Episode #127: Brian Olehy

🔥 One Dad, One Recruiting Journey: The Brian Olehy Conversation

This week on the Significant Recruiting Podcast, Matt sits down for a real, unfiltered talk with a parent in the middle of the recruiting journey. 🎙️👨‍👧

About a year ago, Brian Olehy reached out for guidance on his daughter Kelsey’s path to college volleyball. Since then, his family has gone all-in: the free recruiting strategy session, film evaluation, the Significant Recruiting book, the Volleyball Recruit’s Journal, and the Significant Recruiting Launchpad online classes. 📘✏️🎥

The results speak for themselves — Kelsey earned her first offer early in her junior year and continues to build strong, meaningful conversations with college coaches who match her ability, values, and priorities. 📨🏐🎓

Brian wasn’t given talking points. He wasn’t asked to endorse anything. This is simply a dad talking honestly about what he's learned, what he's felt, and what he wish he knew sooner. 💬❤️

If you're a parent unsure where to go next… or simply craving a real perspective from someone who’s “made the jump,” this episode will give you confidence, clarity, and direction. 👉✨

Explore free recruiting strategy sessions, journals, classes, and more at CoachMattRogers.com.

Significant Recruiting Resources — Take the guesswork out of college recruiting with Significant Recruiting: The Playbook for Prospective College Athletes, sport-specific Recruit’s Journals, and the Significant Recruiting Launchpad. Practical tools to help families research schools, stay organized, and build a smarter recruiting strategy. Learn more at CoachMattRogers.com.

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Welcome back to the Significant Coaching Podcast, recruiting edition. I'm Matt Rogers, and today's episode is a unique one because for the first time, we're hearing directly from a parent who's in the middle of the recruiting journey. Today. About one year ago, Brian Hai reached out looking for clarity on his daughter Kelsey's path to college. Since then, Brian and his family have taken full advantage of the entire significant recruiting toolbox, starting with scheduling a free recruiting strategy session with me@coachmattrogers.com. Then diving into the significant recruiting book using the volleyball recruits journal and working through the significant recruiting launchpad online classes. And what's happened since Kelsey earned her first offer early this fall of her junior year and continues to build meaningful conversations with college volleyball coaches across the country, coaches who align with her ability, her academics, and her priorities. Brian and I actually recorded this conversation late this summer, and I'll be honest with you, I've been tentative to publish it. I never want anything I share to feel like a vanity project. That's not what this is. I simply wanted to give a real unfiltered voice to a parent who was walking through the recruiting process with their child. Brian wasn't coached on what to say. He wasn't asked to give an opinion one way or the other. It was just two dads talking about a process that can feel overwhelming, confusing, and emotional, and sharing what we've learned along the way. Over the past year, Brian has become a friend and a fierce supporter of me and my resources. I'm genuinely. Thankful for the trust he's placed in me to help guide Kelsey's journey. She's a great kid and it's been fun for me to get to know her and watch her two championship seasons that she's gone through. If you're a parent trying to figure out what direction to go next, or just wondering what this path looks like from the inside, my hope is that this episode helps you trust that everything I offer, the free strategy sessions, the coaching calls, and the inexpensive but significant recruiting resources comes from a place of compassion and empathy. I only wish my parents had access to this kind of information when I was a teenager. We couldn't have been more in the woods when it came to my recruiting and getting more of my college paid for, and I know I missed out on dozens of opportunities aside from the lucky one chance I received to play in college. I want you to understand, I do not make any money off these podcasts. I have no sponsors. I have no ads. I invite guests on who I think can educate and make the journey to college easier for the families I work with and all families who may be struggling with what to do with their child's passion for their respective sport. I hope you find them meaningful. I hope you find them significant. I hope that if you find value. That you'll comment and share with another family, or take the jump to schedule a free conversation with me and learn how I may be able to help your family. With that said, whichever direction you go next, just know that you are always one phone call away or an email away from an experienced friend who only wants to help. I'll be cheering for you and yours, and I wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving weekend. Alright, without further ado, let's dive into my conversation with Brian Hai. Brian, so great to see you. Thanks for being on the show. You and I have been talking for months now. You came to me and said, Matt, my daughter's going through this recruiting process. Here's where we're at. Talk a little bit about where you guys were three or four months ago and where this journey started for you. Two or four months ago, lemme go back to you even further. Kelsey started playing. She's a volleyball player. She's an undersized volleyball player. Plays at a small high school and plays club. She played club for a long time, since she was about 11 years old. A couple last year they had a lot of success with their varsity. She started varsity, they had a lot of success. They were a state championship runner up. Around that time, at the early part of last year as a sophomore, when she made varsity, she really started to talk about I wanna play in college. That's when it became evident to her. Just trying to get her to a point where understanding who she is as a player, and what it's gonna take to get to the next level and what it takes to play at the next level. We started out with and probably I feel like. We probably started out to me about six months later than I wish we would've. I wish we would've had a little better plan, maybe six months sooner, and that's what I'd stress to people is probably in that eighth grade, freshman year. If you have an idea, you're gonna do something. Then start looking at where you think you're gonna fit and slot ability wise, and then start looking into places that you're actually interested in academically and athletically where you think you would fit. What do you think? It's, and it's super difficult for an eighth grader to go, I wanna do X when I'm 30 years old. So you've gotta keep your options open. You have to keep everything available to you. But three or four months ago, even six months ago, it was, and it was actually about six, eight months ago, what really launched me to you and to significant recruiting, significant coaching, the book, the podcast. All of that was I don't even know where I saw it, but I just saw that there was gonna be a webinar and it was gonna be with coach at UW Platteville. And honestly, if it hadn't been for being UW Platteville and us following them so much on Instagram and how much Chelsea and I liked watching what they did, I may not even have watched 'cause it was like, oh, I wanna see that lady. Like they're funny. Yeah they're hilarious. Like they don't take themselves too serious. And and if you haven't checked that out, you should check out their Instagram, so grow their followers. But it's it was that opportunity to listen to her because I felt like that was a place like D three, in ai D two is where I always felt like my daughter fit. And I played division three football and I was not very good. So I understand being committed athletically, definitely not being committed academically and ending up on academic probation and the cost of prevention. Three, athletics and academics we're not gonna make the same mistakes. My parents let me. Yeah. And I did coach some sports, some athletics in high school, so I've had kids get recruited, so I had some ideas. About athletics and what's athletic. And I knew at her size, at her height, D one was not gonna come knocking on her door no matter how fast she was, no matter she set the ball. No matter how good she passed her defense, none of that was gonna probably get her to, a, a high level division one. So we had to be realistic about where we were and we started to talk about it a little bit. It was like. I'm gonna watch this webinar. And it gave a lot of good information. It was, honestly, it was lightly attended, unfortunately. It was great. It's super information, go back and find it on your panel because it's good information. That is an excellent starting spot for anybody starting this journey. And I've got a guy at work too that has a son who, he has two sons, one's a junior and one's a freshman. They both play basketball at, in, in Indiana where I live, which is a basketball heavy state. And one of 'em, the younger one wants to play and I'm, I told him, I'm like, okay, he's a freshman. This is when you really need to get started. You need to start now. And I, here's the book, here's the website. And we even talked about using the free services of Sports recruits and NCSA and those websites. And it's funny because he told me, he said, my wife my wife told me that. We should probably sign up on that. He's ah, I get these emails all the time. It's probably just some sort of scam with this thing. And I'm like, no, NCSA is real. I said they can take a lot of money from you if you let them, but they also have these free tools and these free searches and lets you see all these schools and all this information and put you out there. Hold on one second. My, my vacuum. You say when? Go right it. So I have a guy that I work with who has two sons in high school. They're basketball players. We're in Indiana. They're crazy basketball state. One of his sons, his freshman son, really wants to play in college. I can't even wants to work at it. He talks about him being a gym rat and working out. You need to get started now. This is when you need to start looking at things and start going to actual camps like DNC and putting yourself out there. And we talked about the free services. I said, NCSA and he is is that real? And he said, I get me emails. My wife said we should probably put him on there. And he said, no, it's, they're just trying to get our money. She gets us a scam. And I was like, no. NCSA sports recruit. Those are real sites and there's a lot of great free tools that you can get to put your name out there. It's the way to go. He is really? He's oh. And he came back and said he had to tell his wife, yeah, you were right. He didn't like that. But yeah, so a lot of people are where we are. A lot of people are in the same boat and then bring it all forward. I needed to hear from somebody who has firsthand knowledge, firsthand information. Firsthand ability to scout and say, yes, that kid can play at X level. And that's where we got started because, Kelsey played travel volleyball with a very good club. She switched clubs this year, which I'm very proud that she did. She switched clubs. She's played club volleyball. She spent private lessons. We, we've invested in that because it's her passion. Yeah. She's done lessons with a guy who is a brand new assistant at Wisconsin. Volleyball, was the associate head coach at Purdue for years. A name that volleyball people recognize. John Bell. He did lessons with John for the last couple of years. He was also, an assistant coach with the pro team, with the Andy Ignite. He's had good training, but I don't necessarily want to go and ask a division one coach, where do use my kids late or, and I don't really necessarily count on club coaches to count me or even really the high school coach, 'cause his job is to coach the team. It's not to evaluate my kid for high school. And it's not his job to get my kid recruited. And then add to our story, Kelsey's mom and I are divorced. We live, I live very close, but we don't, doesn't live with me every day. So we have a very good relationship and we both, invest in her volleyball, but we also said we're not gonna invest our time and effort into getting you recruited if you're not gonna take the lead. And getting healthy on board to you gotta send the emails. We're not gonna helicopter parent you into this. If this is what you want, then you have to put the effort into it. And we started to look around and we started to consider our options. I had already had, I had already seen your podcast with Be from UW Platteville, and I've had an idea. I reached out to you. Quite honestly, I just pulled, emailed and said, look and basically just told you this long story I've just been telling about Kelsey's background and said, I just wanna know if she's good enough, and how do I find that out? Where do I go? And that's a service that you offer from your experience as a coach. And as a, a recruiter and talent evaluator for NPFA for so many years, just having somebody you know there, and there are a hundred services out there that will do it. Some of them reputable, some of them not so much. And you need to pick the one that's right for you and your family and who you trust. Obviously I'm gonna en, en endorse Matt Rogers, but you can go out and find whoever you want. I, and that's where we, what kind of where we got started and that's great. And I appreciate that and a lot. My question is, let's go back to starting early. I love that you guys have learned that from a personal experience, how important it is to start early. You talked from the beginning, you wish you would've started six months early. For those parents that are struggling with thinking about their child's college experience at 13, 14, 15 years old, what advice would you give them about. Take, it's really taking the pressure off of you to start early more than putting more pressure on. Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about that? If you get an early start on it and then you start to evaluate, I think one thing I would say with parents is, there's a couple of points I'd make here. One is don't. Have a level of humility with your kid. We all think our kid is great, that's why we're, they're our kid. But when you start thinking, my kid's the best he's, my kid is the best shortstop on his baseball team, on his travel team. He's the shortstop. He's, he makes all tournament. Half the time when we go to a tournament, he is gonna get a Division one scholarship. What you don't realize is every kid. That goes to college and plays athletics was probably the best kid on their team where they came from, because that funnel gets really small. And I'm not talking about just division one, I'm talking about it every division. I don't know if it was in one of the podcasts you did the coach work. And one of the things that distinctly stuck out to me was you asked her, if she's recruiting two and three star athletes, can she compete at the national championship? And her response was. Can't compete in my conference because she's playing in the toughest conference in the United States and other podcasts, I've heard you say, if you put a D three, the best D three out there with some mid-level D ones and they played, it would be hard for you to pick out which one's D one volleyball and which one's D three. So don't, as a parent, it's so wrapped up in my kid's. Great. Somebody's gonna find them. It's just gonna happen organically because of their athletic ability. Yeah, it can like, yeah, absolutely it can. I guess we're of an age when I say Michael Jordan, people our age resonate with that. It's LeBron or Michael, depending on your age. But for me, like Michael Jordan was talented. But he didn't just show up like he worked at it. And the legendary stories of him pushing his teammates to be at his level, which they never were gonna be, but he tried to push everybody to that level. Except what level you're at, and be honest with your evaluation of your own evaluation of your talent. That's the first thing. The second thing I would say is don't write off. The other divisions, NAIA, division two, division three, even juco, like a Division one JUCO will give you a full scholarship and pay for your housing and give you some money for academic, supplies. All of these things, there's ways to get college paid for. Another thing would be make sure your athlete, it's their dream and not your dream. If you want your kid to play in college more than they do. It's not gonna be successful for any anyone, no matter how talented they are, no matter how good they are, it's gonna catch up with them at some point. You're gonna run outta road at the end. Yeah. Be efficient with your evaluation. Know that it's their dream. And then the other thing is don't forget about the academics. And then I don't, I came up with it because I was a baseball coach, but I had kids that played baseball for me that played in college and football that played. I had a kid that went on and won the ARDI Trophy in division three that played for me. So I've been around good athletes, but the thing that I would say about your grades is, and this is my analogy, is your GPA will get you a lot more money for school than what your ERA will. In baseball VPA is for those division twos, those NAI, those division threes, they're gonna throw more money probably at you academically when they start setting up their athletic scholars, that money. So if you come in with good high GPA, a good test score, they're gonna be like, man you're great. You're one of the best athletes. We can size. I don't have to give you a bunch of athletic money because your grades are so good. Yeah. I'm taking you, I gonna stand in line for you. So that's really important. VPA is more valuable than anything will do on the court when it comes to getting our recruiting. It's the easiest scholarship dollars there are. I have a good grades. Brian, I wanna go back to talking about Kelsey's the emotional journey. She's a 2027. If we didn't talk about this, she's a, she just started her junior year. How much has getting some feedback from college coaches as a sophomore and now as a junior, what has that done for her confidence that she can play? She does have a skillset. A lot of kids, they don't start the recruiting process till late, junior, early, senior year, and they've gotten really no college coaches giving them feedback or saying, Hey, you're really good, but if you'll work on this and this, it's gonna make you an even better recruit for us or somebody else. What has that done for her confidence and her mentality in this journey? I think I think it's obviously increased her. Confidence in her game. I feel like she's always, because I coach for a long time, you was on the sidelines. I don't necessarily look at my own kid. I think a lot of parents do, I'm. He is the one I'm most critical of, right? He is the only one I'll say bad things about, oh, come on you've got one job, just do it. That's, I get on her or I get more frustrated with her than I do anybody else because of that mentality of, we're just trying to win we're just trying to be game with this. But for her confidence, I've always felt like she was confident in her game from an early age before, he wants to be the kid. On the line at that point, serving the ball. Like she wants to serve an ace. That's what she wants to finish it with her serve. So she's con she's always been confident in her play, but I just see a different level, of just like she her strut a little bit. Just the way she warms up, the way she reacts. I know that. So she went to a couple of camps this summer that were invite camps. She got invited to a couple of college prospect camps, division two and an NAIA camp that were pretty small and we really had a good time. And I think that probably opened her eyes a lot to what college is like, what the speed of the game is. I've right. I remember one of the podcasts listening you talking about you could read a book between, you could read a chapter of a book between points and a high school game. And that's true. Like I'm, and then watching a college game, like the girls are just on, and I was thinking about it the other night, watching 'em play these girls are sitting on a bench. I can't remember the last time I saw college girls not standing up who aren't gonna get in the game, but they stand up the whole game. But if they get called on, they're, yeah. There's no wasted time. They're out the fire. So I feel like it also has made her aware of how she needs to tailor her game being quick. The other thing, as she sets on her high school team this year. She played DS last year. So she's setting, so he's floor captaining more. He's always positive even when bad things happen. And I don't know if, and I noticed that more in the first few games we've played already this season. She's, she's a little more vocal. She's a lot more vocal this year as a junior and as a setter than she was last year as a Ds playing with two, two seniors that drove our team last year. They were, they were our two hitters and who drove our teams to the big championship last year. So he's a lot more vocal. Just having an idea that she can play at a college level and then. She has one tool that's very interested in her that I think she's gonna get an offer for after a visit this fall that we got set up. Yeah. Confident that's gonna probably happen. That makes her feel good. Now the only the flip side of that is I don't want her to fall in love with them until they've, yeah. Given her a ring. I want her to keep, I want her to keep following the playbook, the launch pads keep sending out emails. Yeah. Keep going with it until we know, this isn't a committed relationship until you sign on the dotted line. So let's look at all of our options, because you never know who's gonna come out of the woodwork. Yeah. All you need is the right person to see you on the right day. And it can turn into, for my athlete, maybe even a low level division one, ranger, things have happened. So I keep telling her like, I send her. We got a list from you of some target schools that would be good for her based on her play. And we're not through that. But then I go and look at some other schools, I'm like, and I think this would be a good fit for you too, because this is what you wanna study academically, if's close to us. And I like the price. Let's look at that. So send 'em an email and definitely is, it's definitely inspiring when she gets a response. And the thing that's hard for me to get her to do is probably sometimes to we've had a conversation. She's happy sending an email. We has a hard time making the phone call. Yeah, she's scared. 'cause it happened to her. They answered one day and it was like, oh yeah. So she got really scared and, I had her listen to one of the podcasts with girls from Oregon State to play, oh. Yeah. Softballs Amelia. I had her listen to that podcast, Amelia. Yeah. Yeah. So I had her listen to that one and she said, she made a phone call to Oregon State and the first call went bad and they were on, she said her and her dad were in the car and he's you can do one of two things. You can let it sit there and be that, that's what they hear. Or you can call 'em back and make a joke at 'em and say. Lemme try again. She'd called back. You know what, that's where she ended up. She ended up at the place she called. So she ended up, she's a freshman at Oregon State now playing division one softball. Yeah. And that's why I keep telling Kelsey that phone call. I just talked to her. I just talked to her yesterday and she's, she's having a blast. Last I, for me, I see so many parents that are stuck in quicksand. They're in, they have analysis by paralysis. You took that initiative to say, I've gotta learn, I've gotta figure this out. And you picked up the phone and you made a phone call. You scheduled a strategy session. You knew it was free, and you wanted to say, okay, let's find out what free really means. You bought a book that was fairly cheap and you read the book and go, gosh, there's some guidelines here. You paid for a class, a recruiting class that. Taught you the steps. How do we get parents to unleash themselves to, to make that phone call and say, I'm gonna schedule with a mat. I'm gonna schedule with an NCSA, I'm gonna get this ball rolling and at least try to learn where we need to be. How important is that just to get off the couch and make the call? The there's a, there's an old proverb that just comes to mind that, the, every journey begins. Every journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. And that's what this is. And recruiting, I know I've heard it multiple times on your podcast. I've read it in other books. I've seen it in other places. I'm, I'm sure that at York will be posting something about a journey in a thousand miles at some point in time because I've become a daily devotee of his wisdoms. Good. Good. That you just gotta make such voice like what are we gonna do? And there, there are a lot of families out there and I feel like there are a lot of families out there who can throw money at a problem. It's very easy for Paul in CSA and write a check with a big comma and say, do the recruiting for us. And I just still don't know that you're gonna get what you're really looking for. No, they're not gonna do it for you either. You're still gonna have to have buy-in. It's not automatic. Yeah. I, you can't write a $5,000 check, a $10,000 check, a $15,000 check and say, division one scholarship coming your way. This doesn't work that way. You've gotta you've gotta, like the school's gotta love you. They gotta commit to you. You have to be good enough. This is a place where you can't just throw money at it and expect it to happen. You've gotta put time, effort, and. Sweat equity into it. But at the same time, a again, like I said earlier, if it's not your kid's dream and it's your dream it's gonna fail. At some point in time, it's gonna fail. Whether it's the first day of practice or at the end of their freshman year. I just had a conversation with someone I used to work with whose daughter is playing NAIA. Basketball in Fort Wayne area at NAI School and I just asked her because of Kelsey's interest in an I school and I just wanted very familiar with ncaa. We're all familiar with that. But the NAII wanted to talk to her and I, what was her experience? And she really walked me through her daughter's experience with college athletics because she was a basketball player. Took her senior summer off after her senior year and showed up outta shape and she said a coach. Was a very different coach when we started than he was when he was recruiting. He was very nice. And then when she came in out of shape, he was not so nice and this mother said, yeah, he wasn't nice, but he was wrong. And we told her, you're taking off. You need to get out and look out. You need to do your stuff. And she showed up outta shape and it, think she was ready to come home because it was hard. Yeah, you've gotta put the work in you as a parent though you, if you are sending the emails for your kid, it's gonna fail there. The coach is gonna see through that. If your math, emailing people looking for it. If your whole recruiting journey is, I just need my kid to pay for college because it's expensive and I need their athletics to pay for it. So something's gonna break down somewhere and that's probably not gonna work. You, it's, it has to be something they're passionate about. It has to be something they're gonna gain from personally for their future, because you learn a lot from athletics, whether that's an individual sport or a team sport. You learn valuable lessons that I know personally, playing sports, growing up and even playing, briefly in college and coaching team sports, that it drove my career in a lot of ways. It helped me get ahead. Because of the lessons I learned and the ability to work with people and just the work effort, like putting the sweat in sometimes to doing your job and being willing to do things other people aren't willing to do. And if your athlete isn't willing to put the work in when you're doing all the work for them, they're not gonna have a good experience recruiting. They're probably not gonna end up in a place where they're happy. They're not gonna be excited about playing that sport any it's gotta be personal effort and work by the athlete. They need to have an email you them, and you can help 'em get a YouTube page going, set up their profile. That's, to me, that's not helicopter planning. That's just let's make it look professional. Yeah, exactly. But if you're writing their personal statements for them, or, I might correct some, actually my kids probably correct Grant better than I do. I don't talk so goodly all the time, but you're doing those things for 'em. Yeah, you think you're helping, but in the long run it's gonna fail. The kid has to, your athlete has to accept that responsibility and make it a passion for them in order to be successful in the recruiting journey. I. It's a marathon. It's a long way around. Like some people, maybe you find your first fall and you fall in love with that school and that's the right school for you. Great. That's, I think that's few and far between. Look at all your options. Don't count out. Division two. Don't count out Division three. Don't think, don't look at the price tag on the school and think, boy that's more than. What we could ever pay. Wait until they, your fafsa, do all your other stuff, see what they say, see what kind of academic offers they have. These schools wouldn't be filled with these athletes if they were all paying full tuition at division three schools. NAI schools like a lot of sports, all of those sports are that have, division two NAIA, they're cutting their scholarships up. They don't have full ride for every athlete. That doesn't thing that's a division one thing. And that's also a landscape that's rapidly changing as we see and changing so quickly that I don't have a handle on it. I don't know that, you in this business have a good grasp on it. I've listened to some of the podcasts where the coaches said. Yeah. My athletic director will tell me what we can do, and that's what I'll go by. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. They're still figuring it out. Yeah. I'm interested in, because we have daughters that are the same age, they're both 16, they're both going through this journey and the highs and lows of their emotions that they go through every day, every second. It seems what has having. The recruit, the significant recruiting book, having the significant recruiting launchpad classes, what's that done for her to help her understand a little bit of that routine and consistency and that it is a marathon and not a sprint? Is there one or two things that she's taken from it that's helped her have that confidence to say, you know what, I can do this for five minutes a week. I feel like what's. Taken off, which is don't send the same meetup email to every coach. Don't send the same thing to every school. And I tell her like, she's had some phone calls with different schools four, four or five schools have, he's had actual calls with coaches online, zoom calls, like this kind of thing. Okay. Where she's had those. And I tell her, like I told her like, before you send an email. Make a connection, read about school. Jump on their website, see what their schedule looks like, see what their coaches are like, see how long the coaches have been there, see what their records have been, see where they're from. Or maybe you know, somebody they know or maybe they coached at a school that you know, somebody at, like making connections. 'cause that's a lot of it. Like a lot of times the connections are better than your athletics like. Hey, we have somebody in common. I'm gonna reach out to them. If they like you, then I'll like you. Yeah. Those connections are important. I tell her to research the schools, research the coaches, not stock 'em, but at the same time like have an idea of who they are and what they're about and where they're going and where they want to see their program. We talk about the program culture, like try to figure it out before you even talk to 'em. Is that a place you'd be interested in going? If this school has been 500 for the last. 10 years and they've gone through seven coaches. You think your coach is gonna turn it around that's recruiting you and you're gonna, that's gonna be there in four years. Or do you think that this coach has been here 10 years, they've got a house, they live here, they'll have kids in the school districts around, those are schools that might want to have some stability to 'em. There are a lot of coaches that stay in places long term. College no long has, she's been there. She's gonna, feel like that's a great place to be a, people to look at for their daughters playing volleyball, even though it's division three. If you, I listened to hers and I was like, man, I told Kelsey, I was like, you guys go to this team camp and it's a long way away. It's a lot of money, hope's a lot closer. Really what she says, how they run team camp. And you should talk to the coach next year when you're a senior and you should go to team camp there. I think you get a lot out of it. Yeah, that really makes sense to me. There are great coaches in all these levels, but don't write it off. Yeah. Coach does it special at hope. She's really unique in her approach. Your daughter's in her junior year. What excites you most and what still makes you a little bit nervous about the recruiting process? Let me, lemme start with the. Nervous. What makes me nervous is, making a bad decision, like picking a school that doesn't fit her, or picking a school that just isn't and isn't a good fit, athletically, academically, socially, hopefully, all of those things that, that's, that scares me. The advice I would give is, and this, the conversation I talked about was my friend whose daughter's playing NAIA basketball. And he said, honestly, their daughter, she, Rachel said, they told her, it's up to you. It's your choice where you wanna go. And she looked at it, she looked at price tag and said, they're giving me the best deal. I'm going there. Maybe for some families that is the only, the only way you're gonna go to college if that, if money is the reason you pick your school, the only reason you pick your school that's a red flag to me. Yeah. You might have to scrimp and save a little more to go to a better school. Or maybe this school's offering you 60% off and this school, the other school's offering you, 75% off. But the other school, they have your major, but they, it's just it's an afterthought. And the other school, it's known for your major. That'd be the place to go. Pick the right school for you. They're all gonna turn pro. All these college athletes are gonna turn pro, but very few of 'em are gonna be pros in what their sport is. And I, that even includes the ones that go into high level coaching. Yeah. The percentage of those athletes that are gonna make a career out of athletics, it's pretty low. That scares me. What excites me is, just the journey. Just like I fun. Let's be honest, it's fun to take your kid to a college. Walk through it and meet the coach and see the facilities and me, the dorm again. Yeah. Like I did years and years ago. And then to see some of these dorms and some of these schools, I'm like that's nicer than my house. And that some of them are pretty nice. But yeah that those are the things, that's exciting, that's fun watching her continue to play and develop. I think Kelsey switched clubs this year. The club she was at, she didn't get the offer she wanted for her team, and she told him, no, I'm not gonna go. And so at the last minute he just said, I'm gonna go to this club and, in a nearby town, here in Indianapolis. And not knowing anybody, not knowing whether she'd make a team, we went down and said, this is where I'm gonna throw my lot. And she went down, balled out and they said, yeah, we want you on our team. That's great. And I thought that's that confidence. And maybe that's where that competence is in going to some of those camp this summer and going through this process. And maybe that's where it was. And I was like I was really worried that he wasn't gonna get an offer from this other one, and we were gonna have to go back and be the other okay, the offer, even though we turned it down, it was a week ago, I was worried. And then I thought, what are we gonna do if we don't have a club? He's at a critical point, like for ability level. A lot of the 25 Evans in volleyball are starting to commit. And those are all, the D one commits those are the highest ranked athletes. Now. Yeah. Things are gonna start to trickle down. The D twos and the AI are gonna commit. D threes are gonna commit and then everybody else is gonna start looking at the glucose. And you want the first bite at the apple and you wanna bite on the apple that you wanna bite on don't pick your school too soon. It don't wait too long either. Find the right set. Brian, I'm starting to think I should take you on tour. I think you you know my stuff better than I do in my books and my launch pads I am, I'm devoted listener. The podcast alone to get more from parents and coaches. I think one of the things you said early on was why you created this. Was there, there wasn't anybody teaching people how to be an athletic director, how to be a coach and those are needed because I think a lot of people who are coaches coach the way they were coached. Yeah. And I, that's not always the best way. Not every kid responds to the old ways. I don't think that maybe the new ways are always right either. You gotta learn how to deal with people and you gotta learn how to put your point across and they're on the podcast itself. I've learned a lot personally and professionally about like how to deal with people. I'm a supervisor, I lead people, they're a good left in all of that. And like I said there, I haven't listened to one of your podcasts. I'm, I've just about gotten through all of them. That I didn't pick up some tidbit from somebody like even botanic at Oregon State. Coaching, hitting I pick up stuff from him, like he says, not just about hitting, about coaching and about leading and about life. Yeah. All of those things are important. And then, oh the Metropolitan State Coach Jen Jenny Glenn, coach Glenn, Jenny. Yeah that's probably my favorite episode. I'm trying to get Kelsey to listen to that the other day. And she, it was after a tournament and she just wanted to put her EarPods in, like what she says and the way she develops people. If I was a company looking for employees, I'd hire her kids because I know they're gonna be leaders. Yeah, like I, I just just today, yesterday I got the book Habitudes because I'm like, Kelsey, we're gonna read this. Yeah. That makes sense to me. There's a lot of stuff. I read a lot of books growing up on leadership and management and development and all those things stuck with me and I'm still learning and, be a lifelong learner on those things. I'm gonna try to push load on Kelsey. For me and Kelsey, one of the biggest things is just trying to get her to trust the process. Trying to get her to be like I, I don't need to do that, or I don't need to post that. Or I posted something last week. No, you don't know who's gonna see it. You don't know when it's gonna resonate with the right person. Yeah. Keep putting yourself out there. Yep. Getting her to be and Kelsey loves to win. He wants to be the one, like I said, she wants to be on the line when the game's on the line. She wants to be in the pressure situation. She doesn't wanna have a spotlight on her. And that's just who she is. Like she doesn't wanna be like, that's why she's a great setter. She wants to make others look good. Yeah. She doesn't wanna be the primadonna, she wants to be a team player and lead quietly, vocally on the court, but not have a spotlight on her. And I keep telling her like, sometimes you gotta promote. Now, not to a fault or not too much, but you have to promote yourself and be ready to do those things and put yourself out there. That's why the phone calls are important. The coach can see a little bit of you in an email when they hear your voice and they hear the passion about, the game. How much do you love volleyball and how much you like blank and like how hard you are on the garage door. From banging the ball against it and the roof like this when it's dark and that you're getting up early and going and running and doing those things. She just went to, this is what I'm really proud of. She just went to late to summer. She went to an NAIA school in Kentucky, and you and I have talked about it and that's, they're very interested in her. The University of Cumberlands, I'll just say it. They seemed very interested in her and they did on Prospect Campus. She went to, and they did 'em. Part of the camp was they did a little fitness challenge with all the campers and I can't even remember what the exercise was. They did, but they had to do so many reps, and Pel was the only one out of the campers that did as many reps as any kid on the college team. But she was like, the most, was like, I don't even think he worked out that hard yet. But you're showing out. That's the stress and the pressure I love to see from her. I'm like, keep working because you're gonna have to put the work in, you're gonna have to continue to put. That's the other thing I'd say also is you might get an offer, you might get a scholarship, you might get a good offer from a good school, but work doesn't start until you walk across the stage in four or five years with a diploma from that university or that college grant. That's when the work stops and then you become an adult. And one of the things you. To that point and prepared you for it. That's what's gonna, that's where life's gonna pay off. I love it. And she's got such a big heart, and if she just keeps being herself. Every coach that comes upon her is gonna understand how great of quality she has for their program. Brian, this has been great. I really appreciate you giving your parents perspective and your passion for your daughter. It shines through and everything you do and everything you say. I wanna do some quick rapid fire with you, just first thought that pops in your head and I've created these questions just for you 'cause I want you to be able to give some advice in these questions. But just real quick, we'll bunch pop through a couple of these if you're ready. I'm ready. It's like I'm on a game show. Yeah, this is the fun one. This is the fun stuff. All right. What's more stressful for you as a dad? A club tournament weekend or that recruiting email? Oh, the club tournament, finding parking at a club tournament. So now I'm the volleyball dad group, simply like club, tournament and parking. I'm with you. Yes, I've been through it off. If you've been to the Bluegrass and trying to get parking and taking from one side of the convention center in Kentucky or for the smaller tournaments where the. There's room for four cars. Yep. It's crazy. So that's more stressful to me. Me too. I get my 10,000 steps in every day. We're at a tournament. Yes. First word that comes to mind when you think of recruiting Matt Rogers. Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate that. Yeah, no that's the first word that comes for me. The book I'm waiting for the journal to drop. All the tools that you have in your book and the launchpad and all of that. I've pushed that on Kelsey. I've even created a few little spreadsheet things like, Hey, let's track who you're talking to and let's write these down. And I keep telling her like journal. Which is hard to get her to do, but write that down because when it comes down to it, if you let's hope you have three or four offers on the table, then let, then we'll pull your journal out and let's, let's think about what you wrote the first time you talked to him, the next time you talk to him, and the time after that. And then go from there. Because if your last impression was great, but your first impression was lousy, maybe that's not the school for you. And and I. I've had a conversation with NCFA. Like I, I had the recruiting pitch from them and it's funny, the guy who was my online phone call went to my high school in my little high school and was an Allstate player, at my high school a few years after me. And he's telling me this, but we're talking, he's got a daughter the same age as you and I, he's at the same level. She's a df, that smaller school. She went to a school that she thought she was really gonna and he was like, make the visit. And they went to a visit to a school in Southern Indiana and she got on campus and was like, I don't like you here. That's great. It's now, now you know. That's right. All right. What's one recruiting myth you've learned over the last year that you're glad you know it's not true? That, oh, that's an easy, it's an easy answer. This is the 10,000 question that people, that your child's athletic ability is automatically going to be found and somebody's gonna find you because you're the best player on the best team, and that's not the case. You have to take ownership of it. Your athlete, more importantly, has to take ownership of their recruiting journey. Yeah, no ifs, no ands, no buts. Your athlete has to take ownership of their journey. Recruiting. That's why chapter number one is commitment. Absolutely. All right. What's the best advice? Last one. What's the best advice your daughter has given you during this process? Oh, have you got her to speak? Yeah. I don't she's pretty quiet on that. I asked her like after visits or after calls, what did you like? She went to a division two out in Pennsylvania. She went to Lockhaven University. She really liked the coach out there. Yeah. And I know they've had some turmoil, but I feel like after meeting him, like he's there to maybe he was junior out a product. So that makes me feel good about like his thought output and where he's going. Yeah. Maybe they haven't had, had the success that they should have had in years past, but I feel like maybe he's maybe gonna put time and effort into it. And he told me like, I like this coach, and here's why. So those are the things, he's a lot like her high school coach only. He is a little more forceful, but in very similar ways. Yeah. And that's something to think about. If she wants, if she likes playing for a male coach, she likes playing for a female coach, what's, what is it she likes better? And that's the other thing we've talked about is university of Cumberlands is coming real close to us in a couple of weeks and I said, reach out to the coaches. It's a husband and wife, that's the head and the assistant they're gonna be 30 minutes away from us at a tournament, at an AI tournament. Let's go over and watch 'em. I said that's when we're probably gonna know. If that's a fit for you. When we want coach, they can't be nice or they can't put on a show. They have their, they're there coaching for their, their life. That just their livelihood. So you'll see whether you like their style or. Absolutely. I love it. And that's a great way to, to finish the podcast. Brian, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much for your commitment to learning the right things that your daughter needs and helping her really take ownership in this journey. So many parents want to do that and they just don't know how. So I'm really appreciative that you came on and talked about your journey and told your story and I think a lot of parents are gonna get a lot out of it. Yeah. Your athlete has to own it. It has to be their journey. You can guide them along the way. It's no different than anything that else they're gonna do in life, but they've gotta own it. I guess I'd leave you with this. There's a lot of services out there. There are ton of them. Just new bullet for recruiting health. But I fully enforce Matt Rogers a significant recruiting, a launchpad. If you wanna make a wise investment, especially if your kids in that eighth grade to sophomore year, get the launchpad, get the book, and go through with your kids, because if you start when they're a freshman. And do a chapter a week, do a chapter a month. When they're an eighth grade or a freshman, you'll be fed up for success. And if they decide at that point they want to continue the journey, you equip them, take the next step and to lead the way. And it takes the burden off of you, which takes the pressure off of everyone. It is a, it's a seamless, easy way to do it and it in common sense way. Of letting that journey happen organically. I'm not thinking my kid's on this, somebody's gonna see how great my kid is and they're just gonna call and they're gonna be lined up out my door with scholarship offers. That doesn't happen. It's been a joy getting to know you and we'll be cheering for Kelsey all the way through. Have a great day. Thanks. Thanks, Matt. That's a wrap for this week's episode. Thanks again to Brian Hai for his honesty, his vulnerability, and his willingness to share what this journey has looked like for his family. Conversations like this remind all of us parents and coaches and athletes alike that sometimes we have to allow ourselves to take some chances. And sometimes that chance is as simple as a risk-free conversation with a new person. As we wrap up, I wanna wish you and your family a healthy, peaceful, and truly happy thanksgiving. I hope you take a moment this week to step back from the chaos, enjoy the people who matter most, and remember that every part of this journey is about helping your child become the best version of themselves. If you're ready to take the next step, you can schedule a free recruiting strategy session with me and find all my books, journals, and online classes@coachmattrogers.com. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.