Masters Alliance Uncut
Honest Conversations with Masters of their craft about life and Olympic Sport Issues
Masters Alliance Uncut
How Can Team USA Compete When The Deck Is Stacked Against Development?
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A holiday show with zero sugarcoating: we dig into how Team USA slipped from 12th to 20th at senior worlds while rivals like Brazil blasted ahead, and why our selection rules often reward the already-secure instead of building the bench. With a data-savvy guest who tracks time-series results and qualification math, we pull apart the incentives that shape a season: points reset in June, early events that feel optional for stars, and trials where seeds can wait for one match while hungry challengers fight through the gauntlet.
We talk about access as the real currency. If a centralized academy operates like a private club, funding international runs that lock in seeds, where does that leave the junior aging up who needs reps, not rhetoric? The fix isn’t complicated: send locked-in athletes to majors that matter, free national spots for young guns at Pan Ams, and make trials more open so the next wave can actually prove it. Put senior coaches with the under-21s where the future is decided. And if there’s truly a global search for another high performance coach, then publish the plan, the metrics, and the mission. No more foggy forms, no more 2017 strategies guiding 2025 decisions.
We also zoom out to the numbers: only about 2,500 black belt competitors nationwide, heavy concentration in California and Texas, and entire states with minimal presence. Spain can stage 4,000 black belts in one youth event; that’s what scale looks like. Depth is built through access and structure, not slogans. Our guest points to rising teens, potential breakout women, and the urgency to bring 15- to 17-year-olds into a bigger, safer, truly open centralized program. Dominance is a storyline; depth is a system. If we want the former, we need to fund and build the latter—now. Subscribe, share this with a coach who needs to hear it, and tell us: what’s the first change you’d make?
Holiday Welcome And Guest Intro
SPEAKER_02Welcome to the Warehouse 15. It's our holiday episode, and we have a special guest, one of our favorite, brightest guys in the room. I'll let Coach Moreno introduce him, along with Mr. TJ. What's up, Mr. Coach?
SPEAKER_04Well, first of all, happy to be here. Let's go. Getting towards the end of the year, we're happy to have you back, Mr. Lewis. I know we had you early on. A lot of people have really enjoyed your commentary and some of the great things you do with you know statistics and things like that. So happy to have you. Good to see you. Happy holidays. Hey, my man, that's good. And of course, Coach Terrence, how are you doing today?
SPEAKER_01I'm good. I'm good. Always excited to have a guest on the show, though, especially with someone with all your stats and everything. I'm I'm not I've never been a really big numbers guy. I always just look at the performance, see who wins, see who loses. But it's always interesting when you start putting stuff together and you're like, wait a minute, this makes a lot more sense, or or justifying things that have been said or or done. So I'm I'm I'm excited for this conversation, actually.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Listen, really happy to have you. How's everything, Mr. Lewis? How's everything over there in your neck of the woods going to be over there pretty soon for the U.S. Open?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that's uh not that long uh from now in early March. Looking forward to that G2, I guess it is. Uh really delighted to be back with you guys today. I have been listening to your podcast and I agree with quite a lot of it, and I disagree strongly with a couple things. So maybe we'll get to sorry. We'll find our way through this, and it's gonna be a blast.
Early Season, Points, And Grand Prix Access
SPEAKER_04Yeah, actually, yeah, I would love to. We had a couple things that we'd like to talk about and stuff like that. But yeah, bring some of that stuff up. Or we mentioned it up, man. We can we'd love to talk about and kind of see where you come from. I think that'd be fun. The uh just talking about the U.S. Open, I think it's gonna be interesting because all the points reset in June. And so a lot of these big athletes already have their points, they're already in the Grand Prix. So I'm curious to see who comes out, who spends the money. Because, as you both know, because you're pretty connected to this, it's gonna be a freaking sprint from June 2026 to the end of 2027. It's gonna be a sprint, and there's a lot of big shit to fight in, and people might just take the early part of the year off.
SPEAKER_03Brazil has 10 people already into the Roma Grand Prix, the U.S. has nine. I think Canada has six, and Mexico only about three. So you've got choices. The U.S. doesn't have choices. Those nine people are set in stone, and they're probably gonna go to all three Grand Prix based on the points they have. And it's not looking very good for anybody else to qualify. They're down in the 50s or 60s in 49 and 58, and they're just not gonna make it.
SPEAKER_04I'm gonna make a prediction. Everyone's gonna want to start out pretty strong and get those point total up. 2027, there's a lot to fight for with the world championships and continental championships. Brazil is gonna go to all three, and a lot of people will go to all three, but the real thing is gonna start off in 2027 because that's when we almost know that if you get a world championship medal and a grand prix final medal, you have a really good chance of qualifying in the top six. The United States is lucky because they got their people already qualified. They have dreams of qualifying eight people, probably not gonna happen. So hypothetically, they qualify three people and they want to get that fourth person, all those people are gonna have to come in at the number four seed. So it's kind of a weird uh United States getting four people in top six, I don't think is very likely. The Italian people are pissed because they're actually starting lawsuits because they're supposed to be before June, and it's the same weekend. So think about that. You're Italy and you're trying to host the Grand Prix, and you got the Europeans at the same time. For what reason?
SPEAKER_01I have I don't know why they would even do that.
SPEAKER_04Like that that's that's crazy. I think it's a schedule mix-up, and hopefully they figure it out.
SPEAKER_03But that the only purpose, it seems to me, for having all these continental championships like the Pan Am in May, is that you could be on the bubble where you need those points to get to the Paris Grand Prix. Yeah, that's the only advantage.
SPEAKER_04It's uh it's funny because what do you think about we talked about this last time, me and TJ talked about it. This would be a perfect time to you posted that we got like how many people that qualify directly to the national team. Don't let those people in the national team get new new people, let them go fight because it doesn't really mean anything to the CJs of the world or Christinas of the world, because they're already in. So let somebody else go and get that quote unquote experience with national team, with traveling, or maybe run the table, get 40 points, and sneak into a grand prix.
Who Travels And Who Sits Out
SPEAKER_01I said that as we was talking about that, and I think I said it last time, but some of the guys that were on the national team like direct through our qualification process, some of them have wild cards for the championships already. Like that too, even more reason to why not you're gonna they're gonna pay for those guys regardless. And I think I said it before, but they're gonna pay for 74, they're gonna pay for 68. And I think both of those guys, Victor and Michael, both have wild cards. So potentially, I don't know why you would close the division and not let someone actually fight for another spot to go to the Pan Am Championships.
SPEAKER_03Right. So I could I can think of a couple reasons. You just mentioned the money one. So last time there was a female athlete who had a uh buy a wild card to the Pan Am Championships, and so she didn't fight at team trials, and they did not pay for her to go to the championship because she didn't do that. So even though she's at the academy and it's Faith Dylan, and they did not pay for her to go. So that's so where Pan Am Championships? That's right. Really? Yeah, really, and so this year she's got a wild card too. She's not sure she's fighting. I would I want to see a bunch of these juniors aging up fight these people and see what they got. Yeah, especially in the women, but also there's a couple guys like this Joshua Aladdie guy, he's been ripping up juniors and he's minus 80. Yeah, I don't know how tall he has, looks like he's about six feet tall. How could he stand up to CJ and Victor? I want to I want to see that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it used to be like that before with the team trial selection. I think we talked about it, but like we came back from the Olympic Games and had world championship team trials for the next year after having a successful event the previous year. There was, and I think we used the word protection, but there was really no there was no reason to protect. I think Grandmaster always talks about it a little bit about who you're funding and who are you pushing and who are you like kind of going, okay, we're gonna protect this person, but especially with the situation we're in now and with a situation like that, I think that's a big gap for us. We're missing that at-home test a little bit. We're missing that push.
SPEAKER_04What's interesting for me is like they can do whatever they want. That's been proven, right? The I think the Academy and the USAT US Academy is a private club, and they could do whatever they want, so they could say, Okay, we're only paying for the national team, but our academy athlete is going because they via have a wild card, we're gonna pay for them. That's absurd. I'm saying that they wouldn't pay for a fate. That's absurd.
SPEAKER_01I can't even believe that's a real story. That's just weird.
SPEAKER_03I was I was gonna say, one other thing is that you know how they stack the team trials, they seed them and it's in a crazy way where if you're either the defending champion, like the national team member, or let's say you're on the Olympic team, you're the number one seed, and you only have to fight one fight. So that'd be an advantage to doing team trials this year for 27 so that you can get the number one seed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's what I was saying.
Closing Divisions And Wild Cards
SPEAKER_01That's what I said. That's what I said last episode, too. And I know maybe it's not on purpose, but at the end of the day, if we're funding people from the academy to go to opens to get points, and then we're using that same point total to close off divisions and say people directly make the national team, then there is no development. You can't really, you know, you have these kids going to regionals and all the qualification process only to be cut short by no team trials because the other person is top ranked in a year that all the points reset.
SPEAKER_04It's almost like smoke and mirrors. Like you guys focus on this. Well, we're gonna pay for these people to go over here, they get the points. Oh, yeah, by the way, now they're the number one seed, they fight one time. You know, I mean, granted, they got to do the work, granted, they got to win at that level, but it just seems a little unfair. I think you say stack the deck. If I'm getting paid to go to all these things internationally, I have a good chance of doing it. Meanwhile, these other people are fighting domestic stuff, which they've been told they need to do. And all of a sudden the trial uh selection procedures come out and they have a ranking, like you said, Mr. Lewis. And you know, sometimes there's not even a a divisional fight off, or or wow, that person is number one. I have to go through three or four matches, and so and so is sitting there waiting for that one match.
SPEAKER_01I guess I would ask, I mean, just because you know, we're talking about the stats and everything and numbers, like what does actually right now in this point of the game, what does being top five or top ten or whatever it is in the world ranking actually mean? What is it? What difference does it mean?
SPEAKER_03It it gets you, you know, it gets you to the grand prize, which is vital.
SPEAKER_01I understand that part. I'm just saying, as far as like a reason to close the division, because the grand if you get into the grand prize, you can get into the grand prize without being on a national team.
SPEAKER_03Right. You said this the other last time or the time before, too, that it's just the Pan Am Championships they're the national team is going to. Don't even call it that. Call it the Pan Am Championship team. And you know, why not sit everybody up? Send the young people, let them uh have a little team trial and see your young guns go and have an experiment.
SPEAKER_04Yep. Hot off the press, USCA is looking for doing a global search for a new high performance. Well, I don't want to say a new, another high performance coach to live full-time in North Carolina and work with the national team towards 2028 and 2032, according to the press release. Thoughts?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've got some. It wasn't clear to me that it was additive. I hope it is. Over the last couple of weeks, my wife has noticed actually. She told me, and then I started to pay attention that Gareth and Paul have been advertising their today's Taekwondo more than they ever did in the past.
SPEAKER_04You know, um, but that's a good that's an interesting take that your that your wife, you know, caught. I I've seen it, and now when you say that, I'm like, wow, maybe.
Selection Fairness And Seed Advantages
SPEAKER_01I mean, we went from having, and again, I think we talked about a long time ago about culture being important, and like again, when I say history being important and and and being culturally locked into the area that you're coaching because our kids are brought up different, our athletes move differently, they're different expectations. Now we've moved away from US coaches to having you know European coaches, and now these European coaches are now on a global search to find more high-level coaches who, according to their thing, was done things internationally, have have coached at the Olympics, coached at the world, produced athletes. So we're looking for another person outside of this internal system to come in and and according to them revolutionize and help and push towards Brisbane. We're talking 2032 already. We're not past this Olympic Games where we're supposed to dominate, and we're talking about 2032 and bringing in a person. And and again, now now we're now we're like, dude, we're deep at this point. Think about it. Like, who who who are we looking at like globally? Globally, we're starting globally.
SPEAKER_02Like TJ Curry, another perennial non-performer who was coached badly and then developed badly and never meddled at anything of no no, hold on a second. The one thing that continues is the culture of non-performance. Since exiting of the Koreans who were corrupt, the corrupt Korean leadership, we've now replaced it with a malfeasant underperforming leadership that continues to empower fourth-tier coaches and athletes, and they don't meddle.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I know they've been a part of the system for a long time, so it's dating back to 2018, 2019, you know, and there's really nothing that have come up. What do you, Mr.
SPEAKER_04Lewis? What do you what is like your 50-yard thought process on it?
What World Rankings Actually Mean
SPEAKER_03Sure, I've got a couple of things. I look at I look at our how our team's done. That's basically what I do is I track results and time series information. And although, and so give them credit, our results at Worlds this year were as good effectively in terms of a couple of medals and like whatever it was, three or so quarterfinal finishes, as good as anything we've had since 2011 during the electronic era. However, everybody else has gotten better. And so I made a post today, which I actually want to talk to you guys or ask you your opinion on. In that period, the 22, 23, and 25 worlds, senior worlds, we went from 12th place to 16th to 20th. And that's because a whole bunch of countries passed us. So if we're gonna dominate in 28, plus or minus this new coaching team, which I agree it should have a number of US guys who are committed to by this group, but also like who what countries are we gonna pass to dominate? We're we gotta pass a dozen or 15 countries. And if you go down the list of countries who are ahead of us, I don't see it. I even with a bunch of new faces coming up on the scene, aging up into the senior ranks. There's at least one cadet as well who I think we should have this Taylor Joe Gavin in a senior cadet. I think she's gonna be something. I think there's a couple women coming up that I've got I've high hopes for this Polo Wazaluska and maybe Crosby Goebbell and a few others. I want to see them fighting the the women, and I want to see some of these guys fighting the men. But even with that, how can anyone, especially the board of directors, believe for like a second without chuckling to guffoning that we're gonna dominate? We're not gonna dominate, we got to survive. So it's one step after another. You guys are in it and have a would have a lot to do. The anomaly, as I tracked all those countries over the last six or seven events, the anomaly was Brazil. We're finishing third at senior worlds this year. Usually Brazil and the US are kind of similar results at all these major events, cadets, juniors, seniors, under 21. But all of a sudden, and you've talked about it, Brazil has got two goals, two silvers, and a whole bunch of other pretty darn good performances, just leapfrogged us close to dominating. So, how does the US do what Brazil's done?
SPEAKER_04What's interesting, real fast, I want to go back. You talked about how we've kind of declined or we've slid, and when is enough enough? Sorry, not sorry. We're gonna go somewhere else. And maybe they're not maybe they maybe they will settle on American. But by by the way they phrase that, by putting it in the the WT coaches chat, they're just looking for somebody from Belgium, from Iran, from Korea, from I don't know, somewhere.
SPEAKER_01To do what that's the crazy part, to do what? To do what? And I go back to your point about the electronics and comparing the years from electricity back to 2011, right? Yep, back to 2011 with all the electronics. The only reason I go a little bit different away from that is because now we have a system where they have a centralized training and they've had it for a while.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_01So we're we're not we're not comparing the two same things, we're comparing a national team that used to go to the world championships that had different pockets. You had your coaches here, you had your coaches there, and you had the head of the head coaches that coached those athletes. But they all were pretty much scattered around, minus the couple people that trained in the same place. Now we're looking at six, seven, what, eight people from the same place, yeah, potentially, and and for the other 21 and everything. So this is almost a direct reflect reflection on like the ranking and all that stuff like that. That's why I always think that's why for me, I told you I thought the numbers are interesting because I think before it was kind of hard to scale and make sense of, but once you put that many people in the same room versus who they're working with versus the other people coming in, you're looking at the same results across the board, really. And obviously, we have our superstars, and I and I get it, we have our people that perform at the time. Like, but and again, I said it before, we've always had people and pockets that went out and held the flag up for the United States. You know, yeah. So it's for me after seven, eight years, and after you can look at it and go, it's a slow decline. The fact that we said this last time, though, we've not only we've gotten more money, they've gotten more. Remember the whole race thing, and and and Steve got a raise, everybody got raises. Yeah, now we everybody got raises, and now we're we're into the point where not it raises, we're adding another person to the staff. That's pretty good.
New High Performance Hire Rumors
SPEAKER_03The average peak age, average age, median age is is 21 and a half. There were 14 medalists on the women's side that were teenagers, and there's only there's only three men. So 17, 18-year-olds now on 28, that means they're 15, 16 right now. And one of the things I heard is that the academy is not allowing anyone under 18 in because of historical, either real or imagined problems. Uh, and so that's that's cutting your own throat. Just have a parent or a designated official guardian, a legal guardian, protect them if they need protection. But they need to get some of these kids that are 15 to 17 in there training full-time. Now that they're paying them 1,500 bucks a month, plus there's potential for$18,000 a year per one of these academy people, and they've got like a million in the bank or thereabouts, you know, you could easily bring in 10 of them.
SPEAKER_04Easy. I mean, for that, you could you could do that and bring in a domestic coach, you know, someone to kind of to work with that group and and maybe move up with that group. I mean, there's so much. If they have as much money as you say, and they have all this resource, resources, then this should be an easy sell. I mean, there's so many other countries that don't have that that are doing better, like you said. They're they're passing. It's not gonna get easier. Did you see? I called it too, because another country that's gonna be nasty, Pakistan. But the Indian athletes, they had a couple medals, not just that they had a couple medals.
SPEAKER_01The average age is 21. I think that's why for me, the letdown from the 21 performance was was kind of so heavy on me because that's that's where we are. That's that's our age right there. That's the that's the age of development and could go win an Olympic medals, could be ready to be the number one. So it's it's kind of a hard thing to swallow when you look at the results, even from that across the board. We have some big drops, some some drops that these they shouldn't lose to them. I think they were better than majority of the field. I think they they should have we could have and should have pulled out more medals in that situation. And when we start talking again, that connects back to the whole dominating 28 thing. Like these kids are gonna be the ones, all the rest of them, according to them and according to your numbers, the rest of them are gonna be old come 2028.
SPEAKER_03They're at or nearly past their peak right now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, if that's our best group going against the rest of the world, not many countries took that serious. What we put out there was our best. That was a good, like on paper, that looked like a good team, especially on the men's side. So put that against the rest of the world. Korea didn't take that super serious, Italy didn't take it serious, Croatia didn't take it serious, France didn't take it seriously, Iran, Turkey, Mr. Lewis, China wasn't there on the men's side. Uzbekistan skipped it too. There was just a lot of countries that really weren't invested in that, and when they do, it's gonna look more ugly. Mr. Lewis, we had two medals, yeah.
Culture Clash: U.S. Coaches Vs Imports
SPEAKER_03Two medals I had put out there, I thought we were kind of a lock for three medals, and possibility of six. I was pretty optimistic looking at the team on paper too, and I watched every US fight and a whole bunch of other fights, and I came away disappointed.
SPEAKER_04I I said four for sure. I said men's 68 and 74. I said plus 67, yeah, Neon. And then I said minus 80 and minus 62 for girls. I have a little bit of a chance. I thought four solid medals, and I thought those kids had to make the finals to call it a success. Like I just I don't think it's a real world championship when you you win two matches and get a bronze medal, the 80 guy. Was a little bit competitive in the uh semifinal, but the other semifinal was tough. That was not close, that was not competitive in that final match.
SPEAKER_03And then Russia, Iran spent 14, and they had eight medals and three quarterfinals. Russia had eight medals and four quarterfinals, so they took it seriously.
SPEAKER_04Iran took it seriously. Russia took that good, you know. His overall performance, who knows? Serbia. And then you gotta look division by division, because for example, I mean, I think that I love that list you just said because what I appreciate, Brazil, I think from bottom to top, they look pretty solid, right? And then there's countries like Croatia, they're usually good in a couple women's categories, and the other ones not so much, or GB Cadence is a legit metal potential every time. So every country might have their one-offs, you know, and that's what yours said, TJ. America's always had a Steven Lopez, Anastasia, uh Paige once in a while. So we've always had these one-offs, but when are we gonna be solid all the way through? That's a nice I want.
SPEAKER_01I just want to wake up one day and find us in the same category, the first list you the Korea, the Iran, and the the like like we have the we have the ability, and apparently we have the money and the resources and the kids and all this stuff. There's no reason that we can't be at that top list. We should be in that top list.
SPEAKER_04We ain't gonna get there by having an assistant coach coach eight people at the world championships. That's not in the best interest of them or the best interest of overall development, right? I mean, you should have to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_01We talk about the under 21 being kind of like our A guys, and if we replace our whole team with whoever got second and third, we might be in some trouble. The fall-off is heavy. It's not all right, our number one guy went, it was a crazy fight. Now we can sit our number in most situations. We probably can't sit our number two, they would probably be undeveloped, they wouldn't be well traveled, they wouldn't have competed, they wouldn't have any kind of financial investment in them to know what they can and cannot do. There has to be real opportunities where these kids can be displaced from the team. And until then, we're gonna keep doing the same thing over and over again.
SPEAKER_04We have this we have a saying in Brazil, and it comes from the Olympic Committee's top, and they say, if you have one, you have nothing, if you have two, you have nothing. You need three and four. God forbid there's an injury to someone like CJ or Christina. The other ones behind them are nice, but they haven't been invested in for real.
Results Trend: From 12th To 20th
SPEAKER_01Let's say they are 18, 17, 18, 19, 20, whatever it is, and they've made the national team per the ranking and all that stuff. I don't believe just per their age or per their rank, they should be not in a situation where they have to defend their spots on the national team. You know, we're not even talking about people that went and got world medals. Like at first, that's where it started with everything. It's like, oh, if you get a world medal, if you get an Olympic medal, you don't gotta fight the next year. But now we're going off pure ranking of going, you got your 40 before everybody else did, and you're in the top 10, and now you don't have to. The rest of the country is just shit out of luck, no 58, whatever the divisions are 68, 74, whatever, heavyweight, 80. Like, there's no we have no, there's nobody because we're not allowing anybody.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And here's a factoid for you. Did you know that very few Americans got their 40 last year? Really? CJ, Jonathan, and uh Michael Rodriguez. I can't think of anybody else. None of the women. Oh, I'm sorry, Naomi Alati. She did, you got it. None of them they didn't go to enough regular G events, and then they didn't, you know, win.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's uh it's a big mistake by everybody. They pop through and they go, I'm there, I've arrived, only to lose their first match next round, and only to lose it, follow that up with the under 21 drops. It's a little scary for people, and I think people have to keep working hard. And like you said, there's too many good countries out there. And these watch next year at the world championships in juniors and seniors, the Kazakhstan, it's gonna be, it's gonna be extremely, extremely tough. You watch it.
SPEAKER_01Korea, Korea, and historically Korea has always been viewed as tough, and Iran is tough. It's just I always wonder. I mean, I know why Korea and I know why Iran. We always say they're so deep, but like do in your opinion, like, are we ever gonna like can we get there? Like, shouldn't we be there? Shouldn't we have enough like of whatever the case is to get in a situation where we can be three, four, five, six deep at this point? And if we're not, are we being are we being crazy by saying we're gonna dominate? Because all these other countries that do dominate and do win are four or five, six people deep. So, how can we do it with one, maybe two?
Brazil’s Leap And The Benchmark Problem
SPEAKER_03Like I was gonna say that there's 2,500 total black belts in the United States that compete last year. There's 2,500, and there's about 700-ish in the senior, high-end junior ranks that total for picking these juniors and senior teams from. And most of them aren't competitive, as you know. So we're not deep in terms of growth total numbers, and so I see a huge challenge. I think, Juan, I've heard you say in the past you've been either to Uzbekistan or seen them, and they've got these hordes of people. But at some point it's a numbers game. Like here in the States, California dominates nationals and team trials, especially at the cadet level, because they've got 27, 28 percent of all the black belts sparring black belts, and then Texas is second. The numbers don't lie. They they they hit above, they punch above their weight and get more percentages than those. But after that, it falls off. There's New York mostly, and then Florida, but Florida's a big drop down from these other ones, and then there's whole states with nobody, like nobody.
SPEAKER_04That's crazy. I'm gonna say this. So I post today, one of the former world championships from Spain, he's talking about they had 4,000 people at their pre-cadet and cadet, or maybe junior, maybe up to juniors, 4,000 black belts fighting at this event in Spain. So when you just said 2,500, this is 4,000 below juniors. And then we've talked about Turkey, we've talked about Russia, talked about accident. It's a little scary because I believe we have the potential, we have the money, but the slide could keep going down and down and down. The trend is not, I mean, if I'm just being honest, it does not look good. I don't see any stop that says no, we're gonna just spike back up. Something you gotta say to the public because you want to keep people motivated. But unless you guys have a real plan, which seems like you don't because you haven't told anybody and you've disenfranchised so many different people.
SPEAKER_01The monthly coaching calls that they did you ever get uh email back about to get on? No sir, no sir, no sir, something and ask again, no, without the required forms that all the coaches did in our country to say they wanted to apply for a coaching spot and what have you done and what teams you coached on, and have you done any of this? And do you want to be a part of the calls?
SPEAKER_03All this that's crazy, man. Yeah, that's crazy. Your your comment just now, which really meant a lack of transparency, is at every level strategic plan, which normally companies, for example, would revamp every couple years at least. If it had a bad year, it's almost every year. But I went to the WT site because the USAT is always bragging about we're the number one participant in the world. MA. So I went to the WT site where they ranked all these things, and of course, you know, some of them are just foo-foo fluff, but they had one down there for strategic plan. So I went and clicked on it, and it was USA, USA strategic plan, which I had never seen. It was 2017. We're being held up for being this great MA for having a 2017 strategic plan, which I had never even seen.
SPEAKER_04Listen, we weren't number one in cadets, we weren't number one in juniors, we weren't number one in seniors, we weren't number one in para. I'm not sure how we got that designation, but are those even real awards? No, no, no, but it looks good for them to put it out there. It looks good for them to tell the USLC, look what we're doing. And let me say something. I don't disagree with you on that. I'm a huge Paul fan. Everyone thought they were getting Paul Green. Gareth was the guy that just was kind of brought along. But is he an intense coach? Yes. Does he take it serious? I believe so. Has he has he done what he said he's gonna do? I have to say no. I just think that they've missed their marker. And if you're the boss, you're the boss, and you gotta you want the good, you gotta take the bad.
Centralization Vs Development Depth
SPEAKER_03Right. Uh, one other thing, I really like the idea of a centralized training facility. I just think it should be much bigger now that they got the support and the money. Let's spend it, let's get a whole bunch more athletes in there and maybe a coach or two, even if it's seasonal.
SPEAKER_01Not watching National. We just sent our under-21 team out there with none of them were our head coaches. We don't even have our head coaches at the under-21. Let's say whatever. You want to say what you want to say. But our big guys are not there with our kids at one of the most impressionable levels at our sport right now, being 18, 19, 20, and 21. We need big wins at that level. If we get big wins at that level, we need our big guns there because whether people like it or not, I went through it. I'm sure all the other coaches went through it. There's certain things you don't know until you know. And we were talking last time, you got to start coaching somewhere, but I don't believe it's at the world championships. I don't believe it's at a world championships as an assistant coach where you coach eight people, you go on your first trip from being a trainer for cadets or juniors, and now you're coaching our under-21 athletes when you have other coaches that have people on the under-21 team that have done very similar things. So whether I blame them or not blame him, you have to put it on them because if he's the head coach, if Paul's the head coach, if the organization is doing this together, we're missing a lot of steps. We're missing a lot of things that don't make any sense. And when you say people care, they're good coaches. I think that's what's being involved of being a good coach of an organization, of a national team. And I that's one of the biggest things that I changed between us being in our country and European coaches. I think maybe they are historically used to dealing with smaller countries that have less athletes. I remember when I first went over to GB and they had too much money. Remember that they had too much money and they couldn't find enough athletes to spend their money. We need more people to spend our money on to develop to build. That was their problem. We don't have that problem, and we're still not doing it. So I think maybe that's the whole cultural change thing having to deal with an entire nation full of people as opposed to a more club level. I still think Americans love tech on though. That's why we put up with this shit. That's why they still do it.
SPEAKER_04I want to talk about the centralized program because I do agree with you. I think it's an awesome thing that any time a federation can do something like that, it's uh is very impressive because it's not easy. I just think that it should have been for everybody. What I can't stand is listen, I've been critiqued more than anybody in the freaking world about peak performance. Anybody, right? A thousand times over. And they have their own thing, Academy. I'm gonna tell you a story, Mr. Lewis. I used to get concerned athletes from my own program that would say, Coach, you don't even pay attention to us on the national team. You pay more attention to everybody else because I had this fear that people thought that I would just take care of my own personal athletes like another coach did. And I tried to be as fair as possible. And here we go now. This time, it's the academy, it's a private club. So although I like and applaud them for having this facility, it's a segregated, segregated place. It's them versus America. It's not them helping America, they haven't embraced people, they haven't embraced a lot of people. Matter of fact, they've disenfranchised people, and some of these people that were gung ho trying to give them some support at the beginning, they're just all kind of stepped back and we don't love them, but we don't hate them. We'll just be here. That's not a good place for us to be as a nation, you know. You're right. So that's my point on that.
Under-21 Gaps And Coaching Presence
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I've been when they first came up with their whole idea before it was the academy. I think I was the one that coined the phrase black ops, their black ops team with young CJ and all the rest of Anna and Mattel Gorman Shore, John Healy, and the rest of them that some came and went. Uh they had that team that they toured around Europe and I think it was 2018, paying for everything. It was all about points, and it was just them getting the points, nobody else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but.