A California teacher penned a letter to Steph Curry to ask him to stay away from his students.
Matt Amaral is a huge Warriors fan, but instead of wanting his Bay Area students to look up to people like Curry, he wants them to be realistic in knowing that they can’t be like Curry, and that’s ok. He wants his students to focus their interests in other things besides a delusional sports dream that may never come true.
Here is some of his letter via Teach4Real:
Because the worst thing you won’t tell them Steph, is that they can’t do it. You won’t tell them that will you? You won’t be able to bring yourself to tell them it is already too late. You won’t tell them about all those years when you were playing in top competitive leagues as a child. You won’t tell them that if they haven’t played organized basketball by the age of sixteen (twelve, really), they have no chance of going pro. You see, the kids I am talking about do not play year-round, they are not in a travelling league, and they have never even heard of a McDonald’s All-American; they just eat McDonald’s two meals a day and have Hot Cheetos in between.
When I tell my students they are not going to be professional athletes, they like to say, “Won’t you feel stupid if one of your students does go pro?” And my answer is always the same: “No, because even if they do, that means I will still be 99.9% right. Right now I am one thousand for one thousand.” Steph, you and I know they have a better chance of winning the lottery, but no one seems to tell them these things but me. Would this letter make you feel better if I told you I discourage the California Lottery from giving inspirational speeches at my high school as well? If I wrote them a letter, would anyone think I was out of line? Probably not.
I actually agree with what his letter was stating. Some kids have focused on dreams of becoming a star athlete and have nothing to fall back on when their career doesn’t go as planned. I can name so many people I went to high school and college with who always knew they were going to go pro and make millions and become stars. I can probably name less than 5 of them who actually did just that. It’s okay to have dreams and aspirations of becoming a star athlete, but don’t let that be the only thing you focus on. Have a crutch in your education as something to fall back on. What are your thoughts on his letter?