Lest we forget
21/04/2010 12:56:00 p.m.
I’m not a big fan of Generation Y.
Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I despair for our sporting fortunes over coming years as I have to deal with another generation of kids who think they have a particular right to be self-absorbed.
You reach a point where you give up on trying to help the rugby player who’s just got hundreds of hours of community work for an assault because you realise he just doesn’t have the motivation.
You forget about the lazy one who wants a job that pays $100K a year, despite him having no experience and not wanting to start at the bottom in the hospitality or building trade.
You get sick of the unreliability, the excuses, and the incessant whining about how it’s not their fault. And if I hear the words “Xbox” or “PS3” at one more sports training, I might kill someone.
With ANZAC Day upon us, they might want to take this little snippet from a rugby club annual report in 1919 into account:
“It is with pride that we record that more than 200 club members served overseas. Of these, 30 didn’t return. It is fitting that we mention the fine war record of the Christopher family, as four of their sons, namely Reginald, Julian (who could have become an All Black), Victor, and Herbert all made the supreme sacrifice.”
My son and I have been watching The Pacific, Spielberg’s follow-up to Band of Brothers. Thanks to his mother (I’d like to take the credit but can’t), he understands that the people who fought for the Allies in World War II by and large didn’t have a choice, but did it out of duty and because it was necessary, but they didn’t give up. They toughed it out.
Now, as I sit through another season where I see more young players asking “what’s in it for me” as opposed to “what can I do for you”, I reckon if we went to war again we’d be the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of the Pacific.
We still have our champions, and those kids who want to be great at their sports. But we don’t have that enormous mass of them anymore.
Blame teachers, blame broken homes, blame liberal parents and their nancy ideas, blame PS3 and Xbox. But as we head into ANZAC Day, when we commemorate those who fought for New Zealand and the world, I despair for motivation.
I sound like a curmudgeon, but kids today aren’t motivated in the numbers they were when I was growing up in the 1970s.
They lack a can-do spirit. And while those who do strive might bring us glory on the world sporting stage, it’s the others I worry about. But how do you motivate the unmotivated?
Lest we forget ANZAC Day, here’s another excerpt from the same club, in World War II:
“The Invercargill Football Club members were given a fine example of enthusiasm, loyalty and service by their colleague, Bill Robison...(in 1940) the then President had invited him to give a talk to the fourth and fifth grade boys who were being entertained by the club.
“About 5pm he rang to say he could not be present as he had just received advice that his son Douglas had been killed whilst flying a bomber over Kiel. Fifteen minutes later he telephoned again to say he would carry out his task.
“The boys did not know that the ‘Old Blue’ who was chatting away so happily to them was a heart broken father who had just lost his only son.”
Perhaps I’m just getting old, but I despair for our sporting fortunes over coming years as I have to deal with another generation of kids who think they have a particular right to be self-absorbed.
You reach a point where you give up on trying to help the rugby player who’s just got hundreds of hours of community work for an assault because you realise he just doesn’t have the motivation.
You forget about the lazy one who wants a job that pays $100K a year, despite him having no experience and not wanting to start at the bottom in the hospitality or building trade.
You get sick of the unreliability, the excuses, and the incessant whining about how it’s not their fault. And if I hear the words “Xbox” or “PS3” at one more sports training, I might kill someone.
With ANZAC Day upon us, they might want to take this little snippet from a rugby club annual report in 1919 into account:
“It is with pride that we record that more than 200 club members served overseas. Of these, 30 didn’t return. It is fitting that we mention the fine war record of the Christopher family, as four of their sons, namely Reginald, Julian (who could have become an All Black), Victor, and Herbert all made the supreme sacrifice.”
My son and I have been watching The Pacific, Spielberg’s follow-up to Band of Brothers. Thanks to his mother (I’d like to take the credit but can’t), he understands that the people who fought for the Allies in World War II by and large didn’t have a choice, but did it out of duty and because it was necessary, but they didn’t give up. They toughed it out.
Now, as I sit through another season where I see more young players asking “what’s in it for me” as opposed to “what can I do for you”, I reckon if we went to war again we’d be the cheese-eating surrender monkeys of the Pacific.
We still have our champions, and those kids who want to be great at their sports. But we don’t have that enormous mass of them anymore.
Blame teachers, blame broken homes, blame liberal parents and their nancy ideas, blame PS3 and Xbox. But as we head into ANZAC Day, when we commemorate those who fought for New Zealand and the world, I despair for motivation.
I sound like a curmudgeon, but kids today aren’t motivated in the numbers they were when I was growing up in the 1970s.
They lack a can-do spirit. And while those who do strive might bring us glory on the world sporting stage, it’s the others I worry about. But how do you motivate the unmotivated?
Lest we forget ANZAC Day, here’s another excerpt from the same club, in World War II:
“The Invercargill Football Club members were given a fine example of enthusiasm, loyalty and service by their colleague, Bill Robison...(in 1940) the then President had invited him to give a talk to the fourth and fifth grade boys who were being entertained by the club.
“About 5pm he rang to say he could not be present as he had just received advice that his son Douglas had been killed whilst flying a bomber over Kiel. Fifteen minutes later he telephoned again to say he would carry out his task.
“The boys did not know that the ‘Old Blue’ who was chatting away so happily to them was a heart broken father who had just lost his only son.”
