Published: June 20, 2009 10:49 pm      

Young people, watch out for the dreambusters!

I heard something kind of shocking on the national news the other day - that only 20 percent of today's college graduates nationwide have a job lined up at the time of their commencement.

While yet another sobering commentary on today's economic conditions, I nonetheless couldn't help but sigh, "Ah, another dreambuster," that is, a pessimist warning young people, "You can't fulfill your dreams."

I remember hearing such voices myself back in the early 1970s. I was a would-be high school quarterback back then, and the unvarnished truth is that I just wasn't very good. I really loved the game, but no one was ever going to confuse me with Archie Manning. Not on my best Friday night.

Still, it was my most cherished ambition to become a high school football coach. I considered that teaching young men the game of life on the gridiron would be one of the most rewarding endeavors imaginable. At that impressionable time in my journey, however, I chose not to listen to my own inner voice, but the more learned ones about me, who argued, “You can’t be a football coach. First, you were a crummy player; so, you’re not going to be able to play college ball. If you don’t play college ball, you won’t have anything to put down on your resume. So, you’ll never be able to get a good coaching job.”

“And, hey, even if you get a job,” they added, “high school football coaches don’t make a lot of money.” So, with my tail tucked securely between my spindly legs, I sauntered off to college to study (gulp) accounting.

That was eons ago, but to this day, whenever I attend a football game, it is with a certain sense of envy that I study the men feverishly toiling on the sidelines, drawing up their X’s and O’s.  I watch them interact with their players, and I call the next play in my own mind, always wondering if I could have been a Mac Barnes or Larry Weems.

All this is not to sound unappreciative of the many other wonderful and undeserved doors that the Lord has opened for me. It is to say, however, that people need to be careful about listening to the “dreambusters.” Dreambusters, as I wrote earlier, are those well-intended folks who stand ready, willing, and, even anxious, to tell you why you CAN’T do something. Surely, you have heard such voices in your life's experience. Very often a dreambuster is an individual who once upon a time had his or her own dream busted.

Young folks are especially favorite targets of dreambusters, and during a recession such as the one in which we're currently embroiled, there's a wide field of opportunity for a naysayer. But, you know, the only way to be assured that you can’t accomplish something is to try and fail. And if you fail, you still have the satisfaction of knowing that you gave it your best shot. Conversely, if you never try, you are left with a rather hollow feeling that begs the simple, yet forever pesky question, “What if?”

Despite our struggling economy, I remain naive enough to believe that if a person really wants something bad enough in America - whether you aspire to be a doctor, lawyer, bricklayer, electrician or football coach - he or she can still live their dream. If it's genuinely true that 80 percent of today's college graduates can't initially land a job upon earning their degree - and I would argue that we're doing a lot better than that among community college Career & Technical students in Mississippi - then someone consumed with self-belief is nevertheless going to find a way to be part of that elite 20 percent.

In Central Florida, where I resided back in the late 1980s and '90s, I came to know of a young man who never played a down of high school football, let alone as a collegian. Rather, he served as a team manager, toting towels and bottles of drinking water onto the field during time outs and washing uniforms on Saturday mornings. He loved the game intensely, but lacked the physical attributes to play.

That same young man ultimately became the head football coach at a high school with a pretty dadgummed strong program. Obviously, he never listened to the dreambusters. Instead, he focused on his stronger inner spirit which continually beckoned, “Yes, you can! Yes, you can!”

No, he never became a millionaire. Nor would he trade places with one.