As a parent, all you want is for your child to succeed.

You lend them your own life’s insight and guide them towards a path of a happy, fulfilled life. You also must watch your child fail. It is inevitable for them to get knocked down, and you teach them how to get back up. But what happens when mistakes are made on a national level? When your child is being criticized and ridiculed by complete strangers twice their age?

No one teaches you how to handle constant criticism, abide by hundreds of rules, and still live a normal life. Darcy Goede, the mother of BIG Ten college basketball star Jamison Battle, has had to navigate the ins and outs of the NCAA for four years running. The moral of the story: what happens off the court is just as powerful as what happens on it.