Terry Grossetti- The Lost Art of Athletic Development: How We Are Failing Our Youth Athletes

Remember when a ball, a wall, and an hour in the basement could change your game? We dig into why that kind of free play—and the chaos that comes with it—still beats the most polished drills for building real skill, creativity, and confidence. With Terry Grossetti, we unpack how families can replace over-programming with simple, powerful habits at home, and how coaches can shift from chasing outcomes to building systems that actually travel on game day.

We get practical about foundations: two-handed wall-ball, dribbling on rough surfaces, learning angles on a bent rim, and why the “wrong” ball or hoop can be the right constraint. Then we tackle the thorny stuff—when to specialize, which sports transfer the most (wrestling, gymnastics, track), and how to use AAU or seven-on-seven as live labs for skills you’ve trained, not endless trophy runs. Terry shares the questions he asks parents before they spend: What are your goals by 18? What can you do at home? Does your kid have the basics yet?

We also confront the running-clock controversy, the pressure of social media, and the hard truth that genetics set a range while identity and process decide the rest. Coaching credibility matters: know your strengths, model what you preach, and build programs around inputs—film habits, penalty discipline, conditioning standards—so wins become a byproduct, not a mirage. If you care about youth sports, culture, and raising resilient kids who can handle highs and lows on and off the field, this one will challenge and equip you.

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Chapters

• 0:00 What’s Breaking Youth Sports
• 3:00 Homegrown Skills vs Paid Training
• 6:30 Free Play, Chaos, and Creativity
• 11:00 Screens, Enticement, and Family Role
• 15:30 Imperfect Environments Build Better Athletes
• 20:00 Expectations, Goals, and Foundations
• 25:00 Multi‑Sport Paths and When to Specialize
• 31:00 Baseball, Overuse, and Early Specialization
• 35:30 Games as Practice: Making AAU Useful
• 40:00 Coaching, Parents, and Tough Conversations
• 46:00 Hard Coaching vs Caring Coaching
• 51:00 Systems Over Outcomes
• 55:00 Coaches, Credibility, and Consistency
• 59:00 Running Clock Controversy and Competitiveness
• 1:05:00 Youth Pipelines and Community Responsibility
• 1:09:00 Identity, Process, and Lasting Lessons
• 1:12:30 Closing Remarks & Where to Find Terry

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

What is the most concerning thing you've seen in youth sport development these days?

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Um, for me, I would say the lack of athletes, you know, probably doing stuff on their own. I think there's an extreme trend of young athletes and parents who believe they have to outsource all athletic development to other people to help their kids. Um, you know, I'm 39 years old, I'm not necessarily ancient yet, but um I've seen a lot, you know, uh, and I experienced a lot. And um, you know, I think back in when my generation was younger, that there was a, you know, and it wasn't always necessarily a father-son thing. It was a mother-son, mother-daughter, father-daughter, neighbor-son um dynamic that really helped athletes develop a lot better than they are now, and for them to sustain in the long haul. Um, and I'm a big believer in that. I'm I'm a big believer in, you know, you know, you probably did this growing up, you know, just going down in your basement, bringing your basketball or going in your garage. Like, I mean, I I can remember vividly in 1996, I would have been 10 years old, bringing my basketball to my basement. I asked my mom for two CDs for Christmas. One was Puff Daddy, no way out. I don't condone what he did, but he did make good music at the time. Um, and then um Will Smith getting jiggy with it. Um, and they would just play on repeat. And I was just in my basement, dribbling a ball, right? Doing calf raises on my steps as a little, you know, you know, young 10-year-old. And and the unique thing is my thought process was I want to be good. And I envisioned everybody else doing that at that time. You know, and I think that's a trait a lot of athletes have, especially at young ages, right? A fear of getting outworked by other people, you know, um, wondering if your competition is what they're doing. And I that's something that I always wondered, right? And it wasn't even necessarily my the other teams I was gonna play, you know, went to a small school. I'm thinking, are the kids in my grade doing this right now? Right. If a kid in my grade, um, you know, and I'm almost fortunate, you know, kids, a lot of kids in my era at my school were very serious about sports, which ultimately made me take it a lot a lot more serious too. So maybe that's why I was kind of brainwashed in a way to feel like I needed to do more. Um, but yeah, I think that that's something that kids could really benefit from. And I think parents implementing that at home um could, you know, could could really help athletes develop um without paying a ton of money, you know, without signing your kid up for this. And and I'm I'm in the business to make money off of kids in this way, right? I mean, I have we've, you know, my business, fortunately, we have a lot of little kids who train. We love training little kids, and I think it's really beneficial um for them to come once, twice a week and work on skills maybe their parents can't have them do. But like every parent, um, every parent can have their kid go. And my dad, you know, used to make me do this, which is maybe a testament to why I could always had really good hand-eye coordination. He would just have a rubber ball and throw it up against the wall and catch it 50 times with my right, 50 times with my left, right? Things like that. Every, every parent, every grandparent um knows those things, right? And they know that that can be beneficial. And I think that uh some of uh you could just save a lot of money that way. And I also think it's a great thing for the kid um to spend time with their loved ones doing that. And like I referenced when you first asked me that question about um, you know, I said parents and I said neighbors. Like there would be times where my neighbor, um, well, my dad he loved working with me. I would wait at home when he would pull into the driveway, whatever sport season it was, I'd have our gloves out, I'd have the football out, I'd have basketball out, you know. And I tweeted this the other day, like, you know, I thought it was normal for every kid to practice for an hour before they went to practice. I literally, because my dad told me, everybody's practicing, you got to do the drills that you're gonna do at practice now so you're better at them. So then you can showcase to your coach that you can do the drills good, so then you give yourself the chance to play. But there'd be times where my dad would have to work late or whatever, and uh I'd go knock on my neighbor's door and he would throw me the football. You know what I mean? Like, um, and I just I'm not saying it the way that things are are now are bad. Athletes are better than ever. We're obviously barking up the right tree in a lot of our development in terms of strength conditioning, sports performance, getting them around a lot of coaches, but I do think there's definitely a lack of um stuff that you do at home.

SPEAKER_00: 4:54

It's funny you mentioned uh throwing the ball off the wall. Literally to this day, between every single set I do, I will catch 20 tennis balls just off the wall. I will throw the ball off the wall and just like play wall ball with myself.

SPEAKER_02: 5:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:07

There's this element of free play that young athletes that I fear aren't getting. Everything is so constructed in perfect scenarios, and there's this lack of chaos. Growing up, I remember playing on all kinds of different size hoops and just learning how to spin the ball off of different surfaces to try and get it into the hoop.

SPEAKER_02: 5:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:33

And one of my favorite things I've ever seen, Kyrie Irving. Now, clearly I'm not Kyrie Irving, but people will ask him, How did you learn to like spin the ball and be able to score from all these different areas? He grew up with a hole in his backboard and he didn't have the money to replace it. So he had to learn how to spin a ball off of a broken backboard in order to get it into the hoop, which clearly has paid dividends. Now, clearly, he's an elite-level athlete, athleticism, but those types of free play are missing from some of the younger generation. Fewer kids are playing outside, fewer kids are outside playing rundown or just doing kid type things with sports, with balls. Everything is so constructed in a perfect manner that I think restricts the development of athletes in the long haul.

SPEAKER_01: 6:22

Yeah, and and you know, as a defense, a lot of it's because what they have as an alternative, whether it's you know, our phones or iPads and our video games or movies are good as hell. You know what I mean? Like when when I was growing up, man, like you you could only play your Sega for so long. Like you couldn't make friends with people on the internet and play with all day long with your buddies and stuff like that, right? You couldn't watch whatever episode you wanted to of Ninja Turtles and just find it. You know what I mean? Like you couldn't even listen to the songs you barely wanted to listen to with, you know what I mean? Like, so I think that as parents, you you know, as coaches for young athletes, parents, grandparents, anybody who's in a young kid's life, you have to really make it enticing to do these things. Um, my neighborhood has a ton of kids that play outside. I'm really, I'm really happy with with the way it is. Like they're outside literally all day. Um, and I think it's gonna really help them moving forward. And that, you know, when you like you said, you know, you you you play basketball, you might be playing basketball on a hoop that's nine foot nine, you know, with a ball with with not a lot of grip. And you're just playing basketball, but you're you're actually working on things in an uncontrolled environment that can help you when you do play basketball again with a ball with tread on it and on a 10-foot hoop, right? Um, you know, same thing with baseball. You might not be able to use the same perfect bat for you every time. It might be too heavy, it might be too light. Um, you know, football, the ball might be too small or too not inflated. And by catching balls like that or using bats that are too heavy, you're developing athletic traits that are not what you normally would do, but what they can drastically help you when you are back in the field of play, doing something with your own equipment. And I'm and I'm a big believer in that. You know, playing on, you know, playing on a field that's really short that you can hit home runs out of very easily, right? That can teach you something different about how you, you know, how you even stand or different things like that. And I think that those are the only way to acquire those skills is by putting people or kids going to that environment in a natural state and accomplishing those things on their own, right? And so much of that has to be done by parents, giving them, I don't want to say, you know, make it making it more enticing. But, you know, even you know, for guys like us who have kids, like doing it ourselves and showcasing that it is fun. And then, you know, hey, dad does this, or you know, that the neighborhood guys are out doing this, I think that's a really good way to do it rather than just say, hey guys, go play. Like now that could work to an extent, but it when when you when they see people who they respect doing it, and that was how it was where I grew up, you know, I had kids older than me that I would go down to our local basketball court and play with, and I idolized those guys. You know what I mean? They weren't even that good at basketball players, but they were way older than me. I saw them doing things, and it made me want to do those things because I saw them doing it. Um, and I don't think, you know, I think so many people are like really hard on prior generations and always call them soft and always call they don't do this anymore. But it's like times are changing, right? There's some that are still doing it. We have to find the ones who are still doing it and finding what find why they're doing it and try to replicate that in those scenarios, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 9:45

The soft, I think there's an element of truth. I think the problem is we don't define softness in the correct manner. I would say if we're divine defining softness in terms of having the skill sets to persevere, overcome our emotions. I would say previous generations are better at that than mine. Like your generation is better than mine, even though we're, I mean, we're a decade apart, we're not that far. I'd say my parents is better at that. Now, that's not necessarily to say it's a healthier version, but I would say a more productive version. Um, I would say each generation before us. Now, what is the pros and cons of everything that happens is as technology accelerates, you know, kids these days have to deal with social media. Parents might even be worse with social media than kids in terms of comparison and looking at what everyone else is doing and keeping up with the Joneses. And that's where that uh parents feel they have to pay for everything and outsource everything because they look and they see you know, Billy down the street has seven different trainers going to all these different things, and he's having, you know, some type of, you know, I call it artificial success at a young age. And they don't know how to deal with all that. And they're learning just as much as the kids are, navigating the social media space, the training space. You know, I do want my kid to have athletic success. What is the proper and healthy way to do this? And there's no playbook for that for for parents. So they're navigating this space just as much as the kids are. Plus, you look at the evolution of what work has become. Uh I would even say 15, 20, 30 years ago, there was more single parent working, parents saying at home. With the change in economics in the world, you have more to parents who are both working, less parents at home to spend time with kids going out and doing things. And it's really challenging to find this correct balance of how do we create free play, how do we create an environment for our kids to have athletic success without making it if you don't make it to the NFL or the MLB, you're a failure. And there's this all these different poles and levers that are putting stress on families and kids that few people have found success in navigating that space. And this is a space I'm learning to navigate with two young daughters. You know, by the time this comes out, God willing, my wife has a safe delivery. I'll have three kids where I'm learning this space as well as a parent, how to navigate the emotions, the training, the free play, the playing with others, the adversity that comes with it, and uh curating the necessary lessons that my kids need to learn for not even just sports, but in life that's going to put them in the best place to have success long term.

SPEAKER_01: 12:44

Yeah. Yeah, I think for for me, it comes down to you know, giving parents, you know, if I was to give a parent advice on this, and it my advice, my sons are both too young for this right now, but it's like, what do you what are your expectations with your son or daughter? You know, like when they're 18 years old, where do you yeah, where do you and it's not like you can ask them, it's like realistically, like what do you what do you think could happen here? And what are your goals? You know what I mean? And I think as parents, you know, mom and dad or guardians, getting with each other and and kind of figuring out, okay, this is what we want to accomplish, you know, with this, with this youngster. And um, I think that's where the the waters get muddied because people don't really know, you know what I mean? Like, and it's hard to know. Um, and it's not like you have to have a full proof proof plan and follow it to a T. But I do think, you know, like you referenced keeping up with the Joneses or Kardashians or whoever you're trying to keep up with, you know, it's like, yeah, I see, I see my neighbor takes, and I'm making this up, my my say my kid's 10 and my neighbor's 10, and he sends his kid to go get batting lessons. Um, I have to make a choice, like, okay, do do does that does that make sense for what my goals are for my son? You know, um, can can can he learn something there that I can't teach him at home? And I think that's something that I'd love for parents to start asking themselves, right? Um, fortunately, I do see a lot of young athletes in you know my businesses where you know the the kids are going to places to train and they don't have the most basic foundations yet. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's like you shouldn't be taking batting lessons or hit or throwing lessons. If you can't, like, if I stand away from my son and I'm 15 yards away and he can't throw me the ball 15 times in a row, it's probably a good indicator of you shouldn't send your kid to lessons. You know what I mean? Like, if if I if I have my son hitting off of a T and he can't just hit the ball 15 times, I'm just making this up, but I think too many parents pawn it off immediately, like I referenced earlier. Uh, but that goes back to the expectations of what you want out of your son. You know, I I would say most, you know, a lot of the best athletes in the world, and parents, you know, compare their, they think their kids are better than they are, rightfully so. I mean, that that's okay, you know, as long as you're not, you know, gonna lose your mind over that maybe someday not being true. You should always believe in your kid and stuff like that. Um, I just think it's it's an individual thing, man, and and it and it's challenging. Um, but you just have to, you know, be you really just have to make sure that you're doing your your due diligence to be a parent coach. You know, there's administration, you know, you there's so much stuff that you have to do, and then sometimes it's a challenge to do all that, man.

SPEAKER_00: 15:40

You know, one of the best leadership advice I ever got was as a leader, as a coach, or whatever, and it translates to the parenting is you are not trying to make your players or your kids you, you're trying to make them a better version of themselves. And we have all these dreams and aspirations for my kids. I know I certainly do. I frequently say I want my girls to golf because that's the quickest way to a female scholarship. I don't want to pay for college. Yeah, and so that's where I have to rationalize my own expectations and the things that I desire for my kids. They may not want that. And I have to help guide them and give them the guiding principles to choose their own path, live their own path, and find their ways to do those things. And Greg Olson talks about this, and it's one of my favorite things that I've heard someone say. And he says, with his kids, you know, obviously his kids are gonna have higher expectations. He's Greg Olson. And he says, I don't care what you do, I don't care if you play sports, I don't care if you're in the band, I don't care if you're an artist, but whatever you do, we're going all in with. You're gonna learn the principles of working hard, overcoming failure, going through adversity. You're going to give it your all, you're not just going to sit there and do nothing. Whatever it is that you choose to do, it's like if it's baseball, great, we're all in, let's go. If it's basketball, great, we're all in, let's go. If it's painting, great, we're all in, let's go. And I think that is a really, really good lesson to anyone is it's less about what you choose to do and more about how you choose to do it.

SPEAKER_01: 17:10

Yeah. Yeah. And the unique, the unique thing about that is, you know, it's like, okay, say, you know, your son or your daughter, you she wants to get into basketball. Probably the best thing that she could do as a youngster is not only just play basketball. So that you know what I mean? Like you have to give them a lot of different options. You know, and you and I get that question a lot, like when when do kids, when should kids transition to their main sport and different things like that. And that's such a loaded question, right? You could, if you go to a small school, you know, it could be like for me, I went to a smaller school. Um, so I played three sports all the way up till my senior year. Um, you know, now that I coach at a bigger school, I could see a lot of benefits of playing. I'm a big believer in for the most part, playing multiple sports up until you're in junior high, you know. Um, but once you get older, you know, and and you really are starting to figure out, okay, hey, I'm good at this, I want to go play college sports, I think that's a time where, you know, it may make some sense to drop some sports off if you have the resources to do that. And what I'm saying, what I say, or what I mean by that is is, you know, um, say, like you're at a high school and say, you know, you want to focus on basketball. Okay, you're a really good basketball player, you're you're probably you're getting recruited a little bit, and but you always played football. By not playing football, are you gonna be able to have somebody help you along that way, or are you just not gonna play football and do nothing and then play basketball? You know what I mean? And I think that's that's what a lot of parents and kids don't understand. Like, yeah, I do think it's beneficial to switch to play one sport or maybe two sports as you get, you know, junior, senior year, or even sophomore. But like you have to have a a plan for those for the seasons that you're no longer being a part of. You know, there's so many like skews like of those statistics. Oh, most NFL players played multiple sports, and you know, I I I'm a lot of times they're literally freaks. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:14

That's the nuance of it is the in this is why the the conversation to me is very nuanced because I talk about this with Tim a lot. In should kids play multiple sports at a young age, absolutely yes, 100%. I think I think the relative science or data that I've seen is unequivocally yes. It develops different skill sets that we've talked about already. My where I don't know and where I want to learn more is like what is that pivot point to start transitioning to more of a specialization? Because for me, it always comes back to my concern as an athlete. Is I I because I played three sports all throughout high school. And I, you know, obviously a relative athletic profile, like was more like a I was a high-level athlete. Okay. And so you can make the argument I played all three because I was a high-level athlete. I still argue that there's a lot of even at the high school development level that uh contributed to me uh being a better football player because I played baseball, yeah, because I played basketball in those transitions of skills. Now, to be fair, again, going back to the nuance of the conversation, football's not a really high skill sport. A lot of it is just athleticism, and obviously, uh, you know, there's fine tuning and learning different skills and techniques, but for the most part, the more athletic you are, you're probably gonna have a lot of success. But sports like golf, sports like wrestling, you know, sports like tennis, baseball, these higher skill sports, basketball. When do you start sacrificing some of those, again, I call them free play skills for some of the more specialized constructed skills in order to evolve as an athlete?

SPEAKER_01: 20:58

Yeah, I mean, I think ideally you should always be refining those specialty skills, like as a youth, right? Um, but I would say like once you get into ninth freshman year, something like that, I would think. I mean, you reference wrestling, and I never wrestled, I haven't even been around wrestling really, but I will say this. I mean, you want to talk about developing a young athlete, have them wrestle because it makes them tougher. Uh, it just makes them learn how to work hard. A lot of times wrestling coaches are tough guys, which I love for for sport for little kids. And then for uh even even gymnastics is phenomenal. Um, some of the best athletes I've ever seen wrestled and did gymnastics when they're younger, both male and female. Um, so that's what I plan on hopefully getting my my kids in with. Um, because you know, and then as I was, and then as they get older, like football is a is a weird sport. Like you don't really need it to even play football. You know what I mean? Like, especially like little, like, say you're a little chubby, you have a little chubby kid. What benefit does he have playing offensive linemen? Like butting heads with somebody, like, dude, if you want to teach that kid how to be a better offensive lineman, get him into wrestling and have him play basketball. I mean, he'll he will get every single developmental skill out of that without having the risk of butting heads with somebody at a young, young age, you know? Um, yeah, I mean, and then baseball is a little different because it's so specialized. And you'll see that with baseball, you know, with with the kids. They they usually kind of specialize in that younger because that those skills don't always translate to other sports as much. Like you might see, you know, a baseball player and the kid can't jump, he can't really run fast, but he's a damn good baseball player, you know, and I and I think that that's a skill that is probably super specialized. But again, those same kids, you know, when you when to maximize development for a baseball player, if the kid plays basketball when he's growing up, if the kid um does other multiple sports with hand-eye coordination, whatever that might be, even golf, right? As he gets older, I think that those skills will help him actually raise his ceiling up a lot more higher than it would be if he purely just hit through fielded stuff like that. Um, but yeah, I'm a big believer in wrestling, wrestling and gymnastics, man. And then track and field, I'm always a big believer in too. You know, you can't teach, you know, a lot so many of the best offensive linemen, defensive linemen in the NFL, or all of them, if you just look at their athletic history anymore, a lot of them were basketball players, a lot of the linemen were tight ends, you know, they're a lot of them were the interior D linemen and stuff were wrestlers. Um, and I think that you know, those are traits that can definitely help out a lot in learning that when they're younger is very, very beneficial.

SPEAKER_00: 23:49

Baseball is one of those sports right now, particularly in the youth sector, that is one of the most discussed elements right now. AAU, the specialization at an early age, kids throwing as hard as they can from the time that they're 10 till whenever they finish playing.

SPEAKER_01: 24:07

Well, again, like that's my thing is to ask parents, what what do you want out of them? Right? If you if you have a if you have a son who pitches all the time and his arm is killing him, why? Like what what do you want him to do? Like, if you want him to be uh a really good little league player, if that's where his ceiling is and that's what you want, just for him to be the best one and for you to hang your hat on that, great. But like if you want him to actually develop, who in their right mind could say that that's a good recipe, right? And I think kids now play so many games that they become desensitized to losing. That's why, you know, high school coaching and stuff gets so mad. Like, these kids don't even care anymore. It's like, well, dude, they they lost all offseason. You know what I mean? Like, you know what I mean? Like they lost hundreds of games this year, potentially. If you're counting, say, a basketball player and he played AAU, he did a spring league, he played in a summer league, he went to camps, he did a fall league. You know what I mean? Like maybe not hundreds of games, but they lost a lot. So why is he gonna care? Right. I'm I'm a big believer in like um, I think it's Rocky II, um, where Mickey says, like, you know, he he asks him how much you have to ask Rocky how much he has to train for a fight. And it's like, I forget how many minutes he says, but it's like so many more minutes than a boxing match would last, right? And it's very true to all sports, right? You know what I mean? You have to you have to earn the right to participate in sports. And then I think if you and that's why football is, I think people gravitate to because you don't play football games any other time. So those games mean a lot more to you because you know there's 10 a year, probably at the minimum. And then if you have success, you could play more. But I think that's why it's become the most popular sport in the United States purely because of that. You know, you can't play it all the time. You know, it's it's a it's the uh it's the carrot at the end, you know. Um, but yeah, I think kids are really desensitized to losing because of their lack of of preparation and um too much gameplay, personally. You know, do you not like I'm assuming you don't like the AAU circuit then, or like how do you fix that? Yeah, I I I like the AAU circuit if it's used to make you a better player, right? So, like say you go you're going to an AAU tournament uh this Saturday, and you say you're with your team and you practice all week on. These are the things we're gonna get better at this week, you know, and then you have an opportunity in the game to work on what you just trained on, right? Or say in the offseason, um say it's your junior year, you know, you're not really saying you're a big man, but you play like a guard. But coaches are telling you in college and your high school coach are saying, like, look, you got to start working on your big man moves. You got you're gonna be a you're a power forward in college. These colleges want to see more out of you. So if you go to an AAU tournament and you just play like how you normally played, that doesn't help you. But if you you know use that time to train a skill in an actual game, I think that that's where games can be really beneficial. But if you do that, right, you have to be willing to not necessarily win the game, right? And as you get older, you know, the thing with AAU is the more you play, the better exposure you you could potentially get. But with little kids, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how much it matters if you win all these trophies. I mean, I I've won so many trophies when I was a kid. I mean, I probably had 75 trophies. I threw them all away, like like a year ago. I'm like, what do I do with these? You know, they're literally worthless. I I the only thing I can remember from these tournaments is what me and my friends did in between the games, where the games were at. I couldn't tell you how I played or anything like that. You know, I could tell you if my parents fought on the way there, on the way back, and that's about it. You know what I mean? Like that's all you're gonna remember, right? Um, you're not gonna remember actually winning. And sometimes, I mean, I guess sometimes you could, but for me, it's just about the experience. You know, people say, like, you know, you always remember how people make you feel. You know, you might not remember how exactly what they say, it's more about how you felt when you were around them. And I and I always kind of felt like that when I looked at back at my athletic career, you know. Um, man, my senior year of football, yeah, we won some games, but it was just so fun being around the guys and this and that, you know. So, but yeah, it's uh so many of the so many of the ways you can look at this man are so like intricate too. You know what I mean? But I think it all comes back to when you're making choices for your kids or for your teams or young kids you care about, it's like, um, are you making the what are you making these choices for? And just always follow kind of a blueprint, you know. Okay, I want my son to, I want him to play in college someday, you know, and if and if you and your are, you know, if the parents are both athletic and played sports and were really good, then you got something to work with. But you know, if you if the the parents are, you know, two unathletic people, I mean, that never really and the thing is when when I say they don't have parents, and this is a common thing people mess up, because I see people say this all the time. The parents didn't have to be good at sports for the kid to be good at sports. The parents a lot of times had to be athletic, though. You know what I mean? Like, so the dude, there's so many people that I know um that weren't good at sports. Like I'm thinking of one of my one friend right now in high school. He wasn't a good, very good at sports, but he was a very good athlete. And he could have been very good at sports. So, like, that's kind of a big determining factor in what a kid's athletic potential could be. Now, they could, you know, get different genes from different parts of their family or whatever, but for the parents, for the most part, are going to determine how tall a kid is, how fast they can get, how high they can jump, and it's just how it works, right? Um, but just knowing what your kid could potentially do and then guiding them to that way, you know, when they're young, it's on you. When it's older, it's on you and them, right? You know, putting them in a position and asking them the questions hey, are you still having fun doing this? Um it's hard though, man. It's definitely not an easy thing to do.

SPEAKER_00: 30:04

The thing you keep coming back to is know what you're doing it for. We as humans underestimate the power of genetics. We just do. You can't control your genetics. You can't control your kids' genetics. So it has to be done from a higher purpose standard. What are we ultimately looking to achieve? And I can only speak for how I view my own kids as I want my kids to develop the skills necessary to endure the ups and downs of athletics, the ups and downs of life, and then let their genetics play through. I want my kids to learn the importance of what it's like to have a work ethic, what it's like to have commitment sacrifice, what it's like to overcome loss, adversity, to what it's like to navigate that comparison space. We all compare as much as we don't want to, and we can get really good at minimizing what we compare to, but navigating that comparison space, navigating, hey, I have a goal and a dream and a desire, I'm gonna chase that. What happens when I fail? And learning to navigate those things as gracefully as possible. And youth sports has gone from that to how can we take all of our kids and make them professional athletes? I believe personally, if your goal is to make your kid a professional athlete, you are failing your kid from the beginning. And your kids' genetics will play out. They will determine probably 90% of their athletic careers. It's that final 10% that I do my best. And I I fail, I mean, my daughter's four, and I've certainly failed her already in that space. And I'm going to fail consistently over the next however many years that she plays sports. But to keep that the focus honing on the skills, the mental emotional skills that I can really do a higher impact on than the physical stuff. Now her, like that's why I say like some of the genetics, she loves like hitting the golf ball. She loves like playing sports. She'll wake up in the morning and be like, Daddy, can we watch golf today? Daddy, can we watch soccer? Some of that shores because I've showed interest there, like you articulated earlier. But there's a genetic component. My 18-month-old like doesn't really care to play with sports right now. My daughter, now my four-year-old at 18 months, did. I don't know what it was. I don't know what the heck I did. I treated them both the same.

SPEAKER_02: 32:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:29

And it's we can't ignore the genetics part, but we can only really control and influence what I say the important things. And that's where the AAU circuit to me draws concerns, is because I don't believe, like you said, we're doing it with proper expectations or with an actual goal or structure in mind. And I think about when I played AU baseball, I loved AAU baseball. Like it was like fun. Yes, there was a competitive element we wanted to win. I hated struggling, I hated losing. But like you said, what I remembered was going back to the hotel after and running around the parking lot with my friends.

SPEAKER_02: 33:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:10

Like you remember the stuff in between, and that's what gets lost is like that element of fun and joy. Like not everything needs to be life or death. And I think that's the problem with like the AAU circuit is not necessarily all the games, it's the pressure put on each one of these games as if it's life or death.

SPEAKER_01: 33:30

Yeah, and I and I think that you know the best AAU programs, the best programs in general have coaches that want to actually develop the players that they have, you know, um, and know how to develop them, you know, and aren't gonna ask them or put them in positions that you know they're not comfortable in, um, know what they need to work on, whether it's baseball, whether it's seven on seven, or because I, you know, people seven on seven gets roasted. And um how do you feel about seven on seven? I I I I'll say this about seven on seven, man. If I if I was in high school, I'd absolutely love seven on seven. I would have loved to play. Because I I mean I was obsessed with doing that. I I just yeah, it just looks, I mean, it gets kind of crazy sometimes, but you know, it is what it is. You know what I mean? Like, um I thank God every night I'm not a seven-on-seven coach. Um, but um, because that's just you know, you you were just you're in the mix, you know, when you do stuff like that with with parents and you know, recruiting and stuff. I gotta give those guys a lot of credit. They're they're they're they're good dudes and stuff, but that's that's hard, man. You know, but I would love to play, you know. And I think it's if you play seven on seven for the right reasons, you can be a better football player in the offseason when you do that. You know what I mean? And I think that I think more high schools need to go to seven on sevens as a team um to work on things that in actual plays and stuff that they could um put into motion. I think that would be really, really beneficial. Um, quarterbacks working with their actual receivers and running as much real football as you can.

SPEAKER_00: 35:02

I was just saying, are you running real route concepts? You're running real defense.

SPEAKER_01: 35:05

Yeah, I think yeah, I but I think it's also fun to go to a tournament with a bunch of random dudes you don't know and meet some people and have fun. You know, as an older guy, I think it's so easy to get on that kind of stuff. But I think about myself as a younger guy, man, would I have what have I, how much fun would I have had doing that? You know? Um, but again, like if those coaches are in the right, you know, realm of developing the athletes, great, you know. Um, and it just goes back to that with all sports, you know. I like and I don't want to come off as someone who like doesn't value winning and losing. Like, I mean, ask anybody. I am ridiculous with that. It's bad. You know, I've ruined a lot of relationships with people in my life because of that. I'm the first one to fight, fist fight someone if if I'm playing a pickup game and they say it's seven, five and it's seven to six, you know. Um, but you know, I as I get older, I start to realize um, you know, when you're coaching young kids, it's it's different. You know what I mean? Like, and now certain kids, I could, I could, you could coach like differently, but you got to get to know the kids. We talked about this last time. You got to get to know the parents. I think that's one probably the hardest thing. And I was talking to one of my best friends, he he coaches um my my high school's like, you know, one of the younger teams over there. And he's like, the hardest thing is dealing with the parents. It's like, you know, that they're they're delusional. You know, they they don't understand um, you know, what this is like to be a coach. They don't, they don't, and a lot of times for parents that they don't go to practices, right? They don't know that their kid just doesn't know the plays and stuff like that, and then they want them to play more. And I and I don't know what's right really for them, like for the kids. Like, do you do you is it and this is so individual again. It's like, do you bench kids who just don't know anything? Do you put them in and let them fail for them to learn? Because like you reference, you know, making you know your daughter more mentally resilient. What's the path to do that? Is it by saying, okay, you messed this up, next play, you gotta do this? Or is it saying, you messed up one time, go sit and watch? Every kid is so different, right? And I think that's the biggest challenge with coaching them is dealing with their parents and getting them to understand, like, I'm I'm doing my best. You know, I'm not Vince Lombardi, I'm not, you know, Phil Jackson here. Like, you know what I mean? I'm just I'm I'm the one who's in charge. You know, trust me, I'm I I care about everybody. This is my way of doing it. And the benefit of that is next year, when the kid gets a different coach, maybe it's a totally different coaching philosophy. So what you're referencing stands true. Like, look, this is this the way this guy did it. Now this is the way this guy did it. So hopefully someday when you have a job or you when you're a parent or when you go through a hard situation, you've been around different things that has prepared you for this moment. And that's what sports is about, right?

SPEAKER_00: 37:57

Yeah, it sort of comes back to kind of those guiding principles because not every player, not every parent, not every coach is going to get along, CI to I. And I think as a coach, when you're in those spots, you have a responsibility and you also have an under, you have to understand that comes with the territory. Parents, in my opinion, back when I played as a high school athlete, as a college athlete, as a youth athlete, and now as I am a parent, parents are the worst. Yeah. The absolute there, there is no understanding. There is no meeting guys where they're at and understanding coaches have a bunch of different personalities, whether it is youth or whether it is high school, college, that they are learning to navigate and pull different levers. And the younger an age you are, the less resources and people you have around you to pull the proper levers. Yeah. And I mean, this is like you bring up the question do you bench a kid? Like, what do you do? Like, I'm navigating a space in my my four-year-old. She is terrified to even like go out and play like on a soccer field. So, like when it's just me and her, she wants to do everything. When she's with other people, she cries. We lead the league in tearshed. I'm telling you, we we lead the league in the amount of tears from a single person. And so I'm trying to pull every different level with her, whether it's strict, whether it's hey, it's okay, whether I pick her up and hold her when she comes off where I'm like, no, you got to go stand out there and just cry. And you other parents, when it's coaches learning to navigate their kid, have to give grace there. Because you, as your own parent, as a parent of your own child, don't know what levers to pull all the time.

SPEAKER_01: 39:42

Yeah, and and I think that that's why you know youth sports would be way more beneficial if if you had all the coaches didn't have kids in the team. Now it's hard to find that. Yeah. Yeah, it's but I was very fortunate to have that. For whatever reason, when I was growing up, very few of my coaches had kids. And they were normal good dudes. You know what I mean? Like they had our best interest. And I think that really helped out. And I think that that's always, you know, from a parenting perspective, you know, dealing with someone who doesn't have kids in the team if your kid isn't playing is a lot different than if your, you know, your son's in there and he maybe has a bad play, and you're like, well, my why, why is he in there? You know, you second guess a lot. You know, I and two, I go back a lot to like, I always think about like what shaped me, why am I the way I am? When we talked about this a little before, it's like I think one big thing for me was my dad, how he treated me and coaches. Um, and like so, like I said, my dad pretty much when when my turn when I turned five years old, my dad used to just say, This is TG2, he's the next phase of me. You know, he's the he's gonna, you know what I mean? Like, and he he that's what he, you know, anywhere I went, he's put look how big his hands are. Look how look at his his abs. Like, um, you know, because I think my dad probably didn't achieve all he could have in athletics, and you know, he he pushed me to do my best and he did a good job, you know, and he did it in a way that made me want to do it. You know, I was always fearful to let him down because he instilled in me that it meant a lot to him that I was good and I didn't want to let him down, right? But like one thing he did really good with coaching, my dad never coached me. Uh, he was a good coach at home, like he taught me all the basics. Um, you know, but what he used to do is he would walk up to the coach. I'm I remember him doing this in in peewee football, walking up to the coach, Little League baseball, basketball, he did the same thing. He'd walk up and say, Hey, I'm Terry Grissetti. This is my son, Terry Jr. He said, anything you need to do with him, do treat him as bad as you need to. If you need me, I'll be in the outfield and you'll never hear me say a word. He said, Because if I hear somebody say anything negative about him, I'll come down here and I'll kill him. You know, and it's it's a good point. Like, you know what I mean? Like you, I think, you know, my dad, uh, you know, sometimes with social stuff, you might not be able to articulate his words great, but I think back on what a what an executive way to handle your kid. You know what I mean? What a professional way to to to identify your because you know, how many parents fight over people talking stuff on their kids all the time? You know what I mean? It even happens in high school, you know. So for him to just take himself out of it, introduce him, and just say, pretty much destroy him. I'm on your side, play him if he's good. If he's not, don't. You know, I think that's a really good kind of a blueprint for parents to follow. Stay away from the action. You know, my dad used to sit in the farthest spot you could sit in a lawn chair, bring a six-pack of beer, and just sit there. You know what I mean? And I think that staying out of that, like you can do whatever you want with your kid at home and this and that, but sometimes, like, and I'm not saying for you a four-year-old, I mean, I was eight at this time or maybe older. You know, it just like let them figure it out then, you know what I mean? And then then reassess. What another thing he used to do is probably why I love black and white talk so good. Was my dad had a ledger and he used to keep track of every single game I played. And he would write down, like, okay, what I did at bat, you know, first bat, second back, like uh struck out, struck out, base hit. And after the game, he'd be like, You're one for a four. This is what we need to work on. You know what I mean? Like, and it was just that's what I worked on that week. Or hey, you missed five foul shots. You had 20 points, but you missed five foul shots all week. You're gonna work on, you know what I mean? Like, I thought looking back, what a good way to kind of like coach your kid, you know. Um, and like I said, I know that how much he loved me, so I was I was so fearful to let him down. You know what I mean? And I think that having a coach like that in your life is is critical. Um, and I think I we referenced that last time on here too, you know, like my high school basketball coach played a huge role in my life. I never wanted, I was scared to let him down. I didn't want to play good. I just didn't want to play bad. You know what I mean? Like it was just because I wanted him to be proud of me. You know what I mean? Like, and there was just certain people like that in my life that I that I that like I knew believed in me. And I think that as parents, you develop that with a kid when they're at home, and that's what you're doing right now with your daughter. Um, so eventually she'll, when you got there, she'll say, Daddy, I got this. You stay over there. And that'll be a very proud moment for you. You know what I mean? But it takes a lot of a lot of stuff at home to get to that point. It doesn't just happen, you know?

SPEAKER_00: 44:24

I can't wait till the day I can just go stand out in the outfield or whatever, just far away and not, you know, because I don't want to be a crutch. You know, that's the last thing I ever want to be. But you know, I I talk with my wife a lot. Like, do I want to coach? Do I want to coach my kids? And that comes, well, one, I actually know the answer. I don't want to. But my fear comes from do I really want some of these other people? And I'm not talking about specifically now, I'm talking about more when I was a kid, the types of coaches that go out there and coach kids that don't teach them the right fundamentals, that don't teach them the actual proper way to play sports and are more there for their kids. Dude, youth football, our warm-up, we would line across from each other, grab each other's chest plates, and headbutt each other. Yeah, that's how we warmed up. We wanted to get our heads and necks ready to for contact. And I think about that now as a kid, and I think about you know, some of these other parents who are keeping up with the Jonesies, Joneses, or keeping up with Kardashians. And I'm like, do I is that who I want coaching my kid? Or do I want to be other not that I'm Mr. Everything, but like have the right goals in place, and that's to develop young girls and boys into becoming better people and more resilient to just put a label on it. And that's something I really struggle with, you know, at home. And a big deterrent for me is, you know, going back to to the parent side of things, is I don't want to navigate every kid's parents trying to tell me that their kid is the next great thing. And uh there's another point that I think is really important because it it's it's so nuanced with every uh individual is that relationship that that you had with your coaches or your father where you didn't want to let them down because that is a that is a really movable force into changing behavior and action that leads in a productive manner. And I had Justin Sua on my podcast. If you don't know him, you should check out his stuff. It's phenomenal. And he talks about like know when a mindset no longer serves you. And that's obviously as you get older and you develop more, is knowing when I can let go of I don't want to let my parents down or a coach down, and I can transition that into hey, I want to, you know, make myself proud or just go out and do my best, whatever, whatever the language is, but knowing the mindset shift. And I, you know, you you look at some of the greatest athletes ever and you look at the stories of their youth, there is an element of like hard coaching. There's an element of, hey, you need to do this, you need to push hard, you need to do this, but it's so challenging with your kids to find the space of what is proper hard coaching and what is, hey, I'm gonna put my arm around you.

SPEAKER_01: 47:20

Yeah. And I think so much of that is it's it's it's what do they think of you? You know what I mean? Like you can you can do anything to anybody if if they know you care. You know what I mean? And I think that like you could probably look back at your coaches as a youth, like even the guys you were talking about, and all you're gonna think about is like, did did they care about me or not?

SPEAKER_00: 47:42

No, you know what I mean. And I can say that emphatically.

SPEAKER_01: 47:44

So that that's that's what I mean. So like I think about my Pee-wee football coaches and they care about me. Yeah, I know they did. You know what I mean? Like, and I respect them to this day because of that. I can think of some teachers in my life who cared about me, and I can, and I could just think of some who didn't. You know what I mean? And that's all we're all gonna remember at the end of the day. I can't remember uh, you know, how many carries I got in a in a pee-wee football game, but I can tell you if my coach cared about me. And that's all these kids are gonna remember eventually, anyways. You know, so and it's the same thing when it comes to parents. It's like you can do and say whatever you want, just you know, like, um, but but as long as you're the same guy that's on Christmas, you're giving them a hug and a kiss and you're saying, I love you so much, like you know, and then you got in the driveway the same day and you beat their ass. You know what I mean? It don't matter, you know what I mean? Like it's just that's the give and take that it is as a parent, uh, you know, as a parent who wants to develop a tough person. You know what I mean? And like I think one of the you referenced uh not not wanting to coach, and that's the worst part about youth sports is like guys who know it, like the the ones who don't know deter the people who do know. What a crazy concept. You know what I mean? Like there's people who just know nothing that that people just that actually can come in and help just don't want to be around them. Um, and that's something that I'm sure a battle I'll have to, you know, fight eventually. And I don't know what I'll do either, but I I do know that I can I can help out a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 49:17

And I feel like I would be doing a disservice to the kids if I don't, you know, and that's the tension I struggle with is am I doing, do I have a responsibility because of what I do now and what I did throughout my playing career and all the things I've learned? Do I have a responsibility to pass that on to the younger generations and do my best to help and reach as many athletes as I can? That is the number one thing I struggle with is do I have a responsibility? And part of me hopes that there's someone out there with better experience with youth athletes that I can just kick it to and go back to, hey, I want to outsource this.

SPEAKER_02: 49:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:52

But that is the number one question I I ask myself and have yet to answer that. I have to figure out is do I have a responsibility to pass forward all the things that I've learned and do my best to do it in a healthy manner and reach as many people as possible?

SPEAKER_01: 50:04

Yeah, I would say you do, you know. Um you're asking me. Um, yeah, I mean, I I do. I do think it's I think anything, anything you have in your life that God has given you that you think that you have the ability to help people with is it is always your responsibility. And now sometimes it's hard, but it's you know, in that situation, a lot of it would be even coaching the coaches, you know what I mean, like getting them to understand perspectives and parents. Uh, you know, like, and I'm sure those are things that I'll have to explore eventually too with my kids, God willing, you know, but I do think it is our responsibility to help people when we can, you know. Um, because if not, you know, they're gonna somebody else is just gonna do it. And I I don't know, you know, in terms of X's and O's, I mean, I played foot a lot of football my life, but I couldn't tell you anything about how to coach a football game. Like I'd do strength conditioning and whatever, but I'm sure I could pick it up pretty quickly, you know what I mean, especially in youth sports. But in even in we were talking about youth sports a lot, dude. But I mean, in high school, it's parents. I mean, you know what I mean? It's uh, and it's just like with the parents, it's like, you know, what like I always say, like, what do you want, man? Like, what what do you what do you think? You know what I mean? Like, I I told a coach the other day, I said, you know, any I would never talk to a parent, but I what I would say is I'll be at the field every Saturday morning at 8 a.m. You're more than welcome to come talk to me face to face. And how many people you think are gonna do that? You know, there's a lot of texting, emailing, calling. Okay, well, here's, and then I would just have a, you know, this is well, this is why your kid isn't getting the ball. These are how many times I wrote down he messed up in practice. This is how many, you know what I mean? Like, and just say this is so what would you do? Would you play him? Because I want a coach here, and if I we lose, I'm gonna lose. So, or I'm gonna, if we lose, I'm gonna lose my job. So, you know, I think that that's a good way to put it in perspective for parents personally, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 52:06

One thing I I appreciate that my parents did really well is once I got to a certain age, there was they did not speak to my coaches. It was if I had a problem, I spoke to them. Now, I will say when I was younger, you know, I referenced those poor pee-wee coaches that we had. There were scenarios where they did go in have words with them, which I learned later in life, didn't know at the time. Um, but I it was probably once I got to like eighth grade, it was they never spoke to my coaches. It was Colin, you're old enough, you're mature enough. If you have a problem with a coach, you go handle it. And that is such a one, healthy for the parent to be away from the coaches in that respect. And two, such a healthy developmental skill to learn how to have tough conversations with a coach or a person in power, like as a kid. So I learned how to have those conversations, and I had several of them in my high school career, in my college career, on how to approach a coach and talk to them when I felt that something wasn't going right or from my perspective, and learning whether I liked it or not, that I could have the conversation and get that type of feedback. And I give my parents a lot a lot of credit for that because I'm sure and I know, just living in my household, there were a lot of times where they wanted to say something but didn't. And they said, Colin, you have if you want to change it, you got to go have the conversation.

SPEAKER_01: 53:33

Yeah. No, then that's that's really good parenting. You know, I mean, that makes sense for sure as you get older, you know. Cause yeah, I mean, in college and higher high school, college, I had the same conversations with coaches, and I like to think that I was prepared for that because I always had to do it too. Your your mom or your daddy shouldn't be reaching out to the coaches in high school, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 53:53

Or I mean in I mean, in college it happens, it's crazy how often you'd be surprised how often it happens in college. Yeah, like even at the like division one level. I mean, I would think it happens in the NFL. Is that it? I mean, hey, like you see professional athletes who have to answer to their parents, yeah, like actions. Yeah, it happens at that level too. Yeah, which is in in as an athlete, you can't control all the time like what your parents or spouses do or relatives or friends. But like at a certain degree, like I mean, if I'm a professional athlete and my parent says something on social media, I'm going to my parents, you delete your social media tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01: 54:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 54:39

You know, it's you know, it's it's it's a it's a weird world. We live in a a very unique time.

SPEAKER_01: 54:46

You you were talking about Pee-We coaches, you and you were like, you know, button heads or whatever for the game.

SPEAKER_00: 54:51

So practice every practice.

SPEAKER_01: 54:53

Practice. Well, we played a local team to Pittsburgh, uh, you know, in our area or whatever, you know, semi-recently that did one-on-ones before the game. Like wide receiver DB. I'm talking about like now or when you played? No, no, no. Now like they did one-on-ones before the game. Like a DB receiver and quarterback, they were in a line doing one-on-ones against each other. I've never seen that before. What team was this? I'm not saying the team.

SPEAKER_00: 55:24

I tell tell me off air. Yeah. But was I feel like I saw a clip of no, I did see a clip of people doing bull in the ring before a game as well. Is this the same team?

SPEAKER_01: 55:38

I don't know. I didn't see that. There were I was a big bull in the ring maniac though back in the day. I used to just destroy people. Subtle flag. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:48

I uh no, I saw it on Twitter. There was I'm pretty sure. Um I'm pretty sure it was McKee Sport. I don't know that to be facts.

SPEAKER_01: 55:54

Oh, we've never played them, though.

SPEAKER_00: 55:56

I don't know if that's certain. So I if I throw McKee Sport, I will apologize. If it wasn't you, I'm pretty sure they were doing Bowl in the Ring before a game. I is there you're the strength and conditioning guy. Is there is there benefit to that?

SPEAKER_01: 56:12

I mean, no, yeah. I mean, I do you know I we we do we do some like manual neck work prior to the games. Yeah. Um makes sense, yeah. But we don't do any any hitting like that kind of stuff. I mean, they'll do all the line, D-line work, and just to kind of get the pads thumping, I think that's beneficial, but to hit someone when they're not looking and my thing, like you know, e you look at the you know, famous or infamous, depending on where you fall on the line here, in um the movie Miracle or whatever, with Herb Brooks when they're doing the conditioning after the game.

SPEAKER_00: 56:45

Okay. Yeah, and they're in a training phase in that period of time. My thing is once you get to the season, if you are trying to instill toughness in your team by doing bowl in the ring before a game, you've probably lost that ability to develop that type of toughness in your team. It is probably too late to think a bowl in the ring before the game is going to make your team tougher and more prepared, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01: 57:11

Yeah, I mean, I would you know, toughness is something that's I like to think is trained in a lot of ways, not just through hard like physical activities, too. Um, so yeah, I would I would definitely agree with that. I mean, I don't think any I didn't really think anybody did bull in the ring anymore, to be honest with you. You you saying bull in the ring, I haven't thought about it in in like 20 years.

SPEAKER_00: 57:32

I think it was I'm pretty sure it was bull in the ring. It was bull in the ring or Oklahoma, pretty sure it was bull in the ring.

SPEAKER_01: 57:37

Where the guy stands in the middle and there's circle you send and that hit him.

SPEAKER_00: 57:41

I think it was I granted, I didn't spend a lot of time watching the video, read the caption, saw the thing, and was like, hey, it's each their own, right? Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 57:51

Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't know. I don't know. I I wouldn't recommend it personally. Uh, but I do think there is an element of you know, before a game, um getting your players in that mental state. Um, but I think there's definitely safer ways to accomplish that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:09

I think that you know, I go back to you know, identity, which is everything that I that I focus on is like the identity of the person, the identity of the team is are you the type of person who does X, Y, or Z? Are you the type of team that when it's tough in the fourth quarter, you're going to persevere for persevere through? You may not succeed all the time, but you're going to, you know, do the fundamentals. You're going to not quit. You're going to give your maximum effort. Are you the type of team in people that do that? And then what are your processes? What are your systems that enable you to become that type of person or that type of team? And really creating those and working for from like a top-down level. Okay, what does success look like if you're talking about high school on Friday nights if you're a football team? What does success look like to you? And how do we work back? What does ultimate failure look like? And how do we work back and avoid those things? If everything goes wrong, what are those three things? And then how do we put together plans and processes for those?

SPEAKER_01: 59:06

Yeah, that's just that atomic habits thought process. You read that book?

SPEAKER_00: 59:10

I have read it multiple times.

SPEAKER_01: 59:12

Yeah, so it's like, you know, in your you're in the offseason, you you want to everybody saying, I want to win a championship. Instead of talking about winning a championship, pick five things this offseason, we're gonna get better at, right? By the season, we don't want to have any uh personal foul penalties. How are we gonna develop that in the offseason? Because if you develop that skill or mental capacity to not overreact to things, you're gonna have a better chance to winning a championship. And you want to be more conditioned than anybody. You want to be, you know what I mean, and pick five things, never talk about winning a championship. You play the season, you win a championship because you did those five things, you know. Um, and I think that that's a really good way to look at stuff in all walks of life.

SPEAKER_00: 59:56

You talked about winning and losing earlier and the importance and winning. Like winning and losing does matter. I will always be of the mindset like winning and losing does matter. But the younger you are, as you progress and mature and evolve as a person, it is more about learning again the necessary skills to whether you win or lose, persist anyway. And understand that just because you win doesn't mean you did it because of the right systems or processes, or because you lose, you had the wrong ones. And it is really hard to develop that sense of awareness and skill. But that's why it's all the more important at a young age to focus on things that are more controllable or things that you can influence.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:41

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:42

Like I can't always influence or I can't always control the outcome, but I can influence it. Right. If I'm a you know, I'll pick football again because it's easy. If I'm a corner, okay, which is what I was, I cannot single-handedly determine whether or not we win or lose a game. I can't always single-handedly determine whether or not I play a great game. But here's what I can control. I can control understanding what are the key formations that the opposing team runs, what are the key personnel that they run? When they're in different personnel sets or different formations, what players are they more likely to run? When it's third down and short, what are their go-to plays? When it's third down and long, what are their go-to plays? Who are their go-to players? What moves do they like to make? How are their running mechanics? How do they sit in their breaks? Understanding all these different things, right? Hey, did I watch enough film this week? Did I was I fully intent and focused on each rep in practice? Was my focus at a maximum high? Those are things that I can control that influence outcomes that influence whether or not I grade out at a high level or not. And when you can focus on the inputs, then the outputs become a byproduct. Yeah. And then when my outputs are not where I want them to be, then I can go back to my inputs and be like, what do I need to change? And so then I can say winning, yes, is of utmost importance, but a singular win or a singular good game is going to fade by pretty quickly. And then I need to re-enlist those inputs again.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:08

Yeah. I mean, I love that. I think that that's something that you know every every coach should really be implementing in some scale, you know. And you would think the best are. You know, I mean, I would I would assume that's a thought process that goes through the best of the best, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:24

I don't know. I I think you've probably learned too. Some of these even programs, you know, professional organizations are pretty poor.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:31

Yeah, I I well, I, you know, it's like you just said, you know, some of the the most winning don't it's it's not always a by, you know, like wins and losses aren't always a byproduct of that. You know what I mean? I I'm sure there's some unbelievable Division I programs that the coaches are going to get fired at this year that are doing an unbelievable job and they're just not winning. Yeah. But if you kept the systems in place for years and they could recruit the right people to fit their systems because they don't give them long enough time, they could actually have a lot more success.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:01

Was it you that I'm pretty sure it was you that said some of these guys are just who was it? It might not have been you that said some of these guys, I think it was actually Tombrady, are just physical education people who are now thrust into these leadership roles who don't know how to develop athletes. You've said something similar on here is like this is what I'm good at. I didn't know all of this came with being good at this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:28

Yeah, yeah. I I've talked about that when it comes to like business before. You know, I'm a strength coach and I have a business, um, but I'm not a business guy. Yeah. So sometimes those are areas that um I struggle with because I didn't really intend on my business training and doing all these things when I started. Now it's something you want, and you know, but like you want it till it happens, and you're like, well, okay, well, how do I how do I do this? How do I develop my staff? How do I schedule things right? Because those are things you're not really good at. You didn't become relevant because of knowing those things. Yeah, but I would think that happens quite a bit with football. And to be honest, that probably happens a lot with players who were good who then become coaches because they don't really know why they were good. They don't really know how to prepare like a coach. I mean, coaching is so hard, man. Like um, preparation and all your thought process. I mean, those guys sit at the facility for 14 hours a day, man. You know, I mean, going through every little scenario of every, you know, personnel and plays and everything, you know, and a lot of former players don't really grasp that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:38

There's a lot of really, for lack of a better term, dumb former players. Like you see people in the media like talk about, hey, like you have to be a former player to know the sport. And I think there is an element of truth to that, which is probably a controversial thing to say, but there's a lot of former players who are really dumb and don't know the game and don't understand X's and O's and don't understand why certain things happen. And not that you know, knowing X's and O's is the only thing that makes you qualified to speak on the sport, but knowing the systems processes that end up explaining why people are good or why there are good teams. There are a lot of athletes in sports who are just so supremely talented and athletic that they win in spite of the systems and processes they have in place for themselves.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:25

Yeah, and coaching requires so much discipline. I mean, you know, and and just the ability to react and and and have a kind of a lot of book smarts, and just players are pretty dumb, man. Like, it's not like a negative thing. They're really, really good at playing the sports, they're really fast, they're really athletic. I I would much rather probably be them than the opposite. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:50

Like, but I gotta I gotta stop saying dumb. Ignorance, I think, is a better way to put it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just ignorant to what it takes to prepare athletes because them preparing themselves didn't take as much effort, you know. Um, and I think scouting is really, really hard. You know, a lot of former players will get into that and realize dang, like this is pretty challenging. You know, like um, there's a lot to do with those things. That's those are full-time jobs, you know, and and it's it's there's a lot, a lot of mistakes you can make that really come back and bite you, you know. So yeah, former coaches probably aren't the best, but some are unbelievable. The ones who can do both, like I think guys like D'Amico Ryans, who you know a lot of people think very highly him, like John Lynch as like a GM, um, you know, I mean Mike Tomlin. There's a lot of guys, you know. I mean, then they don't really have the, you know, and it's unique because you know, guys like Bill Belichick and stuff, and he didn't really play football at a high level, but he he could coach it at a high level. Um that's probably for another conversation how they could get there, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:57

What are your thoughts on here, you know, here in the Pittsburgh area, we've had a few high schools recently reach out to other schools and request a running clock from the start. What are your opinions on schools doing that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:13

Um, I had a tweet that said, you know, what's gonna happen when the team who asked that wins? Because that could actually happen, you know. I don't because you know, you kick an onside kick, you know. I don't know if I don't know if they're actively because you're if you were to do that, your game plan would drastically change. You know what I mean? It would be all you know onside kicks. If you're if you're if you're trying to win the game, that's why I don't understand, like I don't really get it, I don't think. Like, can you still win? Yeah, that's you can still win. I would assume. Yeah, if you can still win, like, I mean, even if you're outmatched a little bit, why not do it? I mean, the other team's gonna say no, probably, I guess. Like, you know what I mean? But like, I don't know. It definitely muddies the waters on what what serious competition is, with Western Pennsylvania being such a well, I think we we like to think it's really good in football. In reality, lately it hasn't been, you know, in in the nation. Yeah, it used to be really good, and it's still solid, you know. But in comparison to a lot of the other people, like in if you look at like the national top 50 teams, you know, I know no nobody in Western PA is gonna be on there. And you'll have some teams from the Philly Catholic League on there, and that's really it, you know, probably. I mean, unless some of these teams around here have like really, really good seasons, which is possible, but um, I don't know. I mean, I think it definitely hurts. Um, just the competitive spirit of kids. I think you train all off season long, and you know, with the players talking about how you're gonna win this year, and I think it does all you're talking, it gives it no meaning. You know, you you you we're gonna do this this year, you're gonna do this this year, and then the second times are gonna get really, really hard for you. You say, you know what, this probably isn't for for us. Um, now if it's a player safety thing, um I get it, and I don't get it because you're signing up to play football. You know what I mean? Like, um, if you have like, you know, I think I saw a team or something had like 11 kids, and they, you know, like that's kind of a situation where it may make some sense for safety.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:24

What's crazy is the team with 11 players actually played. It was the team that had like 22 that said they couldn't.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:31

Yeah, yeah. I don't I don't like the message that it sends. Um, you know, I think in a world where we referenced earlier about kids being soft, it's really not the kids. If you're a parent willing to do that, you're kind of saying, hey, I'm soft. I uh so my kids are gonna be soft. Um, yeah, I don't know. What do you think about it?

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:57

I'm gonna go on uh relative, not a a rant, but I want to be as articulate as I possibly can. I'm gonna speak to the things that I'm I'm ignorant of. Obviously, I'm not in those rooms of in those conversations. I don't understand all the specific details, but of the information that's been related to the to the public, okay, I feel I can have an opinion on, and I'm not married to opinions. And if someone proves me wrong, reaches out to me, you know, says, you know, you're wrong because of reasons X, Y, and Z, like hey, I get that. So I'm admitting up front I'm ignorant to certain parts of the conversation. And I am gonna call out schools because uh it just helps me from a clarity perspective talk through it. So Baldwin is a high school that requested to have a running clock for every single game that they play in the rest of the year. Okay. And so the first thing I I think of is like you just said, what message are you sending to your kids? That's hey, we don't believe in you. We're just gonna mercy roll the rest of the year that you your preparation no longer matters, which is a terrible message to send. I think that there is a really uh strong, important message for life that you can do everything right and sometimes the outcomes still not go your way. We're gonna do it anyway. We're gonna develop the skill sets to make you guys become young men that is gonna serve you well beyond this, right? This is just a vehicle to learn about life because eventually I don't care who you are, football ends. Then the second part of that is Baldwin knew the talent level they had for months. Where was this conversation in April in January? They had to have had some type of belief that they were gonna come in and play to win some games. So you're telling me five, four, five games through the season just because your team is getting your teeth kicked in, that all of a sudden you're like, ah, we want to throw in the towel. It is just to me a resounding message of quitting.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:04

Yeah, and I think you're you're for you know, so there's magical things that happen in athletics, right? There's things that have happened in sports that kids literally or people probably think about on their deathbed. This was my greatest moment. Like I had so much fun. And though that's a moment where that could potentially happen for somebody, right? That that's a life-changing moment. The underdog story where you shouldn't have won. And you thought about, you know, man, are we even going to be able to play the rest of the season? You know what we did, and we came together and we ended up beating this team who nobody thought we were gonna beat, and you're you're stopping the kids from giving them an opportunity to do something like that. Because, you know, I don't I I don't even know who was playing. You said Baldwin and I don't know who Baldwin was playing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:49

I just know they're a team that requested running clock the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:52

So so they're playing Central Catholic, who's you know, obviously a really good program. Um, you know, you're they could forever somehow, you know, beat Central. And that that that's something for those seniors, that's their Super Bowl, right? They'll never play in the Super Bowl. That's a chance that they get to to do that, and you know, and to and to live out a moment where their back was against the wall and they they were resilient and they worked together and um they made it happen, you know. And you how many times do you see that in sports? That that wouldn't, if Baldwin beat Central this year, that'd be a huge upset. Would that be the biggest upset in the history of sports? No, probably not. I mean, you know, that's probably a pretty big lopsided game. But that's the reality, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:34

It's like crazy things happen in athletics all the time, but you're also in de you're depriving the individual athlete from maybe creating a highlight play that they may cherish forever.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:44

Yeah, right. Yeah, or uh, yeah, a play that, you know, um, you know, Central traditionally has a lot of really good recruitable players, you know, and say you're a Division III recruit and you get the opportunity to do something against a Division I guy because the game is lengthened out and you have a great play against them, then maybe that play is a reason why you get a scholarship or something like that, right? You you don't really know that. Uh and I think depriving them of that isn't isn't a good idea, you know. I personally.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:10

And and maybe the more disheartening one is Fox Chapel. Because, you know, hey, Baldwin is by all measures a really bad high school.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:19

Well, the thing with Baldwin is, you know, being from where I'm from, I don't really know a lot of these teams. But Baldwin has Baldwin's been bad recently, but like Baldwin's got a lot of kids. They got a lot of good kids, they got a real nice field. I mean, they they got a good it's not like it's uh out in the middle of it. Yeah, yeah. It's not like it's out in the middle of nowhere where where there's no resources and stuff. Like, you know, they they probably have some pretty good coaches, and um, you know, like I don't think my mind, yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:50

Um in like, you know, also like it is important to say I've never been on a team that's atrocious. Okay, like I I don't know what that's like. So I I do have to call that. I don't know what it's like to walk into a game knowing that we're gonna get beat to smithereens. Like, I don't know that feeling. So I I empathize in the sense that hey, I can't relate to what that's like, but I can relate to failure in general and the important elements that you need to overcome failure. But the more disheartening one to me is Fox Chapel. So, you know, they're they're arbitrary, right? But so Whipillo Insider Carlos Ofko has been on the show, he does a rankings for every classification. Like Fox Chapel's ranked, like they have players of relative skill and talent for them to reach, I believe it's to Pine Richland and say, we want a running clock for the game. Like what again, what message are you sending to your kids? A school too that hosts uh playoff games, and you're talking about like resources. I don't think there's a there may not be a wealthier school district than Fox Chapel. And uh it is such a failure on the coaches and administration, in my opinion, again, with relevant information that I have, for them to go to Pine Richland, I believe it was Pine Richland, and say we want a running clock. Because like you said, like Fox Chapel beating Pine Richland would not be the greatest upset in the world. That could reasonably under a maybe one out of a hundred times, but maybe two out of a hundred times could happen.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:28

And for like I just I can't imagine as a player if my coach came to us and said, Hey guys, we don't think you can win. We're gonna ask for a running clock, so the beating isn't as bad as a big thing. Yeah, that's one thing I wonder.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:41

Um, and yeah, I mean, Fox, I mean, Pine's obviously always really good too, and they have phenomenal program, you know. But Fox Chapel, when I think of them, I don't think this is like some dump where the and I mean you would think they have pretty good stuff, you know what I mean? Like, I I but like my thing is like what how do you say this to the team? I don't it it it's for me, it would only make sense if the players almost said it. Like if the players came to me as a coach and said, dude, I mean I would be like, you guys are whatever, you know what I mean? But like I don't know how how how in what world it would ever make sense for you to say that to a bunch of young men. You know what I mean? I don't even know how you could articulate the words for that. And to my understanding, I don't know if did they did they even tell them? I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:28

I I I think I saw one of the like parents of a kid or a kid say they found out um through social media as well, or like it wasn't presented to them, and that they found out um the same way basically everybody else did.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:48

Yeah, yeah, I don't know how I would well I would never break those news, that news. So sometimes I always do that like when I think about stuff. I would never do that. I don't know how they would do it. I mean, like I can't even think about how I would do that because I could never do it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:03

So I just if you like I don't know any of these head coaches. I don't, I don't know any of these ADs. You know, if they see this clip or this episode, they may hate me and that I I can move on with my life knowing that those people don't like me. But when you took the head coaching job or the athletic director job, you hold a responsibility whether you asked for those responsibilities or not, okay, fair or unfair, you have a responsibility to these young men and women in this particular uh conversation, men in football, to uh give them the best environment to learn and develop. And this goes against everything I believe in in terms of developing young men and women through trials, tribulations, adversity. Okay. If people haven't realized, those are really important topics to me because it translates through life. And I would never, I don't care who we're playing as a head coach, there is not a world where I'm asking for a running clock. The running clock's gonna happen. Well, that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:14

The right like there is a running clock. I mean you get it. Like, yeah, once you get the I think it's 35 points, the clock just continuously runs, which that makes sense to me. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I mean you're not gonna you're getting destroyed that bad. Let's let's get out of here. You know what I mean? Like, but yeah, I see what you're saying, man. I I don't I don't know. I don't I don't like it. I I I'm not I've been on some bad teams and I've coached bad teams. So like the opposite of you, I've been on some bad ones, man. And that was never like a you know what I mean? Like, I guess we weren't so bad. We're like, yeah, you know, I don't know, I don't know how I also don't know how bad they are. Yeah. You know what I mean? But you said Fox Chapel's decent. And but Baldwin, I we we played them, um, you know, they that we beat them pretty bad, but they were like good athletes. They like the the kids were, you know, pretty much for perspective.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:05

I'm pretty sure Fox Chapel hung 70 on someone this year. Like they have scored 70 points in a game. I'm just gonna.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:11

I wonder if there's like a deeper thing with that, and I don't I don't know. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:16

Like, there's information I'm sure I'm ignorant to, but in like the general miss, like with publicly available information, I just I I can't, I genuinely cannot understand that we've reached this point. And that goes back to some of our earlier conversations. What's the point in all this? Like, what really what are you teaching those kids? What message are you portraying to them? Are you giving them as a coach? Like, I just like you said, I can't imagine after however many months of training, basically me coming and saying, Hey, that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:48

Yeah, it does it, it doesn't sit well with me either, you know. Um, I think that those kind of opportunities as a coach, or if you're really trying to develop young men, women, whatever, I think that's a after that game is a great coaching point to like teach them. We put a lot of work in and it didn't work this time. But that that doesn't mean our work was worthless, right? That doesn't mean we're not gonna work anymore. We have a lot of things on film that we did good, um, but we have a lot of bad. Let's look at the bad, let's get better, right? Um, and and move forward for next week. And and hopefully this game can be a game that teaches us some things that we wouldn't normally have found out, regardless. You know what I mean? And I think that that's probably the way that most coaches would view that. And that's to be honest with you, you know, that's the way coaches have always viewed that. Like, and that's the way 99.95, I don't know, 99% of coaches are probably viewing that. So the one percenters, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I can't really understand it. You know, maybe there was pressure from community, or we talked about parents earlier, the the things that they can do and say to change the way that we coach and feel and do different things. Maybe there was some pressure there, maybe administrative pressure. I I really don't know. You wouldn't think that. You know, you would think the high school coach of the sport would have a lot of pull on those things, and people ultimately would respect his opinion, but we don't know that either. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:22

And I think about it as well, in the sense of people, and I've I've seen since this transpired, people think of all different types of ways to reorganize teams and schools. It wasn't too long ago, Peter's talentship was terrible. Peter's talentship all of a sudden is perennial in the Whippy title game. Yeah. How many of these districts are actually spending time in youth development? How many of these high school football coaches, again, fair or not? Like you sign up for responsibility at some of these athletic directors. How often are you going around speaking to younger athletes, encouraging them to do different things? You know, how often is the head coach at, again, I went to Franklin Regional, at Franklin Regional, spending at the, you know, the midget program? You know, are they going down and working with the, you know, eight-year-olds, the 10-year-olds, the 12-year-olds, showing face, speaking, encouraging them, right? Talking about, hey, this is what matters, this is what we're doing. How many of these schools and programs are working on actually creating and fostering an environment for young athletes to thrive and succeed as it trickles through? My answer is probably, or my guess is probably not many, if at all. And that's where it's like you want your product to be better on Friday nights, start younger, start earlier, and watch it trickle through over time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:41

Yeah, and that brings us back to right where we started is you know, if you're a parent of a kid who you've put a lot of time in with when it comes to football, you've brought him to practice, you've taught him things as a mom, a dad, a guardian, a grandparent, whatever it is, and you know, you then then his coaches cared and they loved him just like you did, and they work with him. And then, you know, do you think those people would be okay with that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:24:07

So again, it's it's just the lack of that kind of development. Do you think the kid would be okay with that? If he had all these people in his life that were prepared him and um, you know, played a role in his development to that point. No, the kids, the kid wouldn't want that, right? But it's it's the lack of that that is that's striking. And the who knows? I don't know. I don't have any kids around the team. You know, there not there might every kid might have said, I don't want to do this. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:34

I don't I don't know that's like even then, like, you know, I don't want to keep beating on this drum here. No, if I'm a coach of a team and all my kids sign a thing saying, hey, we want a running clock, you have again a responsibility as the adult in the room to say no. Like, yeah, right, yeah, like no, like we, you know, if we go out and get our teeth kicked in, then that happens.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:00

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:01

But we are not quitting, we are not giving up, we are not walking off this field as quitters. And I just, you know, like I get upset about it thinking, and that's why I go back to like, you know, do I have a responsibility coaching? Like that message, like I'm not allowing these kids to quit and give up on themselves.

SPEAKER_02: 1:25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:21

Like, I I am, you know, again, like we're so hard on coaches, and I'm being hard on coaches right now, but like coaches have such a major role in developing young athletes.

SPEAKER_01: 1:25:33

Yeah, and that's I think the the hard thing with um guys like I would say you in general, you know, is you're you're you played sports at a high level, you know, you a very high level, you're very, very motivated, you're very dialed in, you care a lot. And it's hard to even grasp that there's people like that that are gonna be that are in that that that you're an anomaly in this world when it comes to youth athletics. Most are not like that. Yeah, so it's so hard to think how they would think because you're not them. They don't think like you. Like, so all the things that you think, and the things who make you you, and the things that made you so successful in life and in sports, they have never thought that. So that's why it's uh these situations are so hard because they're not like that. You know what I mean? And I would tell that to a lot of my staff when I was coaching in college, like, why does this kid, they would just we would talk for hours, why can't we just get this kid to do this? Why it's like, dude, he ain't like us. Yeah, we became coaches enough. We love this sport in this world enough to be a coach for a you know, a Division I college. This kid is never gonna be able to do that. You know what I mean? Like they they can't even think about doing this, they would have no idea how to do it. They're, you know, and and we as the chosen ones who have that ability or God-given ability to think that way, sometimes it's really hard not to think critically of everybody. So I always just do my best of living my life in a way that other people hopefully think, okay, this guy gets it, and try to emulate the way that I talk and teach kids. Um, hopefully they can learn that way. Because, you know, a lot of them guys, and this isn't even about these coaches, this is just in general. This is coaches everywhere. They just don't have that ability, man. You know what I mean? They they they were never, they didn't take coaching coaches seriously when they played. They didn't take sport seriously when they played, and now they're coaches. And a lot of coaches, unfortunately, ask athletes to do things that they're not physically willing to do or mentally willing to do themselves. And, you know, that that's an epidemic in across all sports, you know, is you got this coach who's 400 pounds, doesn't do anything physically, yelling at kids to to run faster. It's like, dude, why don't you run faster? You know what I mean? Like, why don't you do this then? You know, and that's and what do you think kids think when they get coached by people like that? You know what I mean? And I think that's why it's it's really important to hold up your end of the deal when you're coaching athletes because they they they think of that stuff. I sure did.

SPEAKER_00: 1:28:11

It's funny you bring that up. I just shared uh, you know, my Twitter page a clip of Brian Kite is his name. He was a guest on here, really good guest, talks about that exact thing. And kids these days with social media, they've heard every saying in the world, and they can cut through the BS immediately when you're just saying something and not living it out. And that coaches in general are the epitome of saying one thing, doing another.

SPEAKER_01: 1:28:38

Yeah, and it's like it does it for me, knowing what I know now, there could be a coach who's super overweight, lazy, but is a great coach. I get that. A lot of you know, I have friends, great friends, that are that exact thing right now. I'm not judging what I think of them. I'm saying what do the kids think of you? Yeah, because that's ultimately what matters for the kids that you're coaching. You know what I mean? Like it's like if you're gonna teach me how to, you know, swing a golf club and I and you and you're like, hey, and you you hit the and you swing and miss, I'll be like, what this dude is trying to teach me how to hit the golf ball? Like, dude, I need you to be able to hit it for me to trust you. And it's the same thing with coaches, and I don't think I think coaches lose sight of that. I really do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29:21

You bring up a good point because it's less about so like if you have a 400-pound coach, if that 400 pound coach is yelling at you in the weight room in conditioning, probably not gonna listen. If he really knows X's and O's and tells you and gives you a real explanation in depth of like, hey, this is why we do this, you're probably gonna listen. Sure. And it's knowing, having that self awareness as a coach, where are my strengths, where are my weaknesses? If I'm severely overweight and didn't play at a high level, probably not gonna scream at my kids to run harder and try harder. Yeah. Right. But I may communicate hey, I really know this game from an X's and O's perspective, whatever life lessons, and I'm gonna communicate the why behind this. Then if you have a really fit coach who's like, Let's get in shape, guys. Yeah. Carries a little more credence. Yeah. And it's knowing where are my strengths, where are my weaknesses, what levers do I need to pull, what coaches do I need to have, you know, relay certain messages. And that's where it comes down to, hey, you know, some of us like that get put into coaching roles aren't aware of all those things. And it's finding the best way to create playbooks and systems for people to have the utmost success.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:24

Yeah. I agree, man. Yeah. And that's why I'm always on my staff about consistently training, you know, looking the part, because if you're asking for what we do, it's all that.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:35

Right. So that's kind of why I'm trying to be meticulous with the way I I eat and train and all that, just so I have and I can still demonstrate and stuff like that. I think it's important.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:46

I appreciate you, man. Looking forward to getting you on more often.

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30:50

People want to reach out to you, things you're working on. Well, what do we got going on, Terry?

SPEAKER_01: 1:30:54

Not working on anything right now. Um, no, just uh, you know, just if if you want to train and train the right way, I think I'm the guy to go to, you know. Um, if you like being told the things you don't that you need to work on, I'm the guy that will tell you that. Um you know, we're excited about draft prep this year. Um, you know, we'll have 25, 30 guys moving here in the next what would it be? Three, four months from now, it's coming up pretty quickly. So that's something that we're we're um preparing for. But exciting time of year, man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:31:30

I appreciate you, brother. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Listeners, as always, thank you for tuning in. Download the pod, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Five stars only, baby. See you guys next week.