Raising children for excellence

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This article was published 18/10/2017 (2375 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The odds of a kid succeeding in hockey and making it to the NHL are pretty slim. The chances of three kids from the same family making the big leagues? Next to none.

Yet that’s exactly the situation with Karl Subban and his three boys. His eldest son, P.K., was drafted in 2007 by the Montreal Canadiens, winning the Norris Trophy in 2013 as the league’s best defenceman before being traded to Nashville in 2016. Malcolm Subban, a goalie, was drafted by the Boston Bruins in 2012 before recently being placed on waivers and scooped up by the Las Vegas Golden Knights. And Jordan Subban was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in 2013 and currently plays with the Utica Comets, the team’s AHL affiliate.

Karl’s experience as a parent, coach and educator — he spent 30 years as a teacher, principal and administrator with the Toronto District School Board before retiring in 2013 — led him to team up with Toronto Star writer Scott Colby to write How We Did It: The Subban Plan for Success in Hockey, School and Life, published by Random House earlier this year. He’ll be in Winnipeg at McNally Robinson Booksellers Friday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. to launch the book.

“One thing I hear a lot is that I must have really pushed my kids,” Karl says by phone in advance of the Winnipeg stop of his book tour. “When we see high-achieving children we automatically think their parents really pushed them hard. I saw my role as more of an inspiration to them. Our job is to inspire our children more than push them. If you inspire them, they will end up pushing themselves.”

When he was 12, Karl and his family moved to Sudbury, Ont., from Jamaica. A love of cricket he developed as a child morphed into a passion for basketball in high school and university. But when he realized he’d never make it in the NBA, he turned his attention to a career in education.

He and Colby initially met while both worked at the A&P in Thunder Bay — Karl was attending Lakehead University while Colby was still in high school. Decades later they reconnected, and How We Did It was born.

The key to any child’s success, Karl says, is potential — an idea that runs throughout the book, which includes interviews with Karl’s wife Maria and their five children (his two daughters are educators).

“Sometimes parents look at their kids and say ‘My son can’t do that, my daughter can’t do that.’ They need to see their children’s potential, which is unlimited. Once parents recognize it and believe in it and work to fulfil it, it gives our children strength to deal with whatever they face.”

In addition to outlining what Karl sees as keys to being the ideal parent, coach and/or teacher, he also offers a window into what it’s been like to watch his three sons become successful professional hockey players — which in turn has provided him with the ability to get his message out through his book.

“P.K., Malcolm and Jordan’s successes have given me a platform. I can’t think of a better way to spread my message regarding the importance of potential we must see in all of our children. That’s what the book is about. It’s my life’s mission and passion — for every educator, every coach to use potential as a lens through which to see our children, our students, our athletes.”

ben.macphee-sigurdson@freepress.mb.ca