Guest post by Jenny Young
We ended registration for our spring season yesterday with the phone, email, and personal drop-ins at a premium. The end of registration time can bring out the “best” and “worst” in those we serve. Some parents just want their child to play and don’t have any requests. Some parents want their child to play with his/her best friend. Some parents want their child to play with ___ number of players for carpooling purposes with good intentions while some have their own motivations in carpooling. Some parents ask to be placed on a certain coaches team on a certain night or else they will not play. Some parents will even go as far to ask for a guarantee they will get all that they ask for on their registration. While not every request is an extreme case, we do have those that draw attention and stop us in our tracks. So, I pose the question, “How far will one go to get what they want?” I was faced with this question yesterday as a player who played basketball this winter with us went as far to create a second account in our system to be the adult and child in order to get what he wanted. He fabricated his birthday in order to be in the division that he wanted with his friends instead of being in the division that was age appropriate. He hadn’t received a response to his question that he emailed the day before regarding moving up so he took matters into his own hands and went for it. After talking with his parent on the phone, she confessed she knew he did it and said, “he just wanted to be with his friends.” The parent approved the decision and reinforced that it was okay to go into the depths of sin to get what he wanted. I was reminded during this instance that we will go to any measure of sin in order to get what we want when we want it without understanding the weight and affects of the decision.
I hope and pray that I continue to love and reach people in our league regardless of what they do want and share with them decisions that can affect the course of their lives.
[Image courtesy of kyknoord]
