My nephew, Andrew, was a very talented cricketer in his early teens & showed so much promise that he was invited to attend a training course here in Brisbane where senior players & coaches would access their potential, provide guidance & coaching with a view to future recruitment into the Queensland squad.
I first learned of this when i got a phone call from big sister who was very excited, they want Andrew to go to Brisbane to attend some sort of cricket academy they think that he is so good that he might be able to play for Queensland one day but it will be for 2 weeks & they don't provide accommodation.
No problem sis, i'll put him up for a couple of weeks, his 13 years old so he will be able to look after himself while i am at work & i will make sure that if i can't take him myself, i'll show him how to get to the various venues that he needs to attend.
Due to my work schedule, i could usually only drop him off or pick him up from his training sessions however the last two days of the course coincided with my days off so i was finally able attend for the full sessions.
Of course i was there to support Andrew but i was very quickly distracted as i was introduced to long retired & current players that were all involved in this program.
It was a cricket fans dream, i got to meet a lot of my heroes including Thommo, AB & even Greg Chappel who was involved behind the scenes & they were all fantastic telling me what i wanted to hear about my nephews potential but it was Ray Phillips who took me aside & told me straight out, this kid has a lot of potential, he can hit the ball a long way but his defensive technique is absolute crap, you need to get your local coaches to concentrate on his defence.
Andrew took this advice onboard & worked hard on his defensive technique, he resisted the urge to hit every single ball to the boundary & his game improved immensely.
By the time that he was 15 years old he was playing in the mens competion & embarrassing them all but then one off season he got involved with the wrong crowd & started taking drugs.
Forget about cricket, all of a sudden we are dealing with fines, inability or unwillingness to work, court cases & jail time, somewhere in amongst all his turmoil there is a child, with the mother long gone she is basically being raised by her grand parents.
Despite everything that beautiful child is doing wonderfully well, she is as bright as a button, well adjusted & thank the lord, seems to have taken on the traits of her grandparents rather than those of her biological parents.