Broken Wings

Helicopter parents cripple their children. They're almost as bad as the parents who are completely uninvolved. At some point, all children are supposed to leave the nest to do their own thing. A logical parent is supposed to have that in mind when raising a child. By the time I was 13, for example, I knew how to do my own laundry, iron clothes, and boil spaghetti. My parents weren't perfect by any means, but their intentions in teaching me to do certain things early on was made abundantly clear to me by my late father. In his stern tone, he often said to me, "one day I won't be here to do this for you, so learn it now or it's your ass that will suffer later."

The first time I met Triple was in his high school Guidance office. He was a 1,000 point scorer in high school who thought Division I schools would be pounding down his door before graduation. They didn't. His fall back plan was to attend an expensive Prep school for a year then wait for the Division I coaches to line up for his services. That didn't materialize either.

Sometime in June, which was two months after we met, Triple informed me of his intentions to bless us with his services. He could have attended a local Division III college, but he was offended when the coach told him he would come off the bench as a Freshman.

I invited him to campus so we could talk more. He showed up with his mother and father. I viewed this as being a good thing until the meeting started. His mother did all the talking. He probably got one sentence out during the entire meeting while his father sat there like a Mute. She clearly wore the pants in their relationship. When I asked about Triple's subpar GPA in high school (1.52) she explained that one bad year messed up his otherwise strong academic performance. She then got into how Triple's high school coach was to blame for his lack of Division I offers. Triple just sat there and nodded while his mother disparaged the coach.

Triple was well taken care of. He had an Iphone, fresh Jordans, real diamond earrings, and an expansive wardrobe. He struck me as a spoiled kid. Despite his complete aversion to being yelled at, or reprimanded at all, he and I developed a solid relationship. After the season ended, I was concerned when I saw Triple's second semester grades at the mid-semester break. He had slipped from a 2.5 to a 1.5. Initially I had it in mind to rip him a new one until he started opening up about the cause of his dip.

Me: So I need to threaten game suspensions in order for you to keep your grades up?
Triple: You don't understand, Coach. I'm going through some stuff.
Me: Everybody goes through stuff, but as a man you have to learn to rise above it.
Triple: Yeh? What about if your family's falling apart?
Me: What do you mean?
Triple: My mom and dad is gettin a divorce. We all live together but they don't speak or nothin'. My games used to be fun for the family but they ain't even sit together this year. Everybody's all scattered and what not.
Me: I'm sorry to hear that.
Triple: It doesn't help that we just got evicted. My brother's havin a baby and my pops ain't with that. He's not really gettin hours at work so money's tight.
Me: You talk to your mom much about what's going on?
Triple: Nah. Not really. As a matter of fact, she just upped and disappeared the other day.
Me: What you mean disappear?
Triple: She been acting suspicious lately. The other day she just left and nobody knows where she is. This shit's messin with me, Coach. I don't even like goin home no more.