Saying Thank You

This season required a lot of people.

Your coaches. Your parents who drove you to every practice. The other parents who helped out. The people who set up the field or the court or organized the schedule. Your teammates who showed up and worked hard with you.

Most of those people aren’t going to get trophies. They did what they did because they cared about you and this team. Before we fully close the season, those people deserve to hear something from you.

Read this passage slowly.

Let that sit for a second before you move.

Pay what you owe. Paul is talking about more than money — he’s talking about the non-financial debts we owe people. Respect. Honor. Gratitude. These are things we owe people who gave something to us, and the honest answer is most of us are behind on paying them.

Your parents sacrificed time and money for this season. Your coaches gave up evenings and weekends to help you get better at something you love. Your teammates made every practice more bearable and every win more fun. You owe them something. It doesn’t cost anything to pay it. It’s two words: thank you.

Not the automatic, distracted, already-moving-on version. The real one. The one where you look at the person and say specifically what you’re grateful for. That kind of thank you is rare. It’s also unforgettable.

If parents are present at the end-of-season event, this is the moment to have kids actually say it out loud to them. That moment is worth more than almost anything else in the season.