Man, it would take me a while to whittle options down to one, so I will simply double stamp what @BOF and @chazball said above. Both are so valuable that I don't need to come up with anything else. Unfortunately, these 2 PROFOUNDLY important pieces of advice are ones that most players and parents don't want to hear. They don't want either be true because they're are fun-haters that kill the "dream" of their uber-special son. We all HAVE to tell our kids that they can do and be whatever they set their minds to. If the sky is the limit - like we've pounded into them since birth - then every kid can play at Vandy if he believes in himself and works hard enough. Where we go wrong, is we skip the part where we're supposed to swoop in and tell them we were simply trying to inspire them and that reality is infinitely more complicated at age 17 than it is at age 7. I know good, down-to-earth, grounded parents that struggle with killing their kids' dreams. I am one of them. Inertia is a b!tch!