He made an A in football, but failed everything else

He made an A in football, but failed all other subjects.

A young friend of mine is facing summer school again after earning grades of D and F in all of his subjects. He failed a full year of social studies, math, and science and made D's in all other subjects. However, he did earn an A in football.

The school will allow him to pass to the next grade if he enrolls in summer school for one of those failed subjects. He's tickled because he'll still get to play football in the 9th grade instead of spending another year in the 8th.

His mother wants to pull him out of athletics and focus on his academics but the coaches tell her that he is "athletically gifted" and should be allowed to play on the school's team. They are bending every rule to get him into high school so that this academically deficient student can demonstrate his athletic gifts and help the school win games.

The mother is frustrated. The son is disillusioned; he hears the coaches tell him that he can go all the way to the pros. He doesn't pay attention to the fact that nearly all NFL players are college graduates and all attended college to some length.

With D's and F's he won't get into college at all. Apparently that doesn't matter to some people, they plan to pass him along through his high school years. He will help the school win games but after he graduates, or gets too old, that's when they will dump him.

He loses.

My advice to her was to let him repeat the grade, pull him out of athletics altogether, and plunge him to a year long "catch up" crusade of special tutoring and instruction to help him get his head ready for life. It would be expensive and time consuming but by no means should she allow him to go forward without the proper academics. She didn't take my advice or similar advice from others.

Against her better judgment, the mother enrolled him in summer school to learn in a few days what he did not learn the entire year. She will also let him move into high school deficient in core subjects that will not get easier but harder. You see, the coaches convinced her that her son is athletically gifted and should not be deprived of his chance.

We have a responsibility to train and direct the paths of our children. They are children, they do not know what they need. We must train them to value knowledge, develop their talents and to apply themselves. If we don't do it when they are young, they will grow old having missed their mark in life.

This need for training is biblical. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

The young man can't see how he is being used. When he wakes up a few years from now and recognizes what has happened to him, he will be frustrated and angry with the world, his mother and his high school coach.