Monthly Archives: January 2024

What we can learn from Sam Darnold’s parents and why I’m a fan

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I wrote this a while ago when Sam Darnold was a quarterback with USC. I liked his low key, humble way about him. Now he’s the backup QB for San Francisco 49ers heading to the Superbowl and I’m still a fan. He was third pick in the draft and became starting QB for the NY Jets.

As a mom who was engrossed (obsessed?) for years as a swim mom — and had my kids in private lessons — I found Sam’s parents to be exceptional at sports parenting.

They were parents who let their phenom athletically-gifted kid, be just that. A kid.

My husband asked me to read a story from the Bleacher Report about USC Quarterback Sam Darnold. I put him off for a day because frankly, I wasn’t that interested. I finally read it to appease him and found Sam’s story to be fascinating—mainly because of the parenting style of Mike and Chris Darnold.

From childhood through high school, Sam played basketball, football, and baseball. I think he played volleyball, too. His parents let him try and decide what sports he participated in. They didn’t make him specialize or get him private lessons or coaches. In fact, Sam believes his success in football is from playing all different sports and learning a variety of skills. In a refreshing story written by Jeff Perlman, you find out about a dying breed of parents—ones who believe in fun and no pressure. Parents who let their child lead his own life.

“USC’s star quarterback and his parents do not live by the LaVar Ball theory of the universe. They let a multisport supernova grow up into his own man. And that’s why this 20-year-old might be the No. 1 pick in next year’s NFL draft.”

Yet the story of Sam Darnold isn’t the story of the modern quarterback, loud and sparkly and created to own the internet’s 24-hour hype machine. Nope, it’s the story of a young man on the verge of superstardom because, not long ago, he was allowed to diversify.

He was allowed to be a kid.

The Darnolds’ Capistrano Beach household is in the heart of south Orange County, where there are youth sports leagues atop leagues atop leagues, and private coaches atop private coaches atop private coaches.

In Orange County, it’s not uncommon for a nine-year-old pitcher to throw sliders and curveballs nine or 10 months of the year—with a father behind the backstop holding a radar gun. It’s not uncommon for a quarterback to play Pop Warner, then a season of flag and then spend the summer under the watchful eye of a $200-an-hour passing guru.

This was not going to happen to Sam.

“My parents,” the quarterback says, “wouldn’t have allowed it.”

On paper, this might come as a surprise. One would be hard-pressed to find a more sports-centric family than the Darnolds. Mike (Sam’s dad) was an offensive lineman at the University of Redlands, Chris (Sam’s mom) a volleyball player at Long Beach City College. Sam’s older sister Franki starred in volleyball at the University of Rhode Island and three of his cousins—Allie, Michele and A.J.—also participated in collegiate volleyball. Sam’s late grandfather, Dick Hammer, played basketball at USC and was on the 1954 team that went to the Final Four. He was also a member of the 1964 U.S. Olympic men’s volleyball team.

Put simply, organized athletics are a big deal in the Darnold world and have been for decades.

“But,” says Chris, “they’re not everything. We’ve always tried to keep things in perspective. Yes, our children have always loved playing sports. But around here, in this part of California, it too often becomes live and die. That’s a big mistake in my opinion. It has to be fun.”

“One day you open your eyes and it’s, ‘Holy cow, your son is in this position,’” Mike says. “I mean, it’s crazy, right? Crazy, crazy, crazy—one in a million.”

He pauses. Though Chris is acknowledged by family members as the emotional one, the father has been showing his soft side of late. He insists he never cared whether his children played sports or an instrument or worked a job—as long as they were involved and happy and tried different things. But to have a son as USC’s starting quarterback; to have a son who is a Heisman Trophy front-runner; to have a son who is humble and decent and respectful?

“Say what you want,” Mike says. “Sam’s not flashy, he’s not a yeller, he’s not a trophy collector, a bragger. But I feel like we worked hard to raise our kids the right way. And it’s paid off.”

I believe the Darnolds have lessons for many sports parents, myself included. Of course, they had an exceptionally athletic son who could have been recruited in basketball, baseball or football. But more than that, they raised a humble, balanced kid. They are proud of him as a person, not just as a star athlete. Their attitude and parenting style helped develop Sam into the man he is and will become.

Here’s another great article in the Los Angles Times called “As expectations swell, USC’s Sam Darnold finds comfort at home near the beach” by Zach Helfand.

Look what popped up yesterday:

What are your thoughts about kids specializing in one sport at an early age?

Walking along Frank Sinatra

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We took a morning walk down a street called Frank Sinatra this weekend while we were in the Palm Springs area. This is the view from Palm Desert of Mt. San Jacinto. The mountain is a few blocks from the backyard of our old home. Many of the streets are named after celebrities including Bob Hope, Gerald Ford, Dinah Shore, Gene Autry and Fred Waring. My kids didn’t know that Fred Waring was a person. But they heard of Dinah Shore when Leonardo DiCaprio moved into Dinah Shore’s old house — next door to one of their school mates.

Frank Sinatra’s compound is on Frank Sinatra Drive, which might be the reason for the street’s name. I once interviewed to be Sinatra’s assistant’s assistant and entered his property for an interview. One of my ballet friends had the job and she was asked to refer people for the position because she was moving to LA. It turned out the job paid about 25% less than what I was making in PR for a local developer, so working with the Sinatras was not enough of a pull for me to change jobs.

We had a busy weekend with my dad’s 92nd birthday, visiting clients and attending a friend’s funeral. That’s why we drove about five hours Saturday and five hours on Sunday.

View of Desert Willow golf course from a sidewalk along Frank Sinatra.

Mt. San Jacinto Palm Springs
The view of Mt. San Jacinto from my morning walks when I lived in Palm Springs.
This was a park a few blocks from our house.

What did you do this past weekend that you enjoyed?

Life and Death

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Sunset saguaro
A saguaro at sunset.

Two texts arrived within minutes. One on my husband’s phone — a friend who was also a client had lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. He was one of very few to make it almost five years since diagnosis. His daughter texted to tell us the news and invited us to services planned this weekend. It hit me hard. It’s the fifth death of a friend in a short amount of time. I feel mortality is fleeting and I’m scared, especially with my DIL’s cancer. It’s all too real.

Then my phone pinged and there was a picture of a beautiful newborn baby boy. The mother is a swimmer from our club team and was close to my son and daughter. I talk to her mother almost every week. She’s been one of my closest friends for years. I remember the first time I met her, we were at our first swim meet with our son and I felt lost and overwhelmed. My soon to be friend was the only smiling face I saw that day. She drove our second car from Palm Springs to Arizona on the day we moved, her husband following behind in their car. Now that’s a friend. What a joy to see a photo of new life in their family at that moment…

This weekend we’ll be going to a funeral as well as celebrating my dad’s 92nd birthday. That’s life. That’s death. Sadness. Joy.

Today, in my online writing class at Gotham Writers on plots (Gotham Writers was recommended by LA from Waking Up on the Wrong Side of 50) I learned about Life and Death as a theme in plots. A coincidence? I think not.

Then I began a book to read, “The Indigo Girl” by Natasha Boyd. Here’s the opening page:

“No time is ours but the present…and that so fleeting, we can hardly be said to exist.” Eliza Lucas 1722-1793

The Indigo Girl, A novel by Natasha Boyd

What are your thoughts about Life and Death? Do you think it’s unusual to learn about a death and a birth within minutes?

Where do ideas come from?

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A flow chart my daughter made for me after she proofread an article I wrote for SwimSwam.

Shout out to Ally Bean of The Spectacled Bean for her post yesterday. It inspired me to write about where we get our blog ideas, plus reminded me of the flow chart above that I used in an article called “Does Your Child Want to Swim in College” for SwimSwam. Ally had a flow chart in her post called “Is it a penguin?”

I used to write a weekly sports parenting column for SwimSwam. I came up with an idea every week for five years from my personal experiences, parenting mistakes, plus observing other parents with their kids on the pool deck. I’d get ideas from coaches and interview Olympians and coaches. I even got emails from parents around the world asking me for advice, which started a Dear Abby-type column called “Ask Swim Mom.” I began swimming myself and would ask my coach for ideas while I was hanging onto the wall. I’d ask my daughter to read my columns before turning them in and she had great advice (like adding her flow chart).

Swimming is a sport that lasts 50 weeks a year with practice six days a week, with a couple two-a-day practices thrown in per week. You can imagine how obsessed and focused swimming families can become. My goal with my column was to let kids be kids and own their own sport. In other words, parents need to back off.

Now, that my kids have left the nest, I no longer have the desire to write about swimming or parenting. I began my blog writing financial advice for women. I realized within a few weeks that nobody wanted to read that. Then I moved on to swimming, parenting and things that were going on in my day-to-day life. I’m still writing about my daily life, but life has slowed down. Sometimes my posts are photos of birds from my Bird Buddy or sunrises and sunsets.

Where do you get your ideas for blogging?

How has your blog evolved through the years?

Out of sorts

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Sunrise on a cloudy morning.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling off. There are a bunch of things on my mind.

First, my daughter-in-law who was approved for disability until the end of March, was cut off from it out of the blue. Now my son and DIL have to fight the system to get it reinstated.

Next, she was informed by her job through email that they are exploring termination because her 12 weeks of leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act has ended. I don’t think that is legal, because cancer is protected under ADA. The doctor gave her leave of absence until her chemo treatments are done.

It’s so frustrating to me that they have this added stress. It’s unnecessary and wrong and they shouldn’t have to deal with these issues while she’s undergoing her last few months of chemo.

We had a house guest over the weekend. He was a childhood friend of my husband’s and they were roommates when we first got together. I thought he was staying with us for a few days, but he left early Sunday morning after arriving the afternoon before.

Finally, we have a tenant who hasn’t paid rent and it was due January 1. He’s strung my husband along with excuses and promises to pay and finally admitted yesterday morning that he doesn’t have the money. This is the same house where we had problems — with possible illegal activity. I wrote about it HERE.

What sort of things make you feel out of sorts?

Where Hope Lives

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Sunset view

Where Hope Lives is the new branding of The Dream Center of Phoenix, that I wrote about HERE and HERE.

I belong to the Creative Women of Pinnacle Peak which fundraises and supports Where
Hope Lives and hosted the event.

What country is number one in buying sex and human trafficking?

The United States of America.

What is the number one desirable target of sex trafficking?

11-year-old boys who can earn $250,000 a year for their trafficker.

I learned these facts at a meeting last night with guest speaker Joanna Shipe who is a long-time volunteer with The Dream Center (for woman ages 18 and older) and StreetLightUSA (ages 13 to 17.) I belong to the Creative Women of Pinnacle Peak which fundraises and supports Where Hope Lives and hosted the event.

Here is more info from the Where Hope Lives website:

Where Hope Lives
Where Hope Lives is home to the largest human trafficking rescue and recovery operation in North America. We are located at the Phoenix Dream Center (ages 18+), StreetLightUSA (ages 13-17), and Colorado City Dream Center (familial trafficking survivors). Our quality assurance report boasts a 94% success rate, one year after graduating from our program.

Why Give To Where Hope Lives?
Where Hope Lives Provides

  • Onsite medical center to address survivor needs
  • Onsite chapel is offered for spiritual nurture
  • Onsite behavioral health care healing services
  • Onsite trauma informed high school
  • Onsite physical wellness and wholeness center
  • Onsite eye care and dental care clinics
  • Onsite career training and job placement program
  • 30,000 square feet of space for healing care
  • 12 safe beds for boys and young men
  • 41 safe beds for girls and young women
  • 200 sex trafficking survivors served each year
  • $46K per year per survivor in healing costs
  • 10 Years passing legislation to help victims

But even with all this…Only 1 out of every 100 individuals trafficked will be rescued.

https://stoptrafficwalk.org/where-hope-lives/

The facility needs 2,000 beds. Shipe said the former administration came to observe The Dream Center for six weeks. They decided it was a premier program for helping victims of human trafficking and allotted $13 million to the program after going through everything with a fine-tooth comb. That would have provided funds for a new 2,000-bed facility on land that has already been purchased. The current administration cancelled the funds because the center won’t allow men or transgenders into the residential facility with women or children — who were raped up to 15 to 20 times per day and are traumatized.

A question was asked on how long victims stay in the residential facility. Shipe said it’s all individual on what each woman or child needs. She said they have one resident who has been there seven or eight years and may never leave. She was from Ukraine and bought by Epstein at age 10. She’s now in her late 20s and is so damaged she may never be able to lead a normal life. Others are able to continue on with their education or begin careers in a year or two.

Another fact I learned was human trafficking is organized crime. It’s not a one-off kidnapping with a child being thrown into a van. Kids are targeted who are vulnerable. The groomers are not covered in tattoos and don’t look like thugs. They are extremely good looking and clean cut. If your daughter were to bring one of these groomers home, you’d be pleased. Shipe said to not let your children or grandchildren alone with their phones at night. Grooming often starts on apps.

Do these facts change how you view human trafficking? What organizations in your area provide services for human trafficking?

The Desk

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My desk, clean and tidy.

When we moved into our new home, December 2020, there was a formal dining room. The prior owners asked us to buy their gorgeous dining room furniture which was Chinese lacquered in shiny black. I really liked it, but formal dining is not our style. We ended up buying the sellers’ furniture in the casita which was the best decision we made — because our furniture didn’t arrive until the next day or two. (That’s another story. The moving truck wasn’t big enough. The two guys moving us had to find a U-Haul, which were scarce. The closest one was two hours away….) Because we bought the casita furniture, we had a bed to sleep on plus table, chairs and a sofa.

Anywho, I turned the formal dining room into my office. We bought the desk and chair at a consignment store a few weeks after moving. Then I promptly stuffed the drawers from boxes that said “desk” on them. I’ve barely been able to use the desk because the drawers were so full they were hard to open.

Then last week, a mere three years later, I was looking for some paperwork. I found the paperwork plus two envelopes from Costco that I never opened. Thankfully, before throwing them in the trash, I discovered rewards checks totaling more than $900! Woohoo! (Did you know that rewards from Costco never expire?)

That prompted me to clean out my desk.

That’s why I’m feeling smug and love my desk. It’s so organized and one drawer has hanging files with everything current neatly filed. No, I didn’t find any more money. But the $900 will do just fine. Some of the funny things I found were a pile of cords for old Macs I no longer own and connections that are out of date. Also, a device I bought during the pandemic that was an ultraviolet light cleaner for my iphone. (I convinced myself that because it was from China, that once I placed my phone in it and pressed the on button, it was sending all my data to China, rather than sterilizing my phone against COVID.)

Here are a few items in my office that I love:

A present from my dear friend Phyllis. Isn’t that cool?

A large painting of our backyard in Palm Springs where we lived for 28 years.

Paintings by my grandmother of Robe, Wash. where our property is on the Stillaguamish River. The top painting is of me around age five (sorry for the glare). The bottom one is of the cabin my mom and dad built themselves.

What area in your home needs a thorough cleaning and organizing?

I had a friend who called these places “hot spots.”