Quitting football at 17: the conversation, the regret math, and how to do it well.

Your 17 year old came down for breakfast on Saturday and said they did not want to play this morning. Not this game. Football, the thing they have done three or four times a week for the last ten years. The thing the family schedule has been organised around since they were 7. The boots are by the door. The game starts at 9am. You drove them to training on Thursday and they did not say a word in the car. You sat at the breakfast bench and felt the bottom go out of something. Quitting football at 17 is one of the conversations every football family is unprepared for. Australian Sports Commission data says the conversation is so common it is structural. The framework below is what the data actually says, how to have the conversation well, and what to know about the regret math before the kid puts the boots away for good.