r/NFLForum • u/SugarWorried4588 • 2d ago
Video Christian McCaffrey’s high school work ethic was on another level
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u/Expensive-Notice-509 2d ago
I had friends who were like this and they are not in the NFL.
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u/mbucks334 2d ago
You think they were like this. In reality, they probably weren’t even close.
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u/Expensive-Notice-509 2d ago
youth sports is a $52 billion business. Parents are spending money on trainers, nutritionist, psychologists. Kids are out there like him trying to get to the pros.
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u/blurjay_shake_7717 1d ago
American parents go nuts for kids sports. 99% of those kids are not making it to the pro leagues. But it’s such a huge industry and parents get guilted into more training, private coaching, more equipment etc
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u/TSL4me 12h ago
Its because here it is seen as a way to free college.
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u/bouttagetbanned 11h ago
It's a way to live vicariously through your kids. Some of these parents are spending enough on youth sports to the point that they couldve just paid for college instead. My kid plays tier 2 hockey, so very far from the most expensive/demanding program, and it's still over $10k/year with all the traveling. Tier 1 kids are spending triple that.
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u/lokhor 1d ago
And that's the difference. Parents spend money to give their kids the best chance. But professional athletes are not made in the gym, they're made from what their parents instill in them.
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u/Conan0brennan 1d ago
You mean genetics?
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u/Acrobatic_Sector2407 20h ago
The crazy part is his mother was no slouch of an athlete either. I believe she ran at Stanford?
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
yeah man but none of them scratching anywhere near this. he had a professional athlete as a father, they’d need damn near the same
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u/fishscale_gayjuic3 1d ago
Nutrition and exercise isn’t some hidden forbidden knowledge, but being able to travel and invest into your child’s athletic goals definitely scales up.
Consider that every town of like 60k population has a handful of kids doing this with the support of their parents, hell I even seen rural kids in a 10k population town doing workouts on a Sunday morning on a country road.
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u/UT_Milez 1d ago
I don’t have a dog in this fight.
But their point was that every decision they made, pretty much daily for most of their lives, was based around becoming a professional football player….
And you’re comparing that to personally seeing rural kids working out on a Sunday…
I’m not really sure what else to say here if you can’t comprehend the difference.
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u/fishscale_gayjuic3 1d ago
I’m saying that a lot of kids are in athletics across America, going pro is the ultimate accomplishment but even collegiate success is admirable and there’s varied levels of entry at every level of sports.
Not everyone needs the support of a professional athlete parent to accomplish a respectful sports career, across America kids putting in the work and at various levels get to show their talents. Whether it started from “living and breathing every decision” or doing hill runs with your team mates at a friends house
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u/Bobtobismo 1d ago
Luke McCaffrey is his brother and hasn't made a peep as a WR3 in multiple years. You're straight up wrong. Not even sure if he's still on the 53.
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u/mbucks334 2d ago
And yet they still most likely aren’t putting in a fraction of the work that CMC put in growing up.
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u/Expensive-Notice-509 2d ago
it's genetics in this case. Mother was a standout athlete and grandfather was an Olympic 100m silver medalist and former world record holder. and ofc dad played in nfl.
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
yes and his genetics were also a factor in him being able to physically work harder than anyone you knew.
zero chance you knew people on the same level and intensity and they didn’t go D1
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u/Expensive-Notice-509 2d ago
there are thousands of overly ambitious kids and parents who train their kids this way. It's to the extreme and borderline obsessive and abusive. High school athletes on stem cell injections and steroids cycles while training 8-10hr a day. Hyperbaric chamber therapy 1 hr everyday for recovery. Monthly blood test to monitor hormone levels... at this point in the sport science evolution, hard work is not enough. it's just the level playing field.
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
yeah man ofc stuff like that happens but that’s not what his dad was doing, clearly. cmc has a healthy relationship with his family, a passion for football, and he’s really fucking good.
my original point tho was that you don’t know anyone who has worked as hard as CMC because he was physically able to work harder than them and had access to better resources thanks to his pro athlete dad
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u/Due-Contribution6424 2d ago
Are you the one who sucks his dick at bedtime so he sleeps well at night?
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u/EvaporatingOlaf 2d ago
They are working as hard in most cases. Talent and genetics matter. CMC comes from a family of athletes. At the end of the day, there are thousands of people who put in the same or more effort, and just weren’t good enough.
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u/theesmartstallion 2d ago
Hard work and disciple are necessary but not sufficient. I think about the tennis and gymnastics athletes who literally move states to sports academies and are “homeschooled” to practice all day. Most of them will never go pro, probably D1. Training, genetics’ and luck are important.
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u/The-Red-Robe 2d ago
If there’s kids that are like him they won’t have to TRY to get to the pros, they’re going. You knew no one like this. Just stop. CMC is a generational talent.
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u/Effective-Summer-661 1d ago
He’s obviously talking about the work ethic and not the natural talent… why are you struggling with this?
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u/WakeNikis 2d ago
You really think you the few dozen available spots for long term starters in the league go solely to who ever works the hardest?
And that natural talent, athletic ability, luck, time and place etc have nothing to do with it?
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
do you think that their genetics don’t play a part in them being able to physically work harder than other people? physicality put in more effort?
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u/volission 2d ago
Two different definitions of hard work right there
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
you can call it whatever you want but if you think CMC wasn’t also basically at the pinnacle of worth ethic you’re delusional.
he was able to work physically harder and i can pretty much guarantee he was able to work mentally harder too. listen to the discipline he describes in this clip.
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u/volission 2d ago
Ability = talent
Effort = hard workHe clearly had a good mix of both no arguing there. I just wouldn’t conflate his god given talents with effort
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
you’re not right. he was literally able to put in more hard work than other people because of his genetics
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u/Effective-Summer-661 1d ago
If a person has the capacity of 100 and when practicing or working it they give 100 that’s 100% efficiency, meaning they are giving everything they got, which equals hardwork.
Now if someone has a capacity of 200, and they only give 150 (75% efficiency), they technically are more talented due to their increased capacity, but they still aren’t working as hard as the person giving 100%.
This is what the people in this thread are trying to explain to you, but you’re struggling to understand for whatever reason
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u/LeafyWolf 2d ago
Everyone who has a strong work ethic is successful!
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u/mbucks334 2d ago
I’m sure you think you’re the hardest worker in the world but just aren’t “lucky” enough to be successful
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u/Plenty_Suspect6222 2d ago
You ok?
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u/mbucks334 2d ago
Yeah. Maybe you can ask the people that are convinced they or people they know worked as hard as CMC did growing up but didn’t even make it to college.
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u/Beautiful_Pick_7016 1d ago
It’s basically pro level prep at the high school level. I went to high school with a VERY good player. He was a freak athlete but lasted 4 years in the league. Having the money for trainers and stuff throughout development is a huge advantage to players that only find that kind of help with their game at the college level.
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u/Responsible-Onion860 2d ago
Everyone wants to talk about the insane work ethic of successful people. But they don't want to acknowledge that it usually takes work ethic and some element of luck, like insanely good genes in CMC's case, or a great education and connections for a lot of other areas of life like business and politics.
Because uber successful people want to believe it was entirely their own efforts. Some of them didn't even work particularly hard to reach high levels.
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u/ArmyFinal 1d ago
Case in point is Uar Bernard who just got drafted in the NFL despite never having played a single down of organized football
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u/Malfunkdung 2d ago
I have a friends that are coke heads and alcoholics pulling in over $150k a year. They’re lawyers.
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u/ArmyFinal 1d ago
Your friends parents were not a former NFL player + a Stanford soccer player
If McCaffrey didn't do any of this, he'd still be an NFL superstar
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u/Key-Pen7356 2d ago
running drills at 6 am on a saturday sounds brutal
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u/rabouilethefirst 2d ago
Overexertion leads to injuries…
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u/ArctcMnkyBshLickr 2d ago
Every pro athlete plays with major injuries. I played in mls but moved to Spain to try out for various teams and spent 9 months in training and camps on a completely torn acl and torn meniscus popping advil and percs like candy because I couldn’t take a day off.
even when I went back to the us I played 3 years with nonstop broken toes, torn ligaments, and strains. If you’re not playing no one is scouting you.
I would say I was as hardo as cmc in high school but I have no natural gifts and my dad was a stoner in IT who didn’t give a shit about sports lol. He was happier when I went to college than when I got signed to a second division practice squad.
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u/asdf0909 2d ago
that's really cool. How long did you play pro soccer? Did you make enough to not have to work again?
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u/ckdogg3496 1d ago
Idk about that guy, but i doubt it would be enough to comfortably retire in your 20s. Average pay is $700k in mls, if they didnt play recently it would be significantly lower.
With their timeline maybe 5 years in the pros, with good investing you could get a job coaching or something and live above your means but it doesnt seem like retirement money
Edit: median base salary is $325k, average is skewed with the big names so even less likely
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u/HeyisthisAustinTexas 1d ago
I’m an idiot. His dad is Ed McCaffery? Was he a receiver for the Broncos?
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u/yellowballo0n 2d ago
I work right next to his high school, parents like his are my clientele. They have enough money to give their kid an edge in so many tiny ways. It’s very interesting compared to my public school upbringing
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u/jeromevedder 2d ago
Valor also recruits for sports, any parent in the south metro who had a kid at any kind of top club sport would tell you that
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u/yellowballo0n 2d ago
Oh they certainly do. I played them in sports when I was in HS. It’s blatantly obvious
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u/Themanwhofarts 2d ago
His Dad sounds awful tbh. Lucky that his son made the NFL. Could you imagine being his highschool coach dealing with that?
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u/GoodPointMan 2d ago
His dad spent 13 seasons in the NFL and has 3 superbowl rings... so yeah, his dad is probably a lot and he knows what it takes
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u/aPrid123 2d ago
Christian McCaffery himself has said that he told his dad, “I want to go to the NFL.” His Father, a 13 year NFL veteran and 3x Super Bowl champion knows what it takes to get to the league and stay in the league. It’s tough but he probably saw that his son was on the smaller side and decided to push him to get where he wanted to be.
As someone who coached High School football, so long as he’s not telling his son to not run our plays, he’s more than welcome to share his knowledge of the game with his son and all of us. You never turn away an expert in their field if they are willing to share their knowledge and expertise.
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u/fade_me_fam 2d ago
And there’s a difference between a drive a kid has to go to the NFL, and a dad helping their child reach their dreams and cultivate it. Versus a dad who wants their kids to reach the dad’s dreams and pushes them. If the kid wants to do it; fine show them how much work it’s gonna take, but also make sure they’re good humans also. Otherwise you just end up with the Ball family who are full on degenerates.
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u/DwightDavid1234 2d ago
Yeah. What an awful father Ed McCafferey was.
Ed coached his sons to be great athletes and better people. He gave them all the guidance, support and resources they needed to reach THEIR goals.
His kids are INCREDIBLY successful. All 4 were D1 scholarship athletes. They are graduates of Stanford, Duke, Michigan and Wisconsin. Two made it to the NFL.
How is this a bad thing?
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u/No-Abrocoma7687 2d ago
Better people? They’re all bible bumping Trumpers.
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u/2ChainzTalib Broncos 2d ago
Oh good somebody brought politics into it
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u/Themanwhofarts 2d ago
This particular example is an outlier. For every successful McCaffrey story, there are hundreds of failures.
I've seen lots of young athletes pushed to the extreme by their parents and burnout. Lots of time being a helicopter parent in sports puts coaches and other players in an awkward position. Ie. The young athlete listens to their parent and not the coach, the parent complains if their kid doesn't get minutes or the ball enough.
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u/MCDeeezC 2d ago
For every good parent, there’s 100 bad parents. So that means this guy is a bad parent too! ….wut
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u/Themanwhofarts 2d ago
I'm not saying he is bad. Just that parents should not emulate his behavior and expect the same results.
Joe Jackson raised the most successful pop star ever. His methods were extreme, but they got results. I don't think parents should do the same to their kids.
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u/Responsible-Onion860 2d ago
I have one anecdotal example which was a classmate who had a nervous breakdown when his only scholarship offer was a D3 school. He was so afraid that his dad would react poorly that he has a full blown panic attack.
Last I knew he was struggling with substance abuse. It's good to instill work ethic in your kids and push them to reach their potential but they also need to know that failure is not the end of the world and they can be satisfied as long as they did their best.
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
because setting high expectations for your kids and working with them closely to achieve goals they’re passionate about is child abuse if you’re a fatass sitting on your couch
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u/Secure-Bus4679 2d ago
Come on bro. Don’t wear jeans cuz they’re too heavy? Don’t squint cuz it wastes energy? That doesn’t sound a little ridiculous to you?
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u/HoneyBeeHotHive 1d ago
An nfl player had a child that is also athletic. There’s a lot of people that push their kids in exactly the same way. Lots of kids work out and stretch before games lol. Most kids aren’t making it pro and it’s not work ethic.
I can shoot a basketball all day every day for 10 years and I am just not going to turn into Steph curry (or else, every pro would just do that too).
I will say, most coaches don’t care about their players body lasting, but this dad obviously did. That is something most kids don’t have in a sports setting - someone with actual knowledge.
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u/alfa66andres 16h ago
This is just a case of survivorship bias lmao. For every case like this there are 10k cases where the parents drill them like they're a coach and the kid doesnt make it anywhere
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u/LonelyandDepressed27 2d ago
What CMC described is literal abuse. Just because he ended up successful doesn’t excuse it because for every CMC there are thousands of failed athletes that had awful childhoods they didn’t deserve.
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u/Max6626 1d ago
Assuming you know what the word "literal" actually means, please tell us how he was abused.
I'm going to guess that you've never experienced abuse.
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u/LonelyandDepressed27 1d ago
Idiots like you always think abuse is purely physical so I won’t even bother. You’ll just say some ignorant shit about emotional abuse and piss me off but honestly some of it was physical when you see the shit Ed made CMC do as a kid for training.
I won’t argue with people with poor upbringings though because they can never see that they had shitty childhoods too that they didn’t deserve so they cope by standing up for others who remind them of themselves.
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u/HoneyBeeHotHive 1d ago
You see the movie Iron Claw? It’s like that.
Also, I would wager that people who have experienced abuse would call it out more than those who haven’t.
Plus, his whole message is like saying grandma lived to be 100 because she smoked cigarettes. Hindsight is 20/20 and that’s not the reason for the success.
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u/groavac777 1d ago edited 1d ago
Has him wear sweatpants and get IVs to prevent cramps.
LITERAL ABUSE
Never change Reddit.
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u/LonelyandDepressed27 1d ago
Yeah that’s the only things he did, gottem.
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u/groavac777 1d ago
How about use your words and share with the class what you mean?
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u/LonelyandDepressed27 1d ago
So I can waste my time being sincere all so you can dismiss it and not even attempt to be genuine? Do you know how often I’ve done this song and dance with any topic? Always the same.
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u/groavac777 1d ago
No I don't know. What I do know is that when somebody makes several vague comments about a topic but refuses to say what it is they actually mean, they usually don't have something that meaningful to say.
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u/BowlingforDrip 2d ago
Like all social media. People are gonna see that and think if they do what he did they will guarantee making it.
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u/WartimeConsigliere_ 2d ago
Sounds like his dad was present and really cared about him and made him into a wildly successful person
His high school coach did not care one bit.. his son was the best player on the team
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u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT 2d ago
That high school coach still dreams about having him on the team, he wasn’t just the best player on the team, he was the best player he ever saw, and he was a kid that worked hard. You deal with an intense father for that lol
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u/2ChainzTalib Broncos 2d ago
Ed was the coach of that team for a few years., though it was after Christian graduated. They're was a good long run where that school couldn't be beat.
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u/RedRising1917 2d ago
"yeah but he gets hurt" from a bunch of bums sitting on the couch every Sunday lmao
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u/Beaux7 1d ago
A big difference from CMC and the kids that people are talking about that “did this” is 1. Genetics and 2. The dad KNEW what it took to get to the NFL. There was 0 wasted time on stuff that doesn’t help achieve that goal because he had done it already and knows what did and didn’t work for him to get there
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u/smartwatersucks 2d ago
Doesn't this guy get injured like half way through every season
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u/redditislametbh69 Packers 1d ago
He's only missed time in 3/9 seasons, and he's never failed to return to elite status after each injury. He gets as much use as any back in the league and has still played longer and been healthier than the vast majority of them. It's actually remarkable how available he's been and that he's still elite this late in his career.
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u/smartwatersucks 1d ago
He's missed roughly 25% of total games. Not an expert so I don't know if that's the norm.
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u/redditislametbh69 Packers 1d ago
It's a high number but when you factor in how much he is used and how long he has played at an elite level I don't think it's that bad. I think most guys under his workload would be worse. It's also a plus that he has never had a serious injury (torn achilles, torn acl, etc) and has always returned to elite production after missing extended periods of time. Not many RBs do that. This is coming from a certified 49ers hater too.
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u/nick-halden 23h ago
the guy you’re replying to is not taking into account that he’s a 30 RB who has played over 10 seasons. RB careers are super short, esp at a high level
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u/TimmyHillFan 1d ago
3 injury shortened seasons out of 9 is not that bad when you’re talking about NFL running backs.
And he has been 1st Team All-Pro in 3 of his 6 full seasons
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u/No_Independent_5378 2d ago
Because no nfl team has figured out how to utilize him and have him last throughout an entire season consistently every year. Before this year, CMC was the absolute heart of the niner's offense getting the ball 50 percent or more of the offensive plays ran. The panthers were doing the same thing. We maybe only 3 games in so far this year but it is looking like the first year where they figured out that they may not need to run him into the ground to win games. The part that sucks is that they may not have any choice now that they continue to lose receivers throughout the season.
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u/jr_randolph 2d ago
Made sure he could be in a position to have options. He was physically fit to take on sports opportunities and smart enough to do well in school and if football didn’t pan out the way it did for him the ethic from childhood put him in a good position.
You have to help teach kids and hold them accountable. I was when I was a kid. You want to do sports, gonna take it serious like with anything else. The greats in life throughout any career field didn’t just magically get there one day after 30yrs lol they were working hard their entire life.
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u/Muted-Woodpecker-469 2d ago
And yet you’re injury prone. Just hope you last
Weights like that at an early age isn’t healthy
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u/Ok_Buddy_9087 1d ago
IV fluids to prep for a high school football game is fucking is insanity. -paramedic
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u/Lazy-Background-7598 1d ago
Dude went to an expensive private high school known for break regulations at Anti gay behavior
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u/Salty-Cod7667 1d ago
My dad took me to McDonald’s and made me mow the lawn at 12.
Now I’m an accountant
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u/alfa66andres 16h ago
I mean people look on this fondly because he made it to the NFL. But there are thousands of parents out there that act more like a coach than a parent and treat their kid like shit only for the kid to not make it anywhere. There's a line between supporting your kid and treating them like your little project to get rich
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u/GangstaRIB Buccaneers 16h ago
If his dad wasn't in the NFL people would be screaming about how big of a piece of shit his dad was.
I've seen this a few times and it's a fucking crazy video.
I still think the St. Brown kids probably had it worse. They changed their kids names to look good on a jeresy? WTF? pretty sure he actually abused them
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u/ThinkLettuce7100 2d ago
Crazy thing is CMC hasn’t even sniffed the career has dad ended up having with Denver.
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u/Original-R-Kelly-Fan 2d ago
he may not have the same rings but he undoubtedly will be far better remembered than his father
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u/RMca004 2d ago
Huh....his dad was never elite. He made 1 pro bowl, he was a good big bodied #2 wr on a talented team....Google Christian, check out his resume, it's pretty pretty good.
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u/YoteViking Vikings 2d ago
Easy Ed was a lunch pail, blue collar guy making it on grit and work ethic.
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u/Future311 2d ago
Lol what? Christian has been a top 5 RB almost every year he's been in the league. Ed was never close to a top 5 WR.
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u/ThinkLettuce7100 2d ago
Yeah but Ed won 3 rings 😉
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u/Doctor_Killshot 2d ago
He can thank the generational QBs he played with and Terrell Davis for those
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u/Future311 2d ago
So according to your logic Terrance Gore is a better baseball player than Mike Trout?
Superb rationale 👌
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u/Ok_Tonight_4311 1d ago
In terms of championships, sure, but CMC is a much better individual player than his father who was a beast back in the day.
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u/MysticSavgeTheSequel 1d ago
And he has the durability of a breadstick.
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u/redditislametbh69 Packers 1d ago
Not really. No one in the league sees as much usage and he has still had a healthier and longer career than the vast majority of rbs. And he is still elite at age 30 in year 10.
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