Book Review: Jack Perconte's "Raising An Athlete"

Do you have kids?  Do you plan to?  Have you ever seen a kid before?  Once, years ago, were you a kid?  I ask because I'm nosey.  I care about you and my caring breeds curiosity.  I've also bred children - kids - of my own.  Because they're residents of the United States of America, they were enrolled in sports at young ages.  Maybe like you.  Or maybe like your kids.  Or, quite possibly, like those kids you see on Saturday morning ballfields throwing and running and crying.  If you can relate to anywhere from three to twenty-three words in this paragraph, then you need to get your dirty hands on Jack Perconte's Raising An Athlete: How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport.

The end.

Just kidding.  That's no book review.  You need to know more about Jack Perconte - The Man - before dropping your blood money on his softcover piece of literary madness.  So do this: Listen to Jack's interview HERE on Jimmy Scott's High & Tight.  Need more?  Read THIS BOOK REVIEW of his previous foray into journalistic How To excellence, The Making of a Hitter (no, the book is not The Making of a Hitler; although your eyes may think that).   Do these things and you'll quickly realize that Jack was a Major League ballplayer who's given thousands of lessons to kids and has a son in the Chicago Cubs farm system.  I think that gives him the background necessary to write a book called Raising An Athlete, don't you?

If you said no the the previous question, go back to your newest issue of Cosmo Girl!  If you said Yes, Jimmy, Most certainly Yes, then touch my cloak and I will fly you to Jack Perconte Land, where kids learn how to play sports with supportive, thoughtful parents, where coaches push but don't shove, where kids are understood and not underappreciated. 

That's the essence of Raising An Athlete. 

Here's a bad situation: Kid gets up on a Saturday morning around 7:15.  His dad got him up.  Kid shoves a toasted (formerly frozen) waffle down his throat and is driven by Dad to football/basketball/baseball/soccer practice.  Dad doesn't drive away.  He stays.  Coach gets all the Kids together and drills and drills and drills, muttering phrases that include words & phrases like "vermin" and "stupid pills" and "idiot."  At gametime, Coach screams at Kid for missing a play or not paying attention.  Dad yells at Kid for allegedly not trying.  Kid lets a distaste for this sport grow in his stomach.  Dad yells some more, Coach yells at Dad, Referee/Umpire yells at Dad or Coach, Parents yell at each other, Kids look at each other, some of whom are mad at Kid for missing a play and others who want to know if they can see Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs after the game.  Kid grows up and has a lousy relationship with Dad, Mom can't bring them together and it takes Dad, on his deathbed, to ask the Kid for the $15 registration fee back since Kid wasted it back when he was 11.

That's the situation Jack Perconte wants you to avoid.  It's the nightmare scenario that, especially for boys, is the equivalent of 5-year old girls in beauty pageants, filmed for TLC and starring wacky mothers.  Raising An Athlete can't stop Mom from entering little Linda in the Little Miss Dayton swimsuit competition.  But it can help inform Dad and Mom about how Kid feels.  It can help coaches, especially the Weekend Warrior types whose only knowledge of soccer is that you can't use your hands, understand how far they can push and how much they should hold back. 

"But, Jimmy," you argue, flipping the brim of your cap around so you can really get into my face and make a point, "I get bored reading books."

I wipe the spit off of the timp of my nose and say Hey, that's cool.  You don't have to be smart to read Raising An Athlete.  If you are smart, you'll buy and read the book.  If you're not smart, if you are, in fact, a complete imbecile (that's a not-smart person), you'll still like the book because it includes illustrations and bullet points and charts and poems and stories. 

"But, Jimmy, I -"

Stop.  I'm not done.  It talks (no book talks, you'll read) about tears, how kids will inevitably shed some.  There are chapters about team building, confidence, creating memories, avoiding burnout, and "The real performance enhancers."  This book can lead some of you - parents, coaches - into uncharted waters.  "You mean it's all right if little Jimmy squashes bugs in right field instead of catching flies?"  Yes, as long as he's not removing wings from flies.  Then, my friend, you've got a future serial killer on your hands.  Run away.  Quickly.

Raising An Athlete is recommended not because Jack Perconte paid for me to recommend it and not because my copy cost me nothing, but because it legitimately includes information you're going to find appealing, as opposed to a 6-year old girl in a bikini whose mom is upset because she left her case of Marlboros in the Camry.    I suggest you buy Raising An Athlete today and make your kids happy.  Because that'll make you happy.  And being happy means you'll never end up on a deathbed asking for money from your kids. 

Raising An Athlete - saving families, identifying serial killers and shaping the future of sports, one day at a time.