Late Bloomers

There was a recent story in the Houston Chronicle about Jacoby Jones. I have to confess that I am a Houston Texans fan and have always loved Jones. I read the article because of that, but ended up thinking about the young adults I work with who are late bloomers. According to the article, Jones is a late bloomer. He was too small in high school to play much football and ran track instead. He went to a small college on a track scholarship but found it boring. He transferred to another small college and walked on to the football team.

This sounded very familiar. Lots of the young adults I work with, start out somewhere and don’t quite catch hold and then start again somewhere else. Jones got a very lucky break because he started to get taller and bigger. Big and tall enough that he could consider a career in pro football. But he hadn’t gotten the experience along the way that kids who are on track for a pro career have from the time they are little.

The young adults I work often don’t hit their stride right away because they have to figure out how to cope with brain wiring that is different. As a result, they tend to be late bloomers. Sometimes they are a little bit late, like Jacoby. Some are a lot late. (You know who you are!) It is important not to judge them too harshly as they take multiple stumbles out of the starting gate. It behooves us to invest in them, to figure out the obstacles that contribute to their difficulties, and to provide a team of support around them.

I loved the fact that that’s what Coach Kubiak did for Jones. To get him to the point where his great athletic abilities would pay off for the team, Kubiak invested extra time and energy to help him grow. In the article, Kubiak says, “When you get somebody who has all that talent but you’re battling other things that are keeping him from being as good as he can be, you’ve got to figure out how to go and fix it.”

I wish all my young adults could run into a coach Kubiak along the way.

Oh, and Go Texans!