, absent (or absent-minded) fathers and loving but coddling mothers.

The solution to this problem is one also suggested by author Abigail Shrier in her masterful new work Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up : Let the kids grow up.

Let them play.

Let them fail.

Let them take risks and get hurt. (to a reasonable level)

Let them get chewed out by a coach and suffer some field punishment.

Let him feel the sting of his peers trash talking and let him learn how to dish it out just a well.

Boys are warriors sharpened by battle, even if the days of the sword and spear are over. They need to grow up hard and fast like their own fathers and grandfathers before them. The softening of society’s young men will turn a world already in turmoil into a literal hell on earth. Men with maturity, endurance, resilience and the will to win will provide us with a better future and it begins right there on the baseball field.

Article by Michael Hernandez