Support the athlete, encourage the team, help the coach. That's what good track parents do.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them.
I think when you are the parents of a gifted athlete, the best thing in the world you can do is to encourage them, in my opinion. My dad didn't push me and I didn't push my children in athletics.
Encourage kids to enjoy running and play in athletics. Don't force them to run too much competition.
My overwhelming concern will always be the well-being of the athletes. In Olympic sport, it is rare for competitors not to devote half their young life to this. Their families will have given up all sorts of things to allow them to do that.
Ask me what makes a champion runner, and I will tell you it helps to have the great good sense to choose your parents carefully.
My kids are good athletes and runners. They run in a bunch of sports.
Both parents supported my becoming a world class athlete.
Coaches know that a parent publicly scolding his kid after a race will not help the athlete perform better.
Anything you can do to help someone, I just think it's so important because there's a lot of kids that look up athletes of all size and shapes in a lot of different fields, not necessarily in the basketball field. They get involved emotionally with those people because there's something about certain athletes that people rally around.
It is not the time spent with the child at their activity that is going to produce the highest level athlete. It is in supporting the child in an organized activity - and Bill alluded to this - so the child can find what they truly like to do and let them go.