We have a top athlete in the team

Isuf has been an employee from the very beginning. He has been with us since shortly after we moved to Freienstein in 1996 and wanted to increase our assembly team. First on an hourly wage, then with a permanent contract. He started with the simpler assembly work, then step by step further work up to the assembly of entire vehicles. Isuf's accuracy convinced us and he was soon allowed to take over the assembly of the entire vehicles. Isuf's eye missed very little and if a complaint came in from the field, he would think about what had gone wrong and how he could prevent the same mistake the next time. From time to time, Isuf was also visited at his workplace by his children. They followed with interest how the individual parts were put together into a functioning whole under his expert hand. One of his sons is called Florian. Isuf came to me with a question. Florian is excellent at sports. Gymnastics is his whole life. In the beginning, everything was fine. But now he trains so much that his school marks are getting worse and worse. What would I do in this situation? I answered Isuf honestly: "From my point of view, school knowledge is central for us. He should have a serious talk with Florian: If his school performance did not improve significantly, I would not exactly ban him from gymnastics, but I would limit it to a few hours per week. Unfortunately, Florian's performance did not improve and so what had to come happened: Isuf put his foot down and restricted Florian's sports activities. In future, he had to concentrate on his studies - only football was still allowed. Isuf liked to play football himself. Several times he limped back to work the next day after a tournament: he had given his all.
The intended punishment worked and Florian's school performance improved. About a year later, Isuf said in conversation: Florian was already playing football very well. Scouts had spoken with him and his son: "They want to encourage him and motivate him to start a football career. For my part, I don't know much about football and I had at least tried to dissuade him. I hope he will get through school and should just devote himself to his football.
Florian decided to do that and trained often in the future. Isuf took him to and from training several times a week. Again Isuf appeared with a request: Florian could not find an apprenticeship because of his high training needs! For him it was clear: football was his world. But still, he had to do a normal apprenticeship in case his career plans failed. I was perplexed. Neither Florian's trainer nor his coach could help him with the apprenticeship. I spontaneously assured Isuf and Florian of support: he could start the apprenticeship as a mechanic with us. We would also take his extensive training schedule into consideration. It was important to me that if Florian was not successful in his football career, he would have learned a proper trade. It was equally important to me that if he did become successful, he would learn a normal way of interacting with others of the same age when he was young.

The apprenticeship began and Florian's training schedule was really demanding. Isuf again had taxi Duty very often to take him to games and training sessions. However, Florian was also fully committed to his apprenticeship and learned everything necessary very conscientiously to pass the mechanic's final exam with an excellent final grade. He was very popular with his colleagues and always ready to help. Even after his graduation, he continued to work with us occasionally. In the meantime, however, he got a contract as a professional player. Currently, he is with the GCZ club in the defence.

I learned from that:

• You can't stop an athlete.
• If you say A, you have to say B.
• You also have to give top athletes a good framework so that they can develop.