Ted Kluck: When fatherhood becomes the game

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, May 6th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Pro-football great Deion Sanders made headlines during the N-F-L draft back in April—but not for what he did as a player or coach. This time, it was his son Shedeur Sanders in the spotlight—and the spotlight moment didn’t quite go as planned.

WORLD Opinions contributor Ted Kluck says there’s a deeper lesson here … especially for over-competitive dads watching from the sidelines.

TED KLUCK: Perhaps the term: “Little League Dad” is a new one for you. Full-disclosure, I was one, and I’m not proud of it. We stand along practice or game-field fences in our sweatsuits and critique what other coaches are doing. We often coach our kids. We often let our own undealt-with hyper-competitiveness lead to sin. And we often let it ruin our kids’ experiences with their various sports. I regret being this way. But there are a lot of us Little League Dads…the highest profile example at present may be NFL great Deion Sanders.

In case you’re not a football fan, let me fill you in. Deion Sanders is arguably the greatest lockdown/cover cornerback in NFL history. He was also a dual-threat offensive player—both as a wide receiver and one of the greatest punt returners of all time. He’s currently the head coach at the University of Colorado—where he coached his quarterback son. He has coached his son Shedeur Sander since his pee-wee football days…making him one of the most prolific and famous Little League Dads of all time.

Let’s start with the good: Deion Sanders clearly loves his son and has been very involved in his son’s life. These are both good things. Sanders has also been very open about his faith in God. However, that openness comes with some…challenges. I’m not questioning his sincerity, but he doesn’t talk about his faith in the same ways that I would talk about my faith. That’s not necessarily bad, but what’s distracting for me—and others—is that he talks about that faith while literally draped in his millions of dollars and clothing emblazoned with his personal brand…that makes things … complicated.

As a recovering little league dad myself, I think there are some things I can also point out that are clearly not good. The Cleveland Browns have not only drafted Shedeur Sanders, they’ve also drafted the circus that will come to town with him. By circus I mean media availability every day around Shedeur’s locker. Media questions to his dad every day when Deion speaks to the media. And an outsized degree of focus/attention on a player who will probably start his career as a backup quarterback. To be fair, this was the selfsame circus that followed the most famous evangelical of my lifetime…Tim Tebow. The question is, is the player worth the circus?

The younger Sanders is a pretty good quarterback, with a pretty good arm, and his speed is average. He was one of the best players on a pretty good Colorado squad where he became famous for two things: throwing touchdown passes to Travis Hunter—the best player in college football—and for waving his gold watch in front of some opposing fans. Behavior a father should have curtailed, not encouraged. Unfortunately, it is a move that became akin to Tebowing. People now sort of hold up their forearms and wave them around as though they’re showing off their own hypothetical gold watches.

Perhaps Deion Sanders has just done what all of us who have Little League Dad tendencies would have done had we all been Hall of Famers with unlimited financial resources. We would have probably used our money and influence to completely mold and shape our sons’ experiences, in ways that wouldn’t have been healthy or edifying for father or son.

Before last month’s draft, the NFL Network aired a commercial dozens of times featuring an overconfident Shedeur Sanders boasting that—in his words—“Draft night will be legendary.” It’s a sad bit of on-the-nose irony. It was legendary, but not in the way he hoped. Shedeur was expected to be picked up in the first round. Turned out he watched from the sidelines as 143 others were picked before him. Perhaps it’s just what Shedeur and Deion Sanders needed…

God is sovereign. God is good. And God works in the lives of His children. And if He’s using these circumstances for the sanctification of His children, these are unqualified goods. Even if they’re hard for Little League Dads.

I’m Ted Kluck.vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

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