Letter to Mom Ceremony

A tradition that we encourage SportsLeader teams to put into place is called "Letter to Mom"

It is a very powerful event that has changed many lives.

The basic gist is that you have all your players write a letter to their Moms. Maybe you do this before or after a practice.

Then you invite all the Moms to come to X place at X time.

Once there the players read their letters to their Moms in front of everyone present. Yes, this might be difficult for some - that is precisely the point and the reason behind doing it.

For many of us, as we grew up, our communication with our Moms consisted in 4 basic topics:

Food

Laundry

Money

A ride

Outside of those, we quite possibly did not speak to the poor woman.

Well - as the players write their letters, you tell them that they need to write at least these 3 things:

1. Mom, I love you.

2. Thank you for ...

3. I appreciate you. Describe the virtues and qualities of your Mom.

One coach, Mike Stine of Naperville Central High School in Illinois makes a great banquet out of it ... others it is simple ceremony after a practice.

One team this year had a special experience. This coach had a player who, at the time, was very arrogant, obnoxious and disrespectful. Well he had a bit of a conversion as he wrote his letter. He handed his coach a 3 page letter that was "beyond amazing".

He told the young man - "You are reading yours first."

At the ceremony, he reads his letter with a lot of emotion. Stunned is an understatement. His Mom gave him a hug that lasted for what seemed an hour. It was impossible not to be moved by this. Every teenage macho facade disappeared. 

It only got better.

The next player who was assigned to go ... was the standout QB who everyone thought was going to go first - nice, respectful, good kid.

He stands up, coughs a few times and says:

"Mom, I'm not going to read the letter I wrote. It is here and you can have it but I can't read it. I've been a selfish (expletive) my whole life. What I wrote in this letter isn't real. I wrote it because Coach made us write it. But it's not real. But after J read that to his Mom ... I can't ... you deserve better. So if you all don't mind I'm just going to talk. Let me tell you about my Mom. She is the most selfless person I know ... "

He praised his Mom for 5 minutes.

Most of the players that followed the QB did the exact same thing.

One of the main objectives is to offer your players the opportunity to SEE how much this means to their Mom. Too often we take our Mom for granted. This little ceremony hopefully will help erase that.

If the Moms of your coaches are still with us and living nearby ... have the coaches invite their Moms as well and they can speak too ... If someone has already lost their Mom ... have them write it anyway. It might bring some healing.

Get some roses and have the players give one to their Mom as well.

I hope you do this with your team.