I Missed This One. Here Is What I Am Doing About It.

One week my wifes and boys left for Japan this summer, my son found out he was too old for his current baseball team next season. He would need a new one.

My first reaction was to be frustrated with the coach. The timing. The system. Anyone but the man who should have been tracking the age cutoffs and the calendar months in advance.

That reaction did not survive very long.

This was a problem I should have caught. I did not catch it.

Own it fully before you fix anything. The fixing means less if the owning did not come first.

THE HONEST PART

A father, or parent, managing a household, a career, and an international move has a real excuse available if he wants one. There was a lot happening. Something was always going to get missed in a season that dense.

I am not using that excuse (I might have used that excuse for a minute or two before I adjusted).

I did not use that excuse because the circumstances were not real. They were. But my son does not experience my circumstances. He experiences the outcome. And the outcome right now is that he is 6,000 miles away in Japan for the summer, tryouts for 13u teams are running in July without him, and the team he has known is no longer his.

That is on me. Full stop. I feel like shit about it. or should I say I felt like shit about it before I did something about it.

The Day Warrior standard has never been about being a perfect father. It has been about being an honest one. This is the honest version of this summer. 

A FRAMEWORK FOR COMING UP SHORT

Every father misses something eventually. What separates the men who recover well from the men who spiral or disappear into denial is not the mistake itself. It is whether they run a real process afterward instead of just reacting.

For years, I had a bad habit of feeling bad for myself when these things happened. I have since learned to lean into these issue and get them fixed.

Here is the framework I am using this time, and the one worth keeping for the next miss, because there will be one.

1.  Name it accurately, out loud, before you do anything else.

Not a softened version. Not the version that spreads the blame around to make it easier to carry. The actual, specific thing that went wrong, said plainly, ideally to another person who can hold you to it. Vague accountability produces vague fixes.

2.  Separate the feeling from the decision.

Guilt and shame show up fast and they are loud. They are also useless past the point where they inform a decision. Feel it fully, briefly, and then set it aside on purpose so it does not consume the time and energy the actual fix requires.

3.  Identify what is still recoverable versus what is genuinely lost.

Some mistakes leave real damage that cannot be undone. Most leave more room to work with than the panic initially suggests. A clear-eyed inventory of what is actually still possible is what turns guilt into a plan.

4.  Build the smallest next action and take it within 24 hours.

Not the whole solution. The first concrete step. Momentum breaks the spiral faster than reflection does. A father who is doing something, even something small, is already recovering. A father who is only thinking about it is still stuck.

5.  Tell your kid the truth about what happened and what you are doing.

Not to unload your guilt onto them. To model the actual behavior you want them to have someday when they miss something that matters to someone they love. This step is often skipped because it is the most uncomfortable one. It is also the one that turns the mistake into something useful instead of just something regrettable. 

Name it. Feel it, then set it down. Find what is still recoverable. Act within a day. Tell the truth to the person affected. That is the whole recovery. 

WHAT I AM NOT GOING TO DO

I am not going to spend the next month punishing myself for this in a way that helps nobody, least of all him.

Actually, between the time I started to write this newsletter and the time it will be published, I already have some resolution and maybe even multiple options my son can pursue.

Guilt that turns into paralysis is not accountability. It is just a different way of not fixing the problem. A father drowning in his own regret is not more present for his son. He is less present, because he is busy managing his own feelings instead of managing the actual situation.

Regret is useful for exactly as long as it takes to produce a decision. After that it is just weight with no purpose.

I made the mistake. Now the job is to fix what can be fixed and be honest about what cannot. 

THE PLAN

1.  Call every 13u program within reach before assuming the July tryouts are the only door.

Some organizations run supplemental tryouts, late additions, or private evaluations outside the main window, especially for a player with game tape or a coach reference. I am not waiting to find out. I am calling this week.

I did reach out to mutiple teams. Many did not want to stray from their process but two were interested in talking to me. Without action, nothing would have happened.

2.  Get game film and a coach reference ready now, not in August.

If he cannot be at a tryout in person, a program willing to consider him at all is going to want to see him play and hear from someone who has coached him. That packet needs to exist before I need it, not after.

The team he is really wanting to play for held tryouts last week. I reached out to the coach, sent him videos of my son, and I even went to the tryouts to meet him in person. The result is they are interested in my son, it is not a yes, but a door to opportunity has definitely opened.

They have actually said no to many on the tryout list already, but not to my son.

3.  Talk to his current or former coach directly, without ego.

I spent real energy blaming this coach initially. That energy is better spent asking him directly for a reference, an introduction to another program, or advice on where a player like my son fits at 13u. The relationship is more useful than the resentment.

Opening up to his coach helped. The worst case is he plays with his previous team this fall, and partners with the coaches son and does some 13u tournament play the next summer. He will play, just maybe not his first choice.

Additionally, another coach on the team coaches a 13u team that will make room for him in the Spring if he wants to play for them.

4.  Have the honest conversation with my son myself.

Not softened. Not blame-shifted onto the coach or the age cutoff or the timing of the trip. He deserves to hear directly from me that this is my mistake, that I am working to fix it, and what the actual plan is. Kids can tell the difference between a father managing his own guilt in front of them and a father being straight with them.

I did sit down and talk to my son about the situation. I think he was actually relieved. He wanted to join a better team but was worried about upsetting his team and coach. I am actually letting him make the decisons this time about what team he wants to play form. He is part of the decision process.

5.  Accept that some outcome here may not be ideal, and prepare him for that honestly.

It is possible every door does not open before July ends. If that happens, the fallback is not failure. It is finding him reps this fall through a different route, a fall league, an open gym, private training, whatever keeps him playing and improving while a full-season spot gets sorted for next year. The goal is not a perfect outcome. It is no wasted time.

At the time this newsletter publishes,  I have on definite team he can play on this Spring. Still looking at other options.

The mistake already happened. What happens next is the only part still within reach.

HOW NOT TO GET DOWN ON YOURSELF AS A PARENT

Every father misses something eventually. The calendar, the deadline, the form, the detail that mattered more than it seemed to at the time. The men who never miss anything are not the standard to measure against, because they do not exist.

The standard worth measuring against is what happens after the miss.

Did you own it honestly, without shifting it onto someone else first. Did you tell your son the truth instead of a version that protected your own image in front of him. Did you actually do the work to fix what could still be fixed, instead of just feeling bad about it and calling that enough.

If the answer to those three is yes, you are not failing as a father. You are doing exactly what the job actually requires, which was never perfection.

Perfection was never on the table for any father. Recovery always was.

継続は力なり.

Continuance is power. 

Stay disciplined.

- The Day Warrior

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