Jared Sullinger's father offers tough love

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/celtics_nba/boston_celtics/2015/02/jared_sullingers_father_offers_tough_love





Jared Sullinger's father offers tough love


Saturday, February 7, 2015
By:  Steve Bulpett



Jared Sullinger was on time yesterday — beginning a new streak of Celtics games for which he will be where he is supposed to when he is supposed to.

Having been late to the Garden for the last two home affairs — and removed from the starting lineup because of it — the second-year Celt wasn’t about to cross his coach. Or his previous coach. The latter goes by the name of Satch Sullinger, or, to Jared, dad.

The recent transgressions are being taken by the organization as a small frost heave in the road and will remain as such as long as his record on such issues remains as clean as it’s been prior. This is not a story about a young player gone wrong; it’s a family tale.

And while the matter of the tardiness may be closed with coach Brad Stevens, the high school and home mentor had more to tell his son yesterday.

“I texted him,” said Satch, “and I told him, ‘I love you and I’m always proud of you, and nothing will ever change that. But I’m going to be there for you even at times when you don’t want me there, because I will always be your dad.’ That’s what I sent him today.”

What he said to Jared earlier in the week was not as sweet. The former coach at Columbus Northland High had a few points to make.

“With my program, I had a simple rule,” the elder Sullinger told the Herald after finishing a substitute teaching gig yesterday. “If you can’t be on time, be early. There’s no such thing as late. But he rode with me to practice because he lived with the coach. So he never was late. In college, they hand feed you. Everyone’s coming from the dorm. Now he’s a man. It’s a job.

“It’s the final process of him being a man. It’s a rite of passage. I told him, ‘You’re 22 years old, and people look at you as a grown man.’ I said, ‘You’re 22 and you think you’re grown, but you’re not there yet. I’m your dad. I’m always going to be there.’

“I told him it’s a last-minute action that’s getting him in trouble. He’s leaving just enough time to be there, and something happens. I said, ‘You may leave at this time and it’s been working, and now it just didn’t work. It’s OK to be early, but it’s never OK to be late.’ So I suggested to him that whatever time he’s been leaving in the past, leave 15 minutes early.”

Sullinger, who had charges dismissed for a domestic violence incident before the 2013 season, knew he was in the wrong again when he got caught in traffic before Wednesday’s game against Denver. He played it off a bit with reporters before scoring 14 points in 21 minutes. He had 22 points in last night’s win over the Sixers.

“Everyone in this locker room was probably late one time,” he said. “Things happen. You can’t let it happen. I was late, though I wasn’t late for the game.”

His dad knew where the reply was originating, but he didn’t necessarily buy it.

“In his mind, he’s going, ‘Other people might have done this. Other people might have done that.’ And he tried that with me,” said Satch. “My point was, ‘I don’t have a nickel or a dime with anyone else. You’re a Sullinger and you’re my son. I want to talk about you. I want to talk about your growth and your development and that maturity doesn’t take place until you start dealing in reality.’

“My message to him was you can come up with all the rationale and all the reasons you want, but the bottom line and reality is you were late. Once you start dealing with that reality, then maturity can start taking its place. But until you accept it, then you’re just fighting the process of manhood.

“I said to him, ‘Fight the process if you want to. You can rationalize it any way you want in your head. But this is your final process of manhood when you start accepting responsibility of doing things the way a man’s supposed to do things.’ I told him I’m not mad at him; I’m not disappointed in him. This is just the last process of him consummating this thing called manhood. And as his father, I’m supposed to help him do it.”

Having been a coach and developed players on and off the court, Satch Sullinger has a fairly strong idea of how these things work.

“He’s 22 years old,” he said of Jared. “He knows he’s not starting. He knows he’s interrupted the team. He’s fighting for an excuse. When he’s 25 and the cognitive side of his brain has developed and he says something like that (other people being late), let’s hang him out to dry. But he’s 22. The cognitive side of his brain has not developed yet. That’s my job as a dad to help him do that. What he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know. My job as his father is to throw away all the dirty water without throwing the baby out at the same time.”

Jared Sullinger is no child. He was impressing teammates like Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett with his basketball maturity as a rookie. No one on or around the club is expecting the lessons of the last week to be lost on him.

“It’s experience,” said Satch. “You can’t go to the store and buy it. You’ve got to live it. And that’s what he’s doing. Him being late is a terrible thing. But am I proud of him? Yeah, I’m proud of him. Have I ever been late before? Yes, I’ve been late before. But I had to go through the same process.”

Before last night’s game, Jared Sullinger was relaxed as he stood beside the court. He was back in the starting lineup and thinking about what he had to against Philly. Leaving aside distractions — even those of one’s own creation — is part of the process, too.



bob
MY NOTE: I love coach's kids, absolutely love them.  That's why I'm not completely down on Kelly and Phil because they aren't coming along as quickly as we'd like, they've got a good back up system in place should they start to regress.


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It's nice that Sully has a second conscience in his dad, which probably makes it easier on Brad to avoid being too heavy-handed as a disciplinarian.

Sam