Features: Training Sam

“Can I have today off?” a tired Nelson pleaded before a session.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You haven’t proved anything.”

It’s about work, Summit. As for Sam, he has taken, in a pantomime of a prizefighter who knows what generates his genius, to kissing his biceps.

However, on the way to all my concerns about my son being solved: “You suck.”

It was the indictment of a basketball teammate at Hill Top. The first day of practice in November, Sam was nailing three-pointers; several teammates were impressed. But that was the beginning of the end. He couldn’t hit anything after that first day, because, as he put it, “I can’t get over the pressure points of my teammates.” Immediately they were on him, didn’t think he could play. I reminded Sam he was a ninth-grader playing varsity — Hill Top doesn’t have a JV — and the older players were bound to be better. But while those exposed guns looked swell in uniform, I understood his frustration; in games, he ran up and down the court like a spectator, barely touching the ball. When he did get a pass, he tended to give it right back to a teammate — much too scary to take off on a drive to the basket, to take possession with everyone watching.

I looked, during his games, for hints, for an angle into him taking control there — control, that is, of himself. He ran hard, and looked good doing it — that wasn’t enough. One game, another loss, I didn’t get to until near the end; Sam’s verdict: “I didn’t do one good thing.” Not true; I saw him, with a minute left, sprint back on defense to bat a pass out of bounds that would have been a sure layup — that was good, I told him. And he made the play because he’s in such good shape. Summit! He was getting better. “I haven’t scored all season,” he told me.

Oh, Sam. Decision time: He wanted to quit Summit — since, in his view, what was the point? Plus he had b-ball practice or a game three days a week, and midterms, and he’s 15 so he gets ridiculously worn out. So there it was, the place where I could ease off when he was suffering, where I normally cut him some slack, a child who needs it. But when I called Mountain to tell him that Sam and I were backing off on the workouts, he was blunt: “I think you’re making a mistake.”

I silently bristled — what made him so cocksure about what my kid needed?

Mountain pressed: You are enabling Sam to fail; you’re training the mind as much as the body. We need to demand that kids be accountable, that they see things through, that they learn that failing, at first, is part of a process. Obvious stuff — except when it’s your child.

When his young sons were first taking karate, Mountain told me, his wife called one day: They didn’t feel well, she couldn’t get them to their session.