Thank you DJK!!

W

Warhawks77

Well-Known Member
First off, I would be remise if I didn't acknowledge the good. THanks DJK for allowing us as fans to witness some true greatness in your performances and for letting us see some records be reset.

Now to the real thanks......

Thank you DJK for allowing me to bring up the conversation to my 5 year old, (who looked up to you and ran around my living room every Saturday diving for catches pretending to be you) about responsibility, decision making, and consequences of action. Thank you for letting me talk to him about how drugs are bad and nothing good can come from them. Thank you for letting me show him that some of the greatest things in life can be taken away so quickly when we make bad decisions. Ultimately, thank you DJK for showing my son that to be a good man, you must make good decisions and live responsibly in all aspects of life.

Thank you for letting me continue to show him that we all have to suffer consequences of our decisions. (A good lesson in teaching him to make good decisions and think about consequences) Thank you DJK for letting me teach him the lesson that we are only as good as the company we keep. That people that are bad for us can and will drag us down to their level.

I am not sugar coating any of this. I have a smart little boy and I'm going to tell him all of what happened. Emphasized by the fact you may (probably) lose a lot of earning potential in the NFL. I pray that this is only what you lose.

I also want to pray for you DJK. That this will open your eyes to your talents and that you shouldn't take them for granted. And that you acknowledge the lessons being taught to you. I hope this is your "crossroads" and pray that you can make a comeback and get your life turned around and do those things you are capable of doing. You are blessed. I pray for all this so that your final lesson to my son is how we can get second changes and each and everyday each of us can wake to make better decisions to change the path we are on. So again I give thanks to you DJK.

Sincerely,

A Hawkeye Dad
 
You put in words exactly what I was thinking- well written! My 7 year old and your 5 year old should get together for some backyard FB! We had the exact same convo this am when he saw it on the news!
 
My 10 year old loves DJK. I'm bracing for his questions and his response. He left this am without knowing.
 
I was about to post something similar and you beat me to it. I have an 8 year old son who loves DJK and now I get to break the news to him that his favorite Hawkeye is actually a loser.
 
good stuff

my daughter is 7, and couldn't care less about football, despite my efforts. my son is 3, and barely knows what colors the hawks wear. so the potential for lesson is really lost on them, but glad to see someone taking a positive from this.
 
My dad, who isn't even an Iowa fan, was furious when he found out. Mostly because of all that DJK's adoptive parents had done for him, and how close he was to getting a shot at the pros (Can't get over the fact that the NE Patriots draft folks tweeted about this, and how disappointed they were about one of their favorite potential picks).

As for the OP, undoubtedly, many kids looked up to him. Hopefully all the Hawkeye dads here can use this to teach their kids a valuable lesson.
 
77, you nailed it. My fifth grader is a DJK fan, so I'm sure he'll be asking. Thanks for the well-phrased words to borrow.

DJK, if you read message boards, the lifestyle choice is yours. And never forget that God is a God of second chances, and He extends his forgiveness to you, if you ask for it.
 
Absolutely WONDERFUL post....at a time when DJK is getting all kinds of bad comments, I appreciate someone realizing that he doesn't need to be kicked while he is down...although he made terrible choices and will undoubtedly be punished if this is all proven true, there is more to life than football and I am praying he does learn this lesson and move past it becoming a better person and making much better choices....Even if ther is no second chance for him on the football field...the bigger picture is that there are for life....hoping he makes that turn.
 
The only thing you might consider adding to the sermon ... it's still ok to seek out / admire / imagine you are your hero / role model -- whether that be an athlete, actor, musician, great scientist, doctor, teacher (whomever). While they are human and might make mistakes they're not all "bad".

The world is already a pretty nasty, cynical place and kids tend to see it in very black & white terms with a lot of personal drama mixed into their perspective. Love the honesty but it doesn't take much to skew a young mind to be "afraid" of or "prejudiced" against their own shadow.
 
When is the best time to pray for someone? When things are going well? When everything is rosy? Sure. How about when everything is lost? When you've got to deal with the bad decisions you make and the consequences you face? Those are the times when support and prayer is needed the most.
Absolutely fantastic post Warhawks. We get caught up in this mess like it actually affects us personally, when in reality we are sometimes more upset that it blackens and blemishes the reputation of our football team. This is bigger than that.
I hope that he'll get his second chance. Who knows, maybe he'll make up for it one day and make us all proud he spent 5 years of his life with the U of I?
 
STILLBUSTER said:
The only thing you might consider adding to the sermon ... it's still ok to seek out / admire / imagine you are your hero / role model -- whether that be an athlete, actor, musician, great scientist, doctor, teacher (whomever). While they are human and might make mistakes they're not all "bad".
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STILLBUSTER said:

The world is already a pretty nasty, cynical place and kids tend to see it in very black & white terms with a lot of personal drama mixed into their perspective. Love the honesty but it doesn't take much to skew a young mind to be "afraid" of or "prejudiced" against their own shadow.
Click to expand...


I completely agree with the "not all bad" assessment. I believe all of us are inherently good. Life is about choices and he has made some bad ones. It simply means he is a person that makes bad decisions. It is the "repeat" nature that can eventually start to label an individual, and ultimately lead them to live their label. IMO, Bad people become bad because they no longer choose to be good.

If we teach our children these lessons and that we all have "choices" and these are what will define you and your success in life (no matter what scale measures it) then we have done our job.

I'm not sure I agree with the "black and white" terms in regard to children. I find that as we get older our experiences combined with today's social construction tend to make us more skeptical and "black and white". Children tend to be very trustworthy, usually colorblind, and experience and see the world for what it really is. Which is why this is a great lesson. My son talked about DJK playing in the pro's cause he also loves the Vikings and Packers (yeah that is going to be an issue), but now he can understand why he might not be able to play and why these decisions were bad. My hope is that I can show him that good decisions often do lead to better places. I don't have the experience of being in a courtroom or jail but I can imagine it's not as fun as football fields on Sunday.

(To be fair though, he hasn't been found guilty yet and we don't know all the facts) and I don't judge, it's not up to me.

Sorry this is verbose.
 
I have a three year old daughter so I don't have to do any explaining yet. However, I can only hope I handle the situation as well as you did with your son. Well done!
 
Great post Warhawk! I had this conversation with my nine year old daughter this morning. She could she that I was upset and asked me what was going on, so I told her, straight up what was happening. It turned out to be a good teaching moment. Hopefully DJK will learn from this experience as well.
 
I had a good talk with my 11 year old son right after the announcement during the basketball game last night. We also had some discussion on the way to and from school today. At supper tonight, we did our normal prayer for our family and friends, and took a minute to pray for DJK, to hope that he can turn this into a positive and turn his life around. I am very upset and disappointed with him, I have posted and said some pretty negative things about him the last 24 hours, but I hope he knows there are more people than he can ever imagine that are still hoping things work out for the best for him.

Lord knows there isn't one of us that hasn't screwed up and made bad decisions in life, although most probably haven't made this bad of a judgement call.
 
Not sure if a "thank you" is the appropriate for this situation. That's about like saying thank you Rae Carruth for conspiring to kill your wife. It gave my wife and I the chance to sit down and talk and pray about it. Obviously an exaggeration but it's to illustrate the common theme. Thanks are usually in order for people who actually earn it not commit crimes.
 
smoot27 said:
Not sure if a "thank you" is the appropriate for this situation. That's about like saying thank you Rae Carruth for conspiring to kill your wife. It gave my wife and I the chance to sit down and talk and pray about it. Obviously an exaggeration but it's to illustrate the common theme. Thanks are usually in order for people who actually earn it not commit crimes.
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I agree with what you are saying. I guess it was my passive agressive way of showing a bit of frustration. I actually wrote this when I was still frustrated by the development. About half way through though I realized the lessons this prompted me to discuss. So in a way, the thanks was genunine but I do see your point and agree. In the end, I hope the message taken away is that there are lessons to be learned and that I hope that DJK receives blessings as I believe he needs them. WHich is why my family will add him to our prayers. I don't condon what he did, but he deserves to make right in his life and I hope he moves forward making better choices. He is blessed.
 
At the risk of sounding like a *******, I don't need the stupid mistakes of a college kid to teach my children that drugs are bad. If anything, you should be thanking DJK for reaffirming that athletes in the spotlight are people making the same mistakes as other people and shouldn't be held in higher regard than any other people.
 
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