Read about Jayson Allison (Men's Basketball) in the WSJ...

http://www.journalnow.com/sports/asu/ba ... cb49e.html

Super article. Thanks for sharing. Happy Father's day, Coach Allison.

Let me just say that as a father of an autistic son, most people have no idea what parents go through. I have no idea what Coach Allison and his wife go through having two autistic children. It is a horrible disease. There are lots of different treatment options, but like Coach said, there is no one size fits all. Sad thing is, if you are working middle class, there are very few options for you unless you pay yourself, with some treatments running thousands and thousands of dollars. Insurance does not cover much. If you qualify for Medicaid, Medicare or just walked across the border, the world is your oyster. Not trying to make this a political discussion, just the facts I have seen them for the last 9 years.

asu66 wrote:Read about Jayson Allison (Men's Basketball) in the WSJ...

http://www.journalnow.com/sports/asu/ba ... cb49e.html

I just finished this article and Coach Allison is a great role model and leader. I am proud of him for his growth and maturity as a father and a man, and I'm equally proud to say that he is one of our assistant coaches.

I love this article and especially this quote. Having been involved in high school athletics for almost 40 years I appreciate this comment:

Where he has little patience though, is hearing parents complain about having to go to their child’s Little League games or college basketball players who don’t appreciate their gift.

“I’ve told certain players I’ve coached that, ‘I have no sympathy for you,’” he said. “I have two kids that are in special needs classes; don’t give me excuses. We’re in this generation of enabling and entitled kids … I’ve got no sympathy for a lot of that stuff.

“No excuses; we sit here every day and I’ve got to drop my kids off at the back of the school every day, so I don’t want to hear somebody else’s whiny excuses.”

As the father of a special needs child, 6 years old now, has cerebral palsy(moderate) and hearing loss, I can only begin to understand what Coach is going through. As for 85grad speaking about costs associated for middle class parents, nail on the head.

On this Father's Day, I just spent a few moments letting our special needs nephew unload on me with all that has went on with him over the last couple of days. He is very eloquent in his speech, amazingly so. But as he speaks, I recognize that so much of what he just told me is mostly fantasy. In some ways he is just super intelligent, but his brain can't process his intelligence into the proper motor skills and behavior to be a fully functioning young person like he would like to be. His treatment and many surgeries has been overwhelmingly costly for his parents who still do their best to help him have a normal life. I let him tell me everything he wanted to unload about and I say a prayer frequently for him and his parents. He and others like him really help me with my perspective and appreciation for his parents and for other parents such as Coach Allison and his wife who deal with very hard things on a daily basis. I'm no expert on any of these issues and didn't mean to ramble on but I know I am blessed by my nephew as well as so many others.

On the topic of Father's Day I'd like to share an awesome story of my Dad who we lost at 49 of melanoma in 2011..... I was leaving for basic training after a few years at Appalachian that weren't bad enough to be kicked out, but showed no progress thanks to constantly changing majors. (When I finally graduated this past December, I secured a BSBA with over 210 hours of college credit.) The year was 2007, and I was to leave in a little over a month. Dad was an Army Reserve Gulf War vet, and asked/ordered me to join the USAF so I could "eat better" if I was to join. Anyway, I worked that Saturday morning managing a local oil changing business. Folks were coming in saying App was hanging tight to Michigan in the first quarter. I left work in my VW bus early, because I was meeting Dad in a local cornfield to shoot (at) doves on that opening day of season. So there I was rolling up in a hippie machine around the second half and Daddy had the game on the radio. "Mike, are you hearing this? App is up (whatever at the time). We hunted with the bus as our base camp, drank some cheerwines, and things looked dire at the end. I had to leave. I had to go to the center of the field and try to murder a poor lil birdie. At this point App was down and hadn't made that drive for the Rouche fieldgoal yet. Dad started yelling in his "Mike get your ass over here voice." We were up. It was awesome and sickening to hear Jackson announce that final minute or so. Anyway, we know how the game ended. We fired off a round in a safe direction for celebratory purposes. I knew that day I would be back in Boone one day, and I would get that piece of paper he would have been so proud to see me get. Happy Father's day, and God bless the Mountaineers.