Above The Whistle
Welcome to Above The Whistle. The podcast that takes you beyond the X's and O's and into the mindset of greatness as we sit down with coaches/athletic directors/former players across the country.
Above The Whistle
Coach Dustin Smith: Cultivating Elite Quarterback Success
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Ever wondered how an NFL-worthy quarterback is made? Tune in as we sit down with Dustin Smith, quarterback whisperer and the brains behind QB Elite, to unearth the journey from injury to inspiration that catapulted his coaching career. With anecdotes of working alongside football legends like Ty Detmer, Dustin peels back the curtain on the art of quarterback training, emphasizing the importance of tailoring techniques to individual athletes, recognizing the unique mechanics that made icons like Brett Favre and Michael Vick stand out from the crowd.
This episode isn't just about athletic prowess; it's a deep exploration of the psychological battlefield in sports. We dissect the crucial role of mental toughness and leadership, not just for those under the stadium lights, but for anyone facing life's pressures. Dustin shares how the delicate interplay of coaching, parenting, and the omnipresent force of social media shapes the psyche of young athletes. Stories from the gridiron reveal how resilience is both nurtured and tested, painting a vivid picture of the modern athlete's environment.
Rounding off, our conversation takes a critical look at the evolution of youth sports, including the rise of seven-on-seven football, and its impact on player development and recruitment. We address the generational challenges of parenting in the era of smartphones, stressing the need for awareness and proactive strategies to guide our digitally native children. Whether you're a coach, a parent, or a fan of the game, there's a wealth of wisdom here about the transformative power of sports and the relentless pursuit of becoming elite, both on and off the field.
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You know, one of the most important kids you'll ever coach is the one that needs the program more than the program needs that kid. Welcome to Above the Whistle with your host, devin McCann. All right, we're live. Welcome to another edition of Above the Whistle. This week we have a special guest on. We have Dustin Smith, founder of QB Elite, head coach at Spanish Fort Dustin. Yeah, I've known you for a few years. Thanks for jumping on the podcast today. I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1So yeah, first thing first, how did you start QB Elite? I mean, it's become such a brand here locally Everyone recognizes the name. Some, some of the players have come through the program. You know where did that?
Speaker 2start? Well, it started as the utah qb school, that's what it was first called, and that was just my uh, I first started it. I can't geez, that was probably almost 20 years ago and it it, it actually came. It came together sort of in a strange way. Football had always been my favorite sport, but I actually wasn't able to play it in my senior year of high school. During my junior year I had a ruptured disc in my back and I had played football, baseball and basketball as a sophomore and wasn't able to play basketball or football. I was lucky enough to heal up and be able to play in the spring and play baseball. And anyway, long story short, played baseball in college, had to have elbow surgery and football was still my love. But I had to kind of relearn how to throw, how to pitch, and worked out with a pitching coach named Tom House who ended up later in his career transferring over to working with Tom Brady and Drew Brees and other guys. But he was a pitching coach for Nolan Ryan and a lot of you know he was with the Rangers, he was with the Dodgers organization and anyway, he was working with me and he opened my mind up to all these, the science of the throwing motion, which really wasn't something that was being taught to quarterbacks. There were pitching coaches and I'd had him in high school and then I had him. He really showed me stuff that he was kind of ahead of his time. We had golf instructors, there were tennis instructors, right, but nobody was really training quarterbacks and it is a very technical position. It used to just be we'll get, you know, an athletic kid that can run around and if you can throw it a little bit, great and you play, you know. But the game was changing. The game was starting to go shotgun and spread and people, they wanted quarterbacks that could, could throw and do different things, and so sort of the perfect time to say, well, wait a minute, we're not teaching kids how to throw properly.
Speaker 2And having had elbow surgery and had back surgery and having to have learn how to use different muscle groups and different things, at about that same time I'd had a really good friend. Brandon Doman was drafted to play for the 49ers. We'd gone to high school together and I went out once to San Francisco to one of the preseason games and after the game we were hanging out and asked him what do you do for quarterback development or who helped you. And he said not much. You know. He said when I was in college I went to one guy in California that did some quarterback training, paid him a lot of money, and I thought, wait, that's the only guy out there that's doing this. And as I looked into it I found him and one other guy in Texas that were really doing quarterback work. So I started picking his brain on things he was learning with the 49ers stuff I had learned things I had done myself that had helped me and how could we tweak that for quarterbacks and started working with some kids and it just slowly started to build. So I had a small little business called the Utah QB School 10, 12 kids that would kind of come and see me on Saturdays.
Speaker 2And then I believe it was several years later Brandon had retired, was at BYU as the quarterback coach. I think Ty Detmer had called BYU and said that he had a nephew that needed some training, was going to be in Utah and Ty was going to be in town. Knew of somebody at BYU that might be able to work with him. Ty had just finished up his career. So this was 2006 or 2007 or so and they had recommended that I had done some stuff. So Ty and I met and while I had him, I mean Ty was a hero of mine when I was in junior high and any kid that was that age, ty was the guy right.
Speaker 1And I was a BYU fan for a few years, just because yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, we all had the you know the sports illustrated article and everybody knew the Heisman. And so I, Ty and I, were just chatting one day and I said, hey, would you ever be interested in doing a camp? If you came to Utah and did a camp, kids would come. I'm working with some kids and Ty really had the cerebral, mental part of the game that he was just brilliant at still is Because he's down in Texas now, correct, no, he?
Speaker 2was. He's actually in Arizona. Yeah, he was in Texas. He came up here and coached at BYU for two years and then actually moved down to Arizona where his wife's family resides, and so he's just outside of the kind of Gilbert Mesa area down there and he's a coach in high school head high school coach, done a great job. But we did this camp. We had kids come from everywhere and I said, well, we're onto something. And so I said, hey, if you want to do something we could do, we get a lot of kids here to do this and, and let's do it. At the time we did DVDs and so we we made four training DVDs, started selling them online and we're going to need to come up with another name and QB elite came about and it started with DVDs.
Speaker 2I work with some kids here and there and then we would do some camps.
Speaker 2And then it grew into where I've worked with most of the top quarterbacks in Utah, idaho.
Speaker 2In the last 10 years or so there's only been a handful of the better ones that have gone on to play in college that I haven't worked with, worked with, and there was just last year, two years ago, every university in Utah had a kid throw a touchdown pass in a game that I had worked with, and then two had done so in the NFL and one's now coaching in the NFL.
Speaker 2I worked with Kellen Moore for three or four workouts. I mean I didn't have a major impact on him, but when he was with the Cowboys he came and I worked with him and worked with Taysom Hill a couple times and then Zach Wilson seven or eight times. He came to a couple camps and then I did a lot of work with Jaron Hall. Right right, probably 100-plus sessions with Jaron, but I've got quarterbacks right now at Ole Miss and USC and Boise State and Utah, utah State, byu, utah Tech, snow all over and then, yeah, a lot of high school and junior high school kids. So it's just kind of grown from there and I've been fortunate to do it at the right time. Now there's a million guys out there that do it, but we were one of the first.
Speaker 1Have you seen? I mean, you talked a little bit about throwing mechanics.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And have you noticed, have you seen an evolution of throwing mechanics with quarterbacks, even because you know it used to become, it was come over the top more and now it's you know. Oh yeah, you see a lot of these quarterbacks throwing from different. Yeah, you know arm slots and sure and things like that. Have you had it? Just kind of revolutionize the way you teach it?
Speaker 2yeah it's changed, but I think everything has. There's still some core principles, whether that's a golf swing or a jump shot, but you go watch film of guys shooting the basketball back 30 years ago and there's some different ways guys shoot Golf swings.
Throwing Mechanics in Sports
Speaker 1There's core stuff, but we get better Now at what age can you start really working on changing mechanics? I mean, you know, everyone kind of has a natural yeah you know position they start with yeah, there's those, those core things that you do. Is there a certain point where you're like this is just kind of the the way this kid throws. Let's work with him yeah from where he's at right now I start with that.
Speaker 2I mean, if I see a kid that's 12 and he's got a certain throwing motion, he's and he's successful with it, then don't change it. Um brett farve, michael vick, threw the ball kind of three-quarter you're not sidearm, but they were kind of off to the side. Um dan marino, philip rivers, threw it kind of right off their shoulder. I call them punchers. It was more like a punch throw where Vic and Steve Young and Brett Favre were slinger types. They were kind of off to the side a little bit. And then there's launchers or guys over the top guys, and that was, you know, tom Brady is that way and Peyton Manning, and they were kind of more over the top and they can all work.
Speaker 2And even today some of the sidearm stuff that coaches are thinking or are teaching.
Speaker 2Now I don't teach. I don't agree with there's times you have to make those types of throws, but just as a rule of thumb, I don't think that's the proper way to teach a kid how to throw In seven on seven, it works great. Or throwing out in the yard because you don't have guys in front of you. We have no worry about hitting guys in the back of the head on your team, your linemen, or, but you know it's yeah. So it's not so much changing their technique as it is finding what they do well and then saying, okay, how do we make that version of your throw better and it's usually more with their stride, their hips, how they generate power from the ground ground force production, rotational force production, these sort of things and minimize movement, balance those sort of things, right, right, and so that's really what the focus is, and a lot of that can be done without a football. It can be done, you know, even it's just training the body how to turn and weight transfer properly without getting off balance, and then from what I see.
Speaker 1You know, kids, when they really try to throw the ball is they lean back and they try to launch it with their arm. They forget about that. You know rotation part to generate power. Then the ball sells on them and they wonder why?
Speaker 2yep they do the same. We do the same thing. We try to hit a golf ball. When you try to hit a home run in baseball and you swing too hard, you want to pull it, so right-handed batter wants to hit it over the left field fence they that's where their power is. So pitcher pitches him on the outside corner and the kid can never hit the ball because he's always. You want to swing hard, so you pull your shoulder and your head out.
Speaker 2When you want to throw a ball hard or swing a golf club, you pull your front side out, your left side out fast, and then they get in front of the hips, and the hips are where the power's at your core and your hips. So if the front side gets ahead of the bottom, then all you're left with is your arms. And so you swing the golf club with your arms and you look like you're swinging fast, but the ball doesn't go anywhere. Right, you look like you're throwing hard, but the ball's not throwing hard. The power pitchers or the power golfers are very compact, very synchronized in how they come out of their rotation and it starts with their feet up through their core, then through their upper body and then eventually their hands. Baseball swing is that way and a golf swing is that way. So that's the part that you have to really work with kids on, especially if at a young age they got away with just throwing it hard and or long and and had a big arm, and so people put them at quarterback and they get away with it. They chuck it deep, they run around and and then they get to high school and all of a sudden they're not the biggest, strongest kid and they and they've got to move in the pocket and there's different types of throws and their feet have to move around and if they now those things, those habits are a lot harder to break.
Speaker 2So I prefer to not change a kid really ever. What I prefer is because it's hard to change a kid. If he's 17 and he comes to me and he's got all these crazy bad habits, I can maybe help him a little bit, but it's hard to undo years and years and years of really bad throwing mechanics. But it might be.
Speaker 2Look, let's shorten your stride down and fix a couple of things here, but I'm not going to totally redo your throwing motion and so you see guys that have every NFL quarterback if you go and look at them, have something a little different with their throwing motion. And and so you see guys that have every nfl quarterback, if you go and look at them, have something a little different with their throwing motion. But there are several core things that they all do. As long as those things are done right, especially at the end of the throw, um, the start and the end of the throw, how you generate power and then how it comes off your finger, you know if your release point um, you can still be successful I mean it's interesting.
Speaker 1I mean, like you mentioned golf, you referenced that.
Speaker 2I mean you look at a jim purick, yeah, versus rory mcclurey yep, swings look totally different, yeah results are pretty similar because of the starting point and the ending point yep, scotty scheffler has his back leg slides out when he swings and he's dominating golf right now. Absolutely. Bryson chambeau has a totally different looks totally awkward when he gets up there to hit the ball and he's dominating golf right now. Absolutely. Bryson Shambo has a totally different looks totally awkward when he gets up there to hit the ball and he's hitting it further than everybody. It crushes it. But at some point the club face has to square up and hit the ball on a line and it's just how you get there.
Speaker 2Steph Curry, you know, shoots the ball different than Larry Bird did. Right, larry Bird was kind of off to the side a little bit and it's just, but at the end of the shot their wrist angle and how the ball came off their fingers was all very similar. So yeah, I think some guys try to overcoach stuff and then you actually make you turn kids into robots. That can happen in any sport pitching, football, quarterbacking, anything.
Speaker 1I think you, like you said, you overcoach them to the point where they have so many things going through their head that you know, yeah, they're just a mess, right.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then they get it.
Speaker 2Ty Ty Detmer used to. To fact, he and I did a little workout with some kids last weekend and you know we were talking to some parents about how all these off platform, across your sidearm-type throws that we have to occasionally teach kids how to make, because you do have to make those throws in games sometimes. Sometimes you might have to jump up and make a throw in the air or go under a guy's arm and kind of three-quarter sidearm throw it and you have to practice those things now because kids don't go out and just play football like we used to. We grew up making those throws Like that's just what we did and so now somebody had to teach us how to throw it the right way, because we were we were all used to throwing it all funky and cause we just go out and play all the time and those just come from playing the sport and being just fun being athletic, yeah, you learn how to be creative and how to make throws, and so the lack of just going out and and playing ball.
Speaker 2What we've done now is we've guys have thought well, we can recreate that. We're just going to charge kids for to do it, we're going to call it seven on seven and just these absurd like if you're a pitcher and you know 2024, this is how you and they're on like wheelbarrows and ladders and just doing all these different, just making fun of the absurdity.
Speaker 1You know some of this stuff.
Quarterback Training With NFL Greats
Speaker 2Yeah, that's the. I've seen those and they're right. I mean, I'm the same way a little bit. I don't use a lot of gadgets when I train and it's it's gotta be functional. That's the word that we always use. And Ty was really good. So were some of the other coaches that you know I've done quarterback elite with that. Kurt Warner's in the NFL hall of fame. He's a two-time NFL MVP and you know Mark Brunel played 18 years in the NFL and one that wrote was a Rose bowl MVP and backed up drew breeze.
Speaker 2Those guys, any drill we would do, it's very easy to ask Ty, is this something you would have done when you were with the 49ers or you know, or the Falcons or something, or to ask her and if they're no, that's stupid. Why would you? You're not going to ever do that in a game. If it's not something you're going to transfer over to a game or it doesn't teach some sort of of you know, create some sort of muscle memory that's going to result in a ball being thrown better, and you can't really justify that. I tell parents and kids ask the coach, why am I doing this? Where is the benefit on the field to this drill?
Speaker 2Because there is a lot of snake oil, I think, being sold to kids that well, this looks cool, you got all these gadgets and it looks neat and I'm sweating and I'm tired and I threw. Well, this looks cool, right, you got all these gadgets and it looks neat and I'm sweating and I'm tired and I threw a bunch and there's excitement and I feel like I got a workout in. Well, yeah, but you didn't get better, right, you can work smart, you can work dumb. That was a lot of just dumb, unnecessary work. Just work on doing a three-step plant your foot and throw a slant route and hit your guy on his hip, and if you can make that throw, well, we can practice that. We don't have to have all these cones and ladders and you know swings and ropes and whatever they're using.
Speaker 1These videos are great. They crack me up every time. So, yeah, you mentioned, you know, kurt Warner, mark Brunel, like some big names. How did you, you know, end up connecting with these guys and bringing them into your program?
Speaker 2Uh, ty Detmer connected those. I was good friends with Brandon Doman Um and you know Brandon coached at BYU for 10 or 11 years as the quarterback coach. He introduced me to Max Hall and I did a little bit of work with Max late and I think maybe a senior year at a college and then he came back and started coaching with us. But it was Ty who had played with Kurt and Mark. They were on the same team for a minute in Packers. In fact you see that in Kurt's movie American Underdog there's a scene where they actually say Detmer, go go. So they were together for a minute there with Brett Favre was the guy and so they, they had a relationship. He introduced me to them and then I'd continued to keep in touch with Kurt. I haven't so much with Mark. He ended up going and getting a quarterback coach job at the with the Detroit lions.
Speaker 2But Kurt lives down in Scottsdale. I've gone down to his house two or three times and taken kids with me. We've trained at his house. He came up and did a camp up here and we'll still a couple times a year get on a call or a text thread and talk about quarterback stuff or things that we see, and he and he's doing some quarterback training as well. But and and he has some different thoughts than I have on things he and I got in a discussion once in the I was down there training with him. I went back to the hotel and he called me and he said, hey, I didn't feel like you completely bought into the way I was teaching that. And I said, yeah, I think it's, there's.
Speaker 2I have some difference of opinions on it and we ended up speaking for 45 minutes on just a particular deal with your feet when you're throwing, you know, to the throwing towards the sidelines.
Speaker 2And it was weird for me because I'm debating the right way to do this with a guy who has been an NFL MVP. But the more we talked to it, I think I saw his perspective and he saw mine. And that's what's been healthy about it is, I've tried to take everybody's thoughts and opinions, because the way one guy teaches it might be different than me, but it might resonate with you or your son differently. Because the way one guy teaches it might be different than me, but it might resonate with you or your son differently than the way I was teaching it, just like some coaches can connect with kids differently than others, so I'll try it my way. And then I might say hey, try this, this is the way he teaches it, or this is the way Brandon or Tide Epmer or somebody teaches it, and you find the one that works, because all of those guys were successful.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, that's interesting. I was kind of curious why you would bring in, you know, certain players. Was it just from a matter of the way they taught things, or you know a different perspective? Is it just namesake, you know, to bring people in?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's probably a little bit of everything. I mean, it doesn't hurt saying you have those guys at your camps, right, to get people saying, well, wait, this has some credibility, but I don't care. I've had people come and be a part of things. I've done that. Had big names and didn't know how to coach, right, and so I didn't have them come back. Um, everybody knew who they were, but they were great players, but they didn't know how to teach the game.
Speaker 1These guys could teach it, so I think there was an interesting story and I don't remember where I heard this, but Ty Gettmer was doing a film study session with Brett Favre. No, it was with Kurt Warner and Kurt Warner was in the room.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Kind of out of sight door. Yeah, can you go ahead? I?
Speaker 2told that story. Yeah, no-transcript had already been inducted, but I asked him about it after and he said hey, when? When Ty Detmer's talking ball, you take notes.
Speaker 1That's interesting. I mean it's a great lesson. I think that we can all learn. I mean, like you said, hall of Famer, you know MVP, things like that, and he's still a student of the game and I think you know that's what kind of is so powerful about your program. You know you bring in these different quarterbacks and you guys are all students of the game and you're all learning from one another and trying to come up with the just. You know the most information you can provide these kids. Yeah, the most information you can provide these kids and be able to provide the the most. You know the best way to personalize. You know the touch for these kids. Everyone's a little bit different.
Speaker 2Their personalities are different and there's a lot of stuff out there and I don't. You know, I used to get not offended, but maybe competitive with well, we're the only one we know how to do it Right, and there's no, there's. There's a lot of great guys out there that coach it, um, that can coach quarterbacks. We have some great guys, great high school coaches and and guys who, like I said, the game's progressed and people know more now than they did 12 years ago when, when I was really diving into this stuff, or 20 years ago, um, I still feel like our program offers all around the best for quarterbacks, but we should be learning all the time.
Youth Coaching Impact and Parenting Trends
Speaker 2You know you're it's like a bike you're either falling off or moving forward. So you got to keep pedaling and learning new things or you fall off the bike. So I've learned from other guys and want to hear what people have to think, and I tell kids all the time hey, come, try what we do, go try it. There's other guys out there, go try what they do and then if we're the better fit for you come to us If we're not go to them.
Speaker 1Right, Right. So how does your program differ from all these other programs out there?
Speaker 2Well, I think, obviously the the expertise that we've had. These aren't just your just random dudes out there that are coaching. These guys have some real life background. Um, my understanding of the throwing motion is something that comes from physically having to relearn how to do it. Um, and I throw better now than I did when I was 18, um, because I've because of it, and I do it almost every day when I'm demonstrating a lot of reps and coaching, yeah, but I think what separates us probably the most outside of just, I don't think there's a program in the country that has a better group of coaches.
Speaker 2I'd be happy to hear one that you know. Name me the coaches that you can come to a camp and have my camp in June. I'll have Brandon Doman, max Hall, to a camp and have my camp in june. I'll have brandon doman, max hall, ty detmer a couple college coaches you know a bunch of heights, a bunch of current division one um quarterbacks that are playing. But I mean that's max hall is a starting nfl quarterback. You know ty detmer was 13 year nfl vet, college hall of fame, heisman trophy winner winner. Brandon Doman was up until Zach Wilson was drafted with the last high school quarterback out of Utah to be drafted to the NFL and went and played three years with the 49ers and the Bills and was a 10 year quarterback coach for guys like John Beck. He was Max Hall, taysom Hill, like he was their quarterback coaches and so quite a bit of knowledge there.
Speaker 2But you know the the, especially for athletes, which is my other business, my non-profit program.
Speaker 2That's really what separates what we do.
Speaker 2We're very interested in the quarterback being able to read coverages and make throws, and but we make a very conscious effort to dive into some other things with mental health leadership.
Speaker 2They're teaching them how to communicate, how to talk with other people, so that they're not just good quarterbacks but they have some charisma and charm and leadership and communication skills so that they excel when they're in front of a coach recruiting them or in a just an adult in a job interview. But they're also sensitive to the fact that they have a pretty good life and they stick up for kids at their school that might be struggling or hurting and and that if they have mental health issues, we're very engaged in trying to make sure that we don't forget about them and we get them help. And that's my whole. My wristband I have it says eyes up, do the work, the work, my the motto of my especially for athletes program that I'll speak to 10 times as many kids on that as I will quarterbacking this year right, right, um, I mean, I think that's what I love about your program, it's.
Speaker 1I mean, this podcast is called above the whistle. Yeah, I mean, I think coaches have such a an impact on kids lives. I mean especially, you know, teenage years. There's just so many lives I mean especially, you know, teenage years. There's just so many different things nowadays that kids deal with, you know, whether it's social media or just the stresses of having to succeed with schoolwork, all the external things that are put on them.
Speaker 2But see, devin, when you say that sorry to interrupt you, but you say that and we all assume that it's always positive impact right? Coaches have such an impact on these kids' life and coaches are so important to the impacts of their young people. Yeah, some coaches ruin young people.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, absolutely, you know, and some and sometimes sports, as great as it should be. In teaching kids lessons, it naturally will teach you some lessons because you're going to fail at it. So but some sometimes we as parents and coaches, don't allow that lesson to be taught, because we jump in and say, oh, that's not your fault, that was the umpire. It's a horrible call. That's not your fault that you're not playing son, it's because your coach is an idiot. That's why you're not. If you would, you guys would have won that game if your coaches weren't. So. So let's transfer schools or let's get out, let's go somewhere else.
Speaker 2We we shield our kids from having to deal with the fact that maybe they're just not good enough, or maybe that that maybe there was a strike and they should have swung at it. And you know and and and maybe it's not worth. We don't need to yell at the kid. He knows he should have swung at it. We don't need to get in the car and replay, hash it with him. He knows he should have swung and he missed it. It's the game. Every single athlete at every sport doesn't swing, misses a tackle, misses his target, misses a layup. It happens all the time, but parents make it such a big deal that we do have kids who play sports, because parents, well, you're going to learn all these lessons about resiliency and everything and they don't. They don't learn about it because every time they fail, somebody swoops in and protects them and writes the coaching email Do you think that's a because to me it's a generational thing.
Speaker 1I don't remember my dad doing that. If anything, he was on the opposite side of things. I mean he was extremely tough, I think nowadays. Yeah, for whatever reason. Our generation, we have this notion that we need to go in and shield and protect our kids, as opposed to let them fail. Let them learn the lesson. Where do you think you know why did that happen? I don't think our parents were like that.
Speaker 2I don't know. I think they may have been, we just don't remember. I don't know if they were that. I think you're right that it may be it existed. It maybe didn't exist like it did now and I'm not exactly sure why I could blame it on. The easy answer to everything is to say social media right, Blame everything on social media.
Speaker 2But I don't think that's the case. I don't know what it is. I think it's some of the case. I do think that parents oftentimes are more interested in being able to post about their child's success, so they can be complimented, than they really are in their child's being successful. And so because they get everybody telling them wow, she's such a great dancer, she's so great, she's so because I still haven't seen the post.
Speaker 2Maybe they're out there, but I very rarely see the Instagram or Facebook or Twitter posts that say my son, I'm so proud of his four strikeouts and three errors. He made it shortstop today and how hard he works. He works so hard. Today he struck out four times and made four errors. I haven't seen that yet, right? Or what you see is I'm so proud of him today, man, he's worked so hard for this. Today he went four for four and he did this. And you know, go down the hall and just tell him you're proud of him, right, we're.
Social Media and Young Athletes
Speaker 2We're sometimes broadcasting it to the world because we want everybody to tell us how great he is and what a great young man you've raised, and so we know I mean, that's just a personal question to everybody what their intentions are, but I can tell you that parenting can often parenting and shielding our kids it's a hard. That's a real gray line right there, because, of course, as a parent, you're a parent, I'm a parent. We don't want our kids to suffer, our, our number one responsibility is to raise our kids and we, we should protect them right, keep them safe from things. That's our job. We put a roof over their head, we feed them, we take care of them from the time they're born and we never want to see them hurt, ever. We hurt as parents. So if we see something that might hurt our kids, what's our natural reaction? Slide in and I'll hurt before you'll hurt. Right, I'll take the bullet before you will. So we slide in and under the under the you know the name of parenting protect my child. And we all yes, we all do that. But we do it so much that sometimes the arrows that the kid needed to take that he would have survived. It would have developed some Teflon on him, it would have made him tougher, it would have calloused him a little bit, it would have prepared him for that job interview, job promotion.
Speaker 2He's not going to get someday right the, the, the spouse, marital issue he's going to have someday. He's going to have to start over a divorce or something that's going to happen and maybe some of those arrows that we had just said. Son, this is really going to be tough. I love you, I'm proud of you, no matter what you do, but I can't really fix this one for you. I'm not going to go talk to your coach for you. You got to go and ask why aren't you playing as much as you think? Ask him to be honest with you and then whatever he tells you you got to. That's the deal. Like you got to either decide to prove him wrong or realize that maybe you're just too short or you don't run fast enough and just genetically it's just not going to work. And so you know we can work and we want them to work. All I care about is you give all you have. And if you'll just give all you have, then that's all that matters. And I'll tell you an interesting.
Speaker 2There's a book I've read that every parent should read. Every coach, I think, should be forced to read it. I talked to Chip Kelly a week before he left UCLA and went to Ohio State, so this was a month or so ago, and he actually had the author of this book come speak to all of the whole football team at UCLA. It's called iGen or iGeneration. It's a red book. You can get the audio version of it. The doctor who wrote the book and I talk about this every time I speak at schools or to teams she did they've done studies every you know, 10 years or so on graduating seniors and they get an eye just same questions just to see how our generations are changing right.
Speaker 2Things like moving out of the house, how many go to college? How many have their driver's licenses? Do they smoke or do drugs or drink or whatever? And so all these and they've done this for years and years and years and for the most part there's little changes here and there, but it's nothing dramatic until around 2007. And then the number started getting super dramatic. And this doctor, she believes that coincides at some degree with the fact that in 2007, everything changed because the iPhone was invented and iPods and iPads and Instagram and Twitter and Tik TOK and all this Snapchat and all this stuff came about after 2007.
Speaker 2Kids were born with tablets in their hands. Now Everybody has the internet at their fingertips and can get anything they want, and this generation doesn't know life without all of that stuff. So a current 18-year-old, 20, 21-year-old they've all been born around 2007. She believes they, because of devices and the ability to message and communicate through devices, that they will graduate high school having had half as many conversations with other human beings as we had when we graduated high school Half, because how do they communicate? They text, they message, they snap. There's not a young man out there who's graduating high school this year who's ever called the home phone number to ask a girl on a date and have to talk to that girl's dad. That's never happened.
Speaker 1I'd never do that I just I snap her, yeah, or a Snapchat yeah.
Speaker 2So because of that, she believes that their brains are three years less developed socially. Now that's where this starts to make sense, and I've seen it as a coach. You're coaching a kid a certain way and he just withers to the critique, right? Well, it's because I'm getting on him like he's a 17 or 18 year old kid who should be mentally, socially. I'm talking to a 14 or 15 year old kid.
Speaker 2So what you don't see now kids don't move out of the house as early as they used to. They don't get their driver's licenses as early as they used to. There, they'll just stay home and game or do other things at home. They're more depressed, they're more anxious, they are more tolerant, more accepting of other people, but anxiety and depression are off the chart. Then we throw these kids out on a baseball diamond and instead of him going out and just playing baseball because he liked to, to do it like we you know our generation would do, now it's every time I do something, well, somebody is going to post it and I'm on a and I'm going to have people like it and comment and comment on it and retweet it. And when I don't, nobody's going to do that, but my buddy is or my competition is. So we add that pressure to these kids which just adds fuel to the depression and anxiety.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, it's interesting with my kids. I mean, you know you go to the game and they have a good play. And immediately following the game, did you get that on video? Yeah, they want it.
Speaker 2Yeah, there you go, yeah no no, I was watching it.
Speaker 1I didn't have my camera you know, recording it. Sorry, you're going to post that.
Speaker 2How many people liked it? Did they see it? You have high school kids who I had a high school quarterback come and tell me he wasn't sure if he was going to play his senior year. He was a good player, yeah. And I said what are you talking about? You're not going to play. He's like I'm just not enjoying it anymore.
Speaker 2And I found out later from his mom one of the things that was was other kids his age that he was comparing himself to on Twitter and Instagram that were getting. They had so many videos of themselves doing things at these tournaments and these camps and stuff and all the cool hype videos and everybody was telling him how great he was and he'd go have a good game and everybody would retweet it. And now it's just because it gets retweeted a zillion times doesn't mean anybody of any worth or value watched that. What I mean by that is I've had multiple college coaches at my camps tell kids, stop tagging me in your seven-on-seven film. I don't watch it.
Speaker 2I'm tired of my phone always constantly having hundreds and hundreds of these kids running routes and doing. You know it's not. I can tell you're athletic, but I'm going to watch you play on Friday and I'm. If your coach will just let me know you're a good player, then I'll pay attention to you. But all these highlights and so the kid just got so tired of trying to constantly compare himself to everybody that he started to look at every game. As I've got to do something Twitter worthy or Instagram story worthy instead of just highlight worthy, instead of just playing ball like you used to do when it was fun.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. My quarterback this last year, I, you know, I went around to a few different players on the team and I, you know, on a scale of one to 10, how do you think you did today or it wasn't even that, it was how good a player do you think you are at your position? And my quarterback said a five. And this kid is phenomenal. But it was just amazing because, yeah, he watches these different videos and he compares himself against. You know these highlight reels yeah he.
Speaker 1You don't see all the mistakes they've made. You just see that one highlight and you're comparing against it yeah and he you. He marks himself as a five.
Speaker 2The focus should be how hard did you try today? Yeah, the process. How hard have you been practicing? If you've emptied your tank practicing, you've given all you have. Then you go out and the outcome decides. The outcome is out of your control in most cases. Sometimes the ball just doesn't go in. Most putts don't go in. Sometimes the receiver drops the pass and it gets tipped up in the air and gets intercepted and the quarterback gets an interception and and on a stat sheet. And how'd you lose the game? Oh, we threw an interception on our last play. No one knows. The ball should have been caught. It hit the receivers right in hands. If that kid makes the catch, it's our quarterback, threw a great ball and we won the game. He's such a gamer. He led us down the field and it's just the game.
Speaker 1So how do you? I mean because quarterback elite is in the title Yep, you know, I believe quarterback is probably the toughest position to play on a team sport and a lot of it's because of that. They receive all the credit when they win and then they receive the blame if they lose Too much credit and too much blame. Just like the coach. How do you through your camp and your program? I mean, do you guys touch on that? Do you talk to that point? Yeah, and how do you help kids?
Speaker 1especially at a young age understand.
Becoming Elite Through the Process
Speaker 2Every one of our shirts, every one of our camps understand. Every one of our shirts, every one of our camps, every one of our posts, you'll see a hashtag uh, more than you'll see qb elite mentioned. You'll see a hashtag become elite. And we talk a lot about becoming and what that means, that we're constantly becoming something, a better or worse version of ourselves. Yeah, so what does? A tree becomes a tree over time, you know, and it grows into that and you're growing into, but you're, you're, you're.
Speaker 2Elite is whatever your best is, and your best might not be as good as the other guy. At some point your best won't be good enough and you're going to get cut. It happens to everybody. You're going to be asked to retire or quit or something. So we just we focus on the process. It's.
Speaker 2It's look, you may or may not, you know, have a, have a super successful season and be a great, great quarterback, but in the eyes of a college or something. But if you feel like you've given it the right amount of time and effort, you've learned how to work, work, you've learned how to take failure and deal with it and come back and show up the next day, then the process of becoming was successful. You are becoming elite. It has nothing to do with this being an elite quarterback, it's becoming an elite person, an elite man, yeah, and and if, if, by that you become a good quarterback, awesome.
Speaker 2But you are gonna sometimes be patted on the back for things that wouldn't have happened had your receiver not made a great play or made a guy miss on a tackle or your lineman didn't block right, or other times you're going to throw great balls and make great decisions and you're going to lose. So you have to stay really even keel, because the thing about quarterback is you're only as good as your last pass in your last game and so you just have to understand that. And some kids aren't mentally made up that way and we have to realize. That's the one thing I can tell fairly quickly in quarterbacks it's hard to tell if the kid's going to be a good player till after puberty, because there's a lot of kids who are great before puberty and end up not being great athletes after and vice versa. But mentally you can kind of see if a kid has the drive and the focus and the mental toughness to be able to handle that position, because it's tough.
Speaker 1So do you think that's just kind of you know innate it's? They have it or they don't?
Speaker 2I think you can teach it to a degree, but it's a lot of that I think you're born with. It's hard to teach mental toughness. I mean you can. There's. There's mental strength coaches out there, so don't get me wrong. But to teach, to teach passion, to teach guts, to teach just want to. You know, some kids want to get up when the alarm goes off if they have a practice cause they want to go get better. Other kids just dread it Right and they only go and they have to. That's something that it's hard to teach a kid to want to wake up and wait. I I was with 80 boys this morning that all got up at five, 15 in the morning, and at six we were out there doing stuff and some kids didn't come because it was six in the morning and they'd rather sleep.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I had coach Brent Browner on from Bishop Gorman a couple of weeks ago and he said something I had never heard before. But he said character, you know, you can work on it and you can try to develop it. But everyone talks about sports. You know, going to sports it develops character, it's like.
Speaker 2That's not true. It defines your character. It reveals character, reveals it. It reveals your character.
Speaker 1Yeah like you said you know, do you wake up at 6 30 in the morning? And go practice and you know, do you do? The extra little things that go unnoticed, yeah, so it's not developing that?
Speaker 2yeah, it will yeah there's a school, there's a quote that says that, yeah, character sports does not define or reveal or build character. It reveals character and that's true. I think it does both. But it does reveal your character Absolutely. But it can build character. But we just got to make sure, as adults, that we're focusing more on the process and not on the podium. Yeah, less on the trophy and more on the. Are they learning how to work hard and be good teammates and be good players? And that's easier said than done. That's so true. We all want to win and there's nothing wrong with teaching kids to compete, but there's something to saying that, look, sometimes you can play your very best. I tell my guys, winning is something I despise. Losing, I hate it. I think I hate it worse than I like winning. As soon as we win, I'm, I enjoy it for a day and then I'm, I can't my. That's the next thing. But if we lose, it sticks with me. I'm still mad about some games that we lost.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's games I lost when I was eight years old.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly so yeah, but it's. What are you going to do about it? But you know, what we have to tell the kids is whether we won or lost. I've been upset at players. I've coached after a win because I've said this we won because this other team just isn't good. It's not. We didn't play our. You guys didn't give me a hundred percent of what you had today. They just aren't good. There's been other games we've lost, where I've been looked at every guy and say they're just a better team, they're bigger, they're faster, they're stronger. You gave all you had. That's all that matters.
Speaker 2And there's never once is there a reason for us to yell at a player after a game and for anything, right, unless they were disrespectful to a coach or something like that. They tried. They know if they messed up. Our job should be hug them, tell them we love them. Let's get back to work next week and see if we can be better. The coaches who scream and yell at kids for results, I think, are the problem. It's it's focus on the, you know, on the, on the process, and let the outcome be whatever it is yeah, um, I mean, bill walsh talks about that, you know.
Speaker 1I mean, yeah, you know, let the score take care of itself. Yeah, you focus on the things you can control. Yep, you know, create those little daily habits.
Speaker 2Yep.
Impact of Seven-on-Seven Football
Speaker 1That builds success, yeah, so I mean, you mentioned a little bit, you know earlier and we talked about this before the podcast but seven on sevens become such a big thing, yeah. Do you think that has a negative impact on quarterback play? Do you think it's a positive thing? I mean, there's kind of a culture built around seven-on-seven. It's its own sport now.
Speaker 2Yeah, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1on all that.
Speaker 2I don't have a definitive yes or no to that one. It's yes and no. I think seven-on-seven is great. It is good for quarterbacks to have it, especially if they're doing it with their players, that they're going to be playing with, running their routes, doing their stuff, Cause there is timing and decision-making with your concepts and things that you want to do with your guys. Um, I think some of the club seven on seven where it's become very much uh, you know it's, it's highlighting particular kids. You see a lot of showboating, a lot of, you know, pointing at yourself and grandstanding and sportsmanship things that I just don't like, and college coaches don't like it either. I wish these high school kids could realize when they see some of that, it's a major, it's a major turnoff.
Speaker 2It's a red flag for a lot of them. Yeah, a lot of recruiting goes on in that world. That coaches they say they don't but they do. They're liars. A lot of the seven-on-seven has guys in it that are trying to get kids to come and join with them so they can all go to a certain high school Not all of them, most of them not, but there are those out there to a certain high school Not all of them, most of them not, but there are those out there. And you know the ones who are working on developing and teaching the game and they're actually teaching kids stuff.
Speaker 2Then I think it's great. You know, a quarterback in a seven on seven. It's true, it's great reps. I mean you can't get better reps than to have a defense in coverages and be able to throw routes. That's great practice. But you got to also move your feet and slide and and and realize that in real games you don't have four seconds. You have guys in front of you. You know you, there's certain routes that you can't get away with running in a real football game, that you can in a seven on seven. So the coaches who do it and they run real stuff. I've always compared it to three on three basketball, maybe even three on three dunk ball. Yeah, right, like it's not bad if you're a basketball player to put the hoop at nine and a half feet and you can dunk it and you play with three, so you have more space. You can go one on one more. It's not bad. You're still dribbling, you're still playing the game. Right, right, there's, but it's not real. It's not five on five, it's not full court, and so it's it's.
Speaker 1Do you think it creates bad habits? Though I mean you talked about it, right. And, from what I see, quarterbacks, yeah, their footwork just.
Speaker 2It can.
Speaker 2It can create bad timing and also help kids create good timing.
Speaker 2Again, it just it matters.
Speaker 2It matters on if it's being coached or not.
Speaker 2If it's just let's get the kid who can throw the ball and then let's go run a bunch of seven on seven routes that are you can run, that you don't. You can't run in real games and you, the defense, will play defenses sometimes that you wouldn't play in a real game and the kid's feet are stagnant and he's just taking the snap and standing there and then, yeah, it can develop some bad habits and you see kids who then, when you put a line in front of them and guys coming at them and live bullets are flying, they panic and they don't know what to do, and so, but again, it just depends on the coach. And then it depends on is your coach interested in winning and making money or is he interested in developing the kids that he's coaching? What's his primary focus? Because there are some guys out there that are making a lot of money on it and the primary reason is to win and to make videos about it to show everybody on social media, not to develop the athlete.
Speaker 1So it's really just which one are you doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of had firsthand experience with that this year with one of my kids you know I'm not going to name names, but there was a club in town and they wanted to play for the team and they told me how much it was and I run a seven on seven team. It's just with my local kids, you know, for our tackle football team to try to develop them and create that timing.
Speaker 1I know the cost of these tournaments and things like that. What's the extra thousand dollars for? And it's like well, coaching fees and all, and I'm like, okay, all right, Now you know it's a business, yeah.
Speaker 2People are getting paid to coach and if they, hey, if what they're coaching is making the kids better, you might say, okay, it's worth it. I coach kids to to how to play quarterback Right. And if, if what they're doing as coaches coaching is teaching your son how to play receiver better, play db or quarterback better than maybe, you say, yeah, this is worth it. But if not, um, oftentimes you're paying so that a couple other kids can play for free. Yeah, because they're the high named athlete and they're the one that's bringing attention to the club and to that coach. Possibly and that's where I think it gets a little bit shady is when other kids are paying so that the star kids don't have to and you got an adult who's kind of reliving through the kids.
Speaker 2But I don't think most are that way. I, just, like I said, I go back and forth on seven. On seven. It's definitely valuable. I would just recommend do it with the guys you're going to be doing it with at high school and if you if possible, sometimes you can't with the guys you're going to be doing it with at high school, yeah, if possible, sometimes you can't. But if you're doing it with the club scene world, just make sure that you're learning and you're developing and then it's fine. And don't get so caught up in all the videos and all the highlights and thinking that people that really matter are watching those, because they're not. They're not.
Speaker 1Yeah. So the other day I saw you know kind of a stat, utah. I believe in the last 10 years we put, I want to say, 32, 33 kids into the NFL. If you look at the, you know the country. I mean obviously you got Florida, you got California, texas. I mean they're putting hundreds in but Utah's in the top 10. Now what do you attribute that to?
Speaker 2I think per capita we're even higher. Yeah, we're top five or six or something. I attributed that to a couple of things. First of all, I think high school coaches are being asked to do more than ever, and they're doing more than ever. They're doing a good job.
Speaker 2People don't realize everything that goes into being a coach nowadays. It is nothing like it was when. If you're over the age of 40, it is night and day different than when you played Over the age of 30, it's night and day difference than when you played high school football. It's way more involved. You have to do way more. It's tough. You don't get paid much. It's very hard.
Speaker 2But we have some smart coaches. We have a lot of coaches that could. What they know and how they coach the game are as good as anyone in the country. They could be college coaches and they care about their boys. That's most of them. I think that some of the private training industry has helped. I think we have some good coaches who do work with other kids off the field and kids have been able to get access to that stuff. And we have some good ones here in the state. You know, and and, and I think the main one is just kids, have they? They're approaching sports more now. This could be good and bad, but they're cause. For the kids who make it it's good. But for the kids who don't sometimes it's not always great, but they are giving it a lot more time than they used to and, like I said, that can be good and bad it can. For the kids who are athletically gifted and they have that work ethic, they're going to have a shot.
Speaker 1Do you think? Part of it, too, is just you know, you see somebody, you know from your neighborhood, or you know somebody and they make it to the next level. That gives you more hope, Because you know when we grew up. I don't. I mean there really wasn't anyone making it to the NFL. I mean parents would tell you, you know, the likelihood of you going to the NFL is, you know, less than 1%.
Youth Sports, Coaching, and Social Media
Speaker 1Yeah, I think so, but now you're starting to see people from Utah actually go to college and go to the NFL, so it just makes it more real. So I think some of these kids actually kind of see a path perhaps where I mean, I'm speaking for myself as a kid I know that's a, that's a well it's.
Speaker 2It's easier to get your name out now too. If you're a good player, more schools can find out about you. Now with the internet, it's easier to share film, and with Huddle now I've talked to dozens of coaches about how they search for kids and there's algorithms and things they can use. On high school kids to. I want to see every kid at every linebacker that's six foot one or taller, and then I want to see six foot one and he's 230 pounds or more, and they can whittle it down to the certain type of body frame that they like and then go in and start looking at film, and so you can find a kid out in Utah that beforehand you're really your only shot was probably going to be a local school. Maybe you'd get something somewhere else, but now every school in this country are recruiting kids from Utah.
Speaker 2Like I said, today I'll meet with Tennessee. Later in the week I'll be meeting with USC and Lincoln Riley I've met with twice already, and I know other coaches in our state who have met with these coaches. Every year they're coming out to look at kids, so they're coming here regularly. We have Utah kids on college teams all over the country. But it's a. It's a compliment, I think, to a lot of things to the work ethic of the kids, ultimately, and to some some good coaching at the youth level all the way up, and if we keep that, this will continue to happen. We just got to make sure we don't forget about the kids who don't make it and make sure they're still having a positive experience because their dreams were to be there too and they just, most of the time, don't have the physical characteristics.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, I think it's extremely important. I mean, yeah, everyone, every coach, wants to be able to coach that one kid and have that name. And, oh yeah, I coached you know so-and-so, and he made it to the nfl, or you know went on to byu yeah, but I mean the impact coaches, like you said. They can have a negative impact or a positive impact, yeah, um, but I mean they're going to touch each one of those kids that they coach.
Speaker 1So I mean yeah, it's one way or the other it's just it's good or bad, you know, and so so it's my hope you know that you know through this podcast and and through you know individuals like you that are out there and you have your nonprofit, that you know that hopefully we can influence, you know, these coaches to have a positive impact, to hopefully, you know, have that kind of waterfall cascading effect that we slowly affect everyone, you know, because I think our country right now needs our youth to build more resilience and I mean it's an interesting stat you bring up with the 2007, and you know the influence of devices and things like that.
Speaker 1I think we really need to go above and beyond, even, and take that next step to help, you know, mature these kids and get them ready for real life. You know, mature these kids and get them ready for real life Because, like you said, I mean, whether you swoop in and shield your kids, um, or you don't, at some point you can't and they're going to leave and they're going to go out that front door and they're going to start, you know, creating a life in themselves and you're not going to be there to protect them.
Speaker 1So, um, it was a pleasure to have you on today. I mean, I think you imparted so much wisdom, you know, and everything you've done, from quarterback elite and and just your coaching and just the mentorship and the impact you've had here in the state of Utah and and even far farther reaching, so yeah, Thank you.
Speaker 2I appreciate it and it's been a. We have great kids and great parents and great coaches here, so it's an easy place to do it. Not that it's been easy work. It's been a lot, of, a lot of traveling and but, man, I've been. I've been luckier than any of the kids I've ever coached with. I've met some great kids and every day I'm with a different kid that I just enjoy being around and it's it's. I've been, I've been blessed.
Speaker 2But we all need to be getting better and be looking for ways to improve as parents and coaches and as parents, we need to talk to each other and admit that we're, we need help, you know, and we're raising a generation that we didn't. No one gave us a playbook on how to raise this type, this generation, this I generation. We're the, we're the, we're the Guinea pigs, and we're going to look back in 20 years from now, just like we would look back and ask our parents or our grandparents I use this example all the time how in the world did you guys ever allow people to smoke on airplanes?
Speaker 2or to smoke in restaurants or in buildings, like who to not have seatbelts right, like car seats, like all these things that were so casually addressed back then.
Speaker 2I wonder if we'll do that with social media, that's where I'm getting at is in 20 years from now, we're going to look back and we're going to we're going to have our grandkids, or even our kids, say why did you? I can't believe you gave me a phone with access to the internet or Instagram when I was 12 or when I was 13 or when I was 14. And we're going to look back and say, yeah, we didn't really, we didn't think about it. But what I'm trying to do every single day is tell people well, we do know. The studies are out. There's warnings that it causes mental health. It is a thing. It's just like you know. It's just like we have found out about secondhand smoke. We know. It's just like we have found out about secondhand smoke, we know it's bad.
Speaker 1So if we need to do something different or that's you- know that's on us the hard part, like you said, as collective right, as parents. It is so hard when your kid comes to you and they're, like all my friends, have a phone. Yeah, I'm the only one that doesn't have a phone. Yeah one that doesn't have a phone. Yeah, it makes it extremely difficult because you don't want to be that parent that you know that doesn't allow their kid to have some of the things that all their friends you know yeah enjoying.
Speaker 1But at the same time, you you see these warning signs and these red flags, and so you want to be the, the protector, and, you know, do the right thing.
Speaker 1But it's difficult as a collective all of us parents need to kind of come to this point where it's like this is bad, we, we need to remove this. I mean there's talks about it, you know, with with just different laws, I think, right when they're talking about banning social media until you're 16 or whatever it is, but and it's it's not that it can't, it's how it's used, right, your kids can have it if.
Speaker 2but we need to be engaged, but it's know what they're looking at and know what they're doing. True.
Speaker 1But I do think it's hard to allow a 13 year old, 14 year old to have that responsibility.
Speaker 2I think that's always too young.
Speaker 1Like that's just, it's a really young, it's. It's hard for them to know what's right, what's wrong.
Speaker 2I know we're wrapping up, but I'll give you one last example. Dev and I've asked parents would you ever give the keys to your car to your son or daughter just because they turn 16? Does, all of a sudden, that make them a driver? Or would you make them go through driver's ed tests? You would drive with them, you'd make sure their seatbelt was on, you make sure they were using their blinker, you would make sure they knew the laws, like you would double, triple check before you would allow them to go out and drive, right.
Parenting and Technology Rules Agreement
Speaker 2But we'll give them access to social media and then act shocked when they find pornography, or act shocked when they get addicted to these things, when we know they're going to crash. Just like if we gave our kids the keys to the car just because they got straight A's or just because they turned 16 and then, good luck, go drive it. We shouldn't be shocked if they got in a car accident, right. So if we're not teaching them how to use it, make it, teaching them of the dangers of it, making sure they understand that, look, it's hard to be around the communities nowadays and social life without it. But we're going to have some rules, and I hope you'll, and it's for your good, it's because we love you and really gain that trust with them. If we just give it to them and then it's hey, it keeps them busy, it keeps, then it's our. Then look, god didn't make these kids any different. We're raising them differently. That's on us as parents.
Speaker 1Yep, I 100% agree. And it is difficult. You know, I have four kids at home and it's difficult, but we all need to do better. So, Dustin, thanks for joining us today and we'll see everyone on the next episode. Thanks,