I think covid was a catalyst that exacerbated the root cause. We were headed down this road with these younger generations, but we're on the road because of parenting imo. We've praised kids for mediocrity, gave them trophies for losing, practically handed them everything they could want and then we wonder why they're soft.
We got presents for birthdays and Christmas not because we were good in the store. If we acted up we got our butt busted, we didn't go to time out and talk about it. We got coached hard and if we complained our dad told us to man up and do it right and we wouldn't get yelled at and have to run extra. If you wanted something you worked for it, asking didn't help. I think people think you can't coach this generation the way we were but imo you have to and the ones who leave were going to let you down on Saturday when it got hard anyway.
Two things here, and two that may not be popular and may get people mad at me.
First, I think my generations parents as a whole did not want to be bothered by their kids. My grandparents were simply amazing. Made all my games, school events, let me spend the night, spent countless hours with me. My parents? Terrible grandparents to my kids. Selfish as fuck and won't make any moves that pote tally mess up their personal lives. I'm seeing that more and more.
Second, and to your coaching point. This is pure honesty and my experiences. In the South, you have A LOT of players that come from broken homes, dirt poor, bad communities, and coached/parented hard as fuck. That's why they are good because they weren't given excuses and yelled at till they did good. Not saying that method works with everyone as you stated, but it did for these standouts. DeBoer better learn coaching a bunch of Southern boys raised in bad neighborhoods, coached hard, parented hard, that his soft ass way won't move their needle. They will take plays off if you are soft on their asses and don't light that fire under their ass. We wonder why all these South Florida, Mobile, rural Mississippi, and Atlanta kids wanted to play for Saban and saw heigh success? It's because he rode their ass to be great and set an example for what he expected and they reaped the benefits. You give a player raised in these environments; money, power, social media, a lot of leash, lessened requirements, they will take the easiest road and fall off, and we are seeing that.
So yes, parenting is the ultimate failure, but the world shutting down fucked it up even worse and found a way to hurt the others not described above.
