We All Dress Like Our Fathers

“Bailiño scores 4 as Loyola crushes New Trier, 7-0”

That’s the kind of headline you dream about, as a dad, seeing in the Tribune, Sun-Times, or the Daily News someday. And that your kid, an extraordinary kid with world class talent, not only makes the paper but somehow adopts his own one word moniker worth of the likes of Péle, Shaq, or even “The Rock”.

It’s the kind of pollyanna thought that only men have about their kids, both inspiring and a bit silly. If taken too seriously, psychologists point out that pushing your kid too hard into sports (or anything, really) can be damaging.

Some parents are the kind that gets their pants in a bunch about the score of a pee wee game. Others bark and yell, or start rogue coaching their kids from the sidelines. Do this, and you don’t need a shrink to tell you that you’ll look like a loony.

My dad never pushed me into sports. Actually he never cared about sports. Except for Gardening, which is sort-of a sport, that is, if you consider The Iron Chef a sports competition.

Sports was something I picked up on my own, first as a spectator and then as an activity for social acceptance, growing up as a typically bored kid in the suburbs. Maybe it was the neat, colorful uniforms the players got to wear. Or, maybe joining sports was a way to get my folks to let me wear my sneakers to school even though it wasn’t gym class day.

Anyhow, sport has evolved into a lifelong passion that makes me feel like a kid (good) and also sometimes makes me act and dress like a kid (bad).

Certainly in America and Britain it is considered totally acceptable for Father and Son to support the same team and to underscore their support with matching sports garb. Some might say that’s what Saturdays and Sundays were made for. Some take it a step further, and dress up the dog too.

Likewise, as a near-insane fan of the beautiful game, I got my kid enrolled in “Lil Kickers” soccer as soon as he was age-eligible. With his enlistment he was put on a team –I think it was called the Cottontails-- and got his own uniform, with number 4 smack dab on the back.

Starting the curriculum at Lil Kickers, the kids learn how to take simple directions in a group and do an activity in sequence. They roll the ball, stack cones, knock down the cones, and eventually learn to kick, pass and score with some rudimentary skill.

More importantly, the kids are supposed to learn how to interact with each other, how to share, and to plot the first steps toward a lifelong pattern of good sportsmanship on the way to mature adulthood.

At this age, the age of toddler-hood, sharing remains a challenge and every parent is hit with a barrage of messages about how pivotal every new experience and every moment is for kiddo.

With this baggage ever present in mind, that we attended a friend’s barbeque one summer day; a ritual family gathering. It happened on a typical August Saturday; parents letting loose with a beer, some dogs and burgers in a fenced-in and relatively controlled suburban environment where the kids could play, semi-supervised.

As 3-year-olds sometimes do, my kid and others were playing with tricycles, soccer balls, footballs and big toys in the yard. Most got along pretty well while others had at times some trouble socializing.

Ironically, it was in this protective environment that my kid got in his first throw down fight with another kid, a 5-year-old who had trouble sharing and playing nice.

This 5-year-old had started to push kids out of the way, grabbing any and every toy when he felt like it. This went on for about an hour or two. He pushed a few kids out of the proverbial sandbox a couple of times, each getting into a mild but manageable altercation with Fiver. After another push, Fiver grabbed my kid by the shoulder and threw him back causing my kid to fall back on his butt in the grass.

Before I got a chance to put my beer down in enough time to run over, Bailiño got fed up and whacked Fiver in the back of the legs Ron Hextall-style, before they both hit the ground and started slapping each other.

It's OK to be mortified, Dad.

As I broke up the fight, which seemed like a brawl, with another couple of parents, my kid was both upset and fired up. The crowd of beer-guzzling, brat-eating parents and guests looked concerned and stunned. Nobody got hurt, thankfully, and we made them both apologize and shake on it.

I’m not sure where my kid got his street smarts. Surely, I never taught him how to hit like that or to retaliate against a bully like an unruly NHL goaltender.

Not pleased about the fighting, I was content that my kid at least stuck up for himself, which is more than I would have done at that age. I felt an odd mishmash of feelings ranging from the likes of “My baby!!!” to “Did you get him good?” or “Sweep the leg, Johnny!”

As a kid, I remember a fellow Philadelphia Flyers fan, one of my friend’s dads, call Ron Hextall a thug. Hextall was best known not only for being an excellent goaltender and a standout in two Stanley Cup campaigns, but also for being the guy who would step in when a player from another team got out of line or roughed up the team mates.

Of Hextall, my friend’s dad said “He’s a thug, but he’s our thug.” He couldn’t have been more right about anything.

Now, before you jump to any conclusions, let it be known I’m not raising my kid to be a thug (just a Broad Street Bully, maybe). And if he ever pulled some of the stunts that Hextall pulled on the ice, at least under my roof, my kid would be grounded for a month.

But, there is definitely something important about sticking up for yourself as you realize that sometimes the scuffle is part of Life. Perhaps this is nothing more than one of the standard rituals in a growing boy’s existence, like it or not.

It all reminds me of an advertisement that I saw a few summers ago.

Adidas ran an ad bearing the brand new jersey for Newcastle United, a big and then-successful soccer club known for their large army of fans. Adidas ran the ad worldwide all summer in 2003, trying to compete against Nike, who had just bagged the Manchester United shirt deal for $100 Million-plus.

The Adidas ad read “Some Day We’ll All Dress Like Our Fathers”. At first, I wasn’t sure right away what the marketing wonks were getting at. I already owned the shirt, so they might have had me there.

I had seen ads of a similar note for Canadian Club, stating “Damn Right, Your Dad Drank It.” Yet, the 1970s guys in the ad dressed like Kojak and Baretta didn’t make me want to drink their whiskey.

After all, who said I wanted to drink or dress like my dad?

But after a second read, I figured that the message was that we, as sports enthusiasts, spectators and players, all take inspiration from our elders such as our fathers, coaches and other figures in our lives.

Those marketing wonks were half right. But much of the time, it’s the other way around.

Frye writes weekly about sports and life. Updates can be found here at MySports/Complex and on his Facebook page of the same name.