Championships Are Won at the Dinner Table

By Edward John-Andrew

For Parents: Parents, if you are about to enter (or already have) your child in organized sports or activities, there is a possibility that you will invest thousands of dollars over the years in this form of lifelong education and fun. This book addresses the many positive and negative occurrences that you can expect and can be remedied through the years, which will help aid you in maximum benefit for your child! For Coaches: Coaches, this book offers helpful tips for coaches to help eliminate possible negative distractions to your team and help make for a more enjoyable and rewarding coaching experience while accomplishing your team’s goals! For first and second generation American parents: This book helps you to acclimate to the benefits of organized sports or activities, for your child or children, that your parents may not have been exposed to in their life. “I went through it as a player—I went through it as a parent—I went through it as a coach.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640277762

Book preview

Dedication

To Mom and Dad, with love

To my brothers and sister, how they kept me on the straight and narrow—through good times and bad!

Acknowledgments

To my wife Patti, for the true inspiration for this book! To our son Dirk, your demonstrated family traits make all of us proud, some of us you can see, and some that you can’t! To my company and my many coworkers over the years that allowed me the opportunity to pay forward with this book! Thank you.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Ed. I’m a retired middle manager from a Fortune 500 company. I spent thirty years in management, which is a feat in itself. Prior to retirement, many coworkers would ask me, When you retire, what are you going to do with all of your extra time? I would reply with all of the same canned responses—relax, travel, hunt, fish, cut my own lawn, get back to coaching, and get reacquainted with my wife. Sometimes, I would say, Write a book. That response would always get an inquisitive look from people. Some would ask, On what topic? expecting to hear a topic regarding my successful business endeavors, in which I’m very proud of, and the many industrial engineering accomplishments my operations achieved over the years. But I would tell them, I’m going to write a book regarding the one area in my life in which I have the most experience of all, which is sports, and the topic of what parents can expect entering their child into organized sports.

In my whole life, I’ve been exposed to the many twists and turns of organized sports. I chose hockey as the main sport topic for this book, but if you use your imagination, you can also apply these same lessons to baseball, basketball, competitive dance, competitive cheer, soccer, and so on. When our son (Dirk) started in organized sports, I realized my wife (Patti) didn’t have a clue on what to expect due to the fact that her family never was exposed to organized sports. As our son progressed in organized sports, at the different age levels, I wrote down notes regarding key items (the hows and whys and what to look out for). I had to help educate my wife. With our son, there were many of the same situations my wife and I experienced with him that were parallel to what I went through as a kid! At first, I didn’t realize any of this organized sports’ nuances, being removed from sports for a long while until my own kid started in organized sports. I decided to keep those notes, and I also reviewed those notes with my brother, as a refresher and a double check. I was not quite in the swing of things as of yet, being all wrapped up in my career. My nephew and niece are a few years older than Dirk; my brother had been freshly through all of those organized sports activities and occurrences. In the back of my mind, I thought this topic would make for an excellent book. Twenty some years have passed, until now, I knew and I was going to write a book someday and there was a need to pass this valuable information along, and hence—championships are won at the dinner table.

To get back to my response to the question of my retirement plans, coworkers would ponder on my idea for only a brief moment and then agree because most people have experienced many of the same following topics with their own children. If you are new to organized sports, or not, this book is for you. This book will help prepare you for what’s ahead! If this book describes your current coach or manager, maybe a parent, it’s pure coincidence, but I bet it’s on the money. To maximize your family enjoyment and lasting benefits (education) learned through organized sports, there is a need for such a book. When I wrote this book, I knew I had lightning in a bottle.

This book doesn’t just throw stones at coaches or managers; it offers remedies and solutions to some of the perceived conflicts or situations.

Results speak for themselves. I feel my confidence and character was enhanced in my professional life, and those successes that were realized, were the direct result of my experiences in organized sports.

The lessons I learned from sports, I applied them to my career coupled with a strong family, in which I’m extremely proud of (but who also never gave me a dime). I was lucky. I had many role models (many successful self-made millionaires); you can’t put a price tag on valuable advice, inspiration, and I learned from their demonstrated faith, work ethic, integrity, along with athletic genes coupled with smartness.

I’m the youngest of four children; my oldest brother and my sister have MBAs in their respective fields, in which I’m very proud. Their kids (my nieces and nephews who are quite successful although they were not D-1 athletes) used the following principles in this book to help them in their careers. On the other hand, my other brother Joe and I are proud parents of D-1 athletes. Both of my brothers played hockey and baseball; my brother Joe and I turned out to be outstanding athletes in our day, which wasn’t easy due to the fact we were baby boomers, and the sheer amount of athletes we competed against was mind-blowing. In high school,