Beyond the Cleats
Join us, as we go Beyond the Cleats and explore how our athletic passions transform and shape our personal and professional lives!
Biweekly Podcast
Steam now on your favored platform of choice!
Beyond the Cleats
Shaping Futures: The Lifelong Impact of Youth Sports
What if your child's passion for sports could shape their entire future? Join us in this episode of Beyond the Cleats as we sit down with Jenna Parsons, former college athlete and youth coach turned doctoral candidate at Louisiana State University. Jenna takes us through her inspiring journey from playing soccer, basketball, track, and softball in her youth to coaching middle school girls' basketball and youth soccer. She shares invaluable insights on the physical, social, and mental benefits of youth sports.
This episode dives into the broader personal development that youth sports can foster, from discipline and commitment to time management and teamwork. Jenna, Ailaina and I also tackle the darker side of coaching, discussing how both positive and toxic influences can significantly impact young athletes' lifelong relationship with sports.
Balancing academic pressures and athletic commitments can be a tightrope walk for aspiring athletes. We share personal stories of burnout from intense training regimens and the crucial need for maintaining enjoyment in youth sports. Jenna emphasizes the importance of clear boundaries between parents and coaches, advocating for a supportive yet pressure-free environment. As we wrap up, we reflect on the emotional and psychological aspects of coaching and the realities of transitioning from youth sports to collegiate athletics. This episode is packed with insights aiming to inspire youth coaches and parents to prioritize a fun, developmental, and positive sports experience for all young athletes.
Connect with us on various platforms
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/beyondthecleats?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=52ba74f4-6a12-4c27-a4c3-a5b6fd58a253
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondthecleats/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@beyondthecleats?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
YouTube: Beyond The Cleats - YouTube
Welcome back to the Beyond the Cleats podcast. Today I'm with Elena and Jenna Parsons and we're going to be talking about youth sports. Now, why youth sports? The basis of this whole podcast and the inspiration behind it really stemmed from the experiences we've had in athletics, and it starts with youth sports. All our athletic passions and experiences started with our parents, our guardians, getting us into that sports and how that has helped us and developed us throughout the lifespan. So, without further ado, I'm super excited to have Jenna on and I'm going to let her introduce herself here.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. My name is Jenna Parsons. I went to college with Mina. That's how we met at good old Plymouth State. While I was at Plymouth State played soccer all four years there. I also happened to run some track and field my freshman year until I pulled two hammies. Besides that, I have my bachelor's and master's in exercise physiology. I'm currently a doctoral student at Louisiana State University inside their kinesiology department and besides that I've played a lot of sports growing up between soccer, basketball, track, softball. I've also coached a lot in my past, so I've done a couple of years of middle school girls basketball as well as recently I've been doing some more youth soccer skills. But that's a little bit about me. I got two really cute cats. Mina happened to be a roommate with one of them. They'll probably jump in here at some point if we're lucky.
Speaker 1:So stay tuned for the cats. They'll pop up, uh, but yeah. So what's cool about this is not only have the three of us been multi-sport athletes, so we've experienced multiple different sports, multiple different types of teams and then kind of narrowing down to you know what got. It got us to our our athletic careers, which was softball for me and soccer for you guys. But we've also had the opportunities to coach at the youth level, which is a lot different, I would think, from the collegians. Youth sports is such an important time, not only from, like, the athletic perspective and you know health and health through the lifespan and what sports can do for you on that front but also developmentally. You know socially, what it does to our mental development. So it's a super, super important topic and I'm excited for us to get into it a little bit here. So, jenna, what is your experience in youth sports?
Speaker 2:Coaching or playing.
Speaker 1:Let's go with. Let's start with coaching. We'll start from the coaching perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started coaching which is kind of crazy to say that I started coaching when I was in like high school. To think back to it. But, yeah, I really started coaching when I was in like high school. To think back to it, but, um, yeah, I really started coaching when I was in high school and I think part of it was I was fortunate enough to work with a goalkeeper coach because I was a goalie um who really was like hey, jenna, you're doing great like training yourself. I want you to help me with some of the younger kids and you know as much as being just like a little assistant. It really changed how I viewed the game and it also made me fall in love with coaching and helping other players develop and seeing other people be successful.
Speaker 2:And that transitioned into me going into college and I took an assistant coaching position for a middle school girls basketball team a couple minutes away from Plymouth and it was fifth through eighth grade. It was an interesting experience. I started off as the assistant for one year and then the next year the head coach said hey, by the way, I'm retiring and I've named you as my replacement without telling anyone and it was crazy and I definitely was kind of terrified for myself but said, okay, this is going to be fun, and that was really my first full like coaching position besides like volunteering and all of those other things that we do in like high school and whatnot and I really loved it. It made me fall in love with the game. I obviously was learning a lot and basketball was my sport for a long time until I got to college.
Speaker 2:Pretty much I stopped playing basketball in high school for a variety of reasons, but getting to be on the other end and seeing my girls develop from fifth grade which they had never played of reasons, but getting to be on the other end and seeing my girls develop from fifth grade, which they had never played basketball before, to getting to see them, as you know, seventh and eighth graders by the time I was leaving there was really awesome. It was crazy to see the transformation and it's something that I was really proud of and like I'm still so proud of those girls, seeing them like go on for college now or like getting ready in that transition. It's like it's it's a totally different feeling than being an athlete yourself, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100 percent. It's definitely a little bit of a switch, especially when you're going from player to coach, and it's super gratifying, definitely gratifying. Uh, definitely like if you're still a player and in that sport and then you're also teaching the younger ones. It definitely is a a little bit of a like a reinforcement of your own knowledge of the game and your own skills. But but yeah, the the younger ones are are super, super fun.
Speaker 2:You said like middle school yeah, middle school was my first head coaching position and it was crazy nice those middle schoolers yeah, they're like, that's like, they're still like hungry, they're still hungry um like from a youth like they're like, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I feel like, at that age as well.
Speaker 1:Now, elena, how about you? You've you've had some experience in in the youth realm. Um, what age group did you primarily work with?
Speaker 3:yeah. So I just started coaching more youth. So I started out my career at Lowe's University coaching for college, and it's a lot different than coaching with the younger kids. Obviously there's a different goal and mentality like with the college kids than you have with the younger kids where you're working on developmental aspects of things, just taking the ball, the fundamentals of the career or whatever athletic career they want. It could just be for fun or it could be kids that want to play D1 soccer. It depends on what their mentalities are.
Speaker 3:For a lot of kids that play in the club level they're looking for those higher collegiate careers where they're looking for the D2, collegiate, I guess, careers where they're looking for like the d2, d1s, stuff like that. And then some they're just more focused on sports, on the like. I mean more focused on their academics versus sports, and they go more for like d3. But I think it's cool having the transitional period for myself, like working with the college kids first and then kind of moving down to uh, working with the boston bolts, because now at this point I'm kind of working backwards and like teaching them different fundamentals that I just don't have to necessarily do for the college kids and it kind of helps me myself become a better coach for like the college kids as well, because I'm like, all right, I'm teaching my younger kids like how to, how to pass more accurately, or if some of my kids aren't, you know, they have different skills or hindering them, or things like that in the field that, just like different techniques, I have like the fundamentals back. Um, it can help them get back on the field more effectively, things like that.
Speaker 3:I think I started coaching originally just because I like really missed the sport and I was like I need something to like fill that void. But now I just like I'm so passionate about it. There's not a day where I don't go on the field and and want to like help those kids get better, because it makes me feel good, but also because I just love the game and I want to share what I know with others, and if I don't, then I feel like it's just like useless knowledge that I have up in my brain for no reason.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, it's definitely stems from what I'm hearing, like our love of the game and our passion of it and what you know sports has done for us too, and kind of giving back and knowing that it had such a positive impact on us, not only from an athletic perspective, but also probably from, like a growth perspective as well, off of the fields and just be, able to give that back is super, super powerful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they just made me a better person generally, Like I'm not the same person as I was, like before coaching and things like that. I learned so many things from them. They're just as much as I could teach them. I learned from them on the day-to-day basis 100%.
Speaker 2:I feel like I learned so much from those girls and coaching basketball and it. It really teaches you so much about the game and that you're like. I remember I had a girl who was like middle of the game, just decided to huck up a three. She's never made one before in her life, like, and I was like middle of the game, just decided to huck up a three. She's never made one before in her life, like, and I was like what are you doing? And she was like I don't know, like I thought I tried, I was open, coach, and I was like you know, just to see through their eyes and their perspective, and it was like you know what You're, it wasn't the wrong idea.
Speaker 2:First I was a little like upset, like. I was like like girl, what are you doing? Like we have plays, we have all these things, right. She was just like but, coach, I was open and it was like you know what you're 100% right, we need to take more opportunities. We don't have to get the ball to the post all the time, like let's, let's take the opportunities we have, and it's just, it makes you change things about your own game or just write new strategies, new plans, and it's things that you don't think you'd get from little kids.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's the youthfulness.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're just big balls of fire and just being able to to light that fire is is super awesome and super gratifying Cause, like, if you think about it, like everything is like new to them and everything is so exciting and you're giving your own, you're reinforcing that excitement, that love for the game and that kind of stick stick to it as well, Um, which is super, super helpful.
Speaker 2:What's your? What's your number one story of like when you were a ball of fire as a kid in sports. What's? Your moment because I know I have my moment. Elena, I can see the smile on your face. You have a moment a ball of like when, when I was younger, like in youth sports yeah, you had some spunk or you like your first home run, just something that like stuck with you it was actually I would say it was a high school basketball.
Speaker 1:I was terrible at basketball. I could not dribble to save my life, I could barely shoot. It was terrible, um. But I went to a small school so, like all the jv was still technically on varsity and it was a rival game against oh, I for I forget their name, but it was a rivalry game and we two of our starters have essentially fouled out. So they're like okay, mina, you're going in. That's how desperate they were. And like guys, I sucked, like I was not good, I um, like I could barely do a layup, but like I get this, um, they got a rebound. Person passes it to me. I start dribbling and dribbling and I do like this left-handed layup and I could never do a left-handed light layup and you just see the, the whole bench like just go, wow.
Speaker 2:And they were like because, like I was terrible one of my funniest memories from sports, also in high school. I have a lot of funny like little kid basketball stories. But I think soccer I was I don't know, I think maybe I was a sophomore or junior I playing in goal and I refereed for soccer. That was my first job actually was being a referee when I was like 13,. Whoever thought it was a good idea to let little kids like be referees great thing to do as a kid. If that's your sport, go referee it. Um, but I knew the rules and as a goalie, you know, you got to know everything, you got to see everything. And that's how I felt was like I'm responsible for everything that happens.
Speaker 2:And so there is a foul just outside of the edge of the 18, not a great angle for the offense, but I was like whatever? And I was like ref, is it direct or indirect? And he goes oh, it's indirect. And he puts his hand up and I was like okay, and normally I would put a wall there. But I was like, oh, I'm not putting a wall there, cause coach is their coach. The other team's coach was screaming like put it on frame, put it on frame like right. And I'm like, oh, they don't know. And so I'm yelling at my team no wall. And I say nobody fucking touch it. You can, you can bleep me out. I was like nobody touch it. And they shoot it right on frame. It's coming right at my face. Nobody else has touched the ball, the ref's hand is still in the face and so I just turn and let it go into the net.
Speaker 2:My coach on the sidelines starts screaming at me and the you know referee signaling for a goal kick now, because it's just like it went out of bounds off the sidelines. And my coach is like what are you doing? How did you know that? The girls on my team are all upset? And I go coach, it's a goal kick, it was an indirect kick, nobody else touched it. And my coach was like what? And it was just like this whole moment of like. Yeah, I'm that person, I know the rules and I remember being halftime and my coach being like what were you thinking? I was like I confirmed it with the ref. It was an indirect kick. He still had his hand up. Like I confirmed it with the ref it was an indirect kick. He still had his hand up, nobody else touched it. They shot it on frame. Why am I gonna risk juggling it and knocking it back and being the person who touched it?
Speaker 3:they can hit it right into the net, like for all I care, I have a story, but it's kind of like it's a different line. It's like so, when you know you could play like kinder soccer, it's like the first sport you can ever play soccer. Everyone goes out and all the parents sign them up because they're all excited that kids can finally play a sport, things like that. So my mom did that. But I've been playing soccer for like probably maybe a year or two before that, because I have an older brother who was also signed up for kinder soccer and, um, I just knew that I liked it a lot, I was playing a lot.
Speaker 3:Go out there, play kinder soccer. I'm like dancing around these kids. I'd like they at that point they have to take you off the field, to like allow you, to like have a rest, and I was like I don't need a rest, I'm good. But they were like you have to come on the field. So I go off and I go over to my parents and whatever you're supposed to be like at that point, you still go talk to your parents, drink water, do whatever.
Speaker 3:I go over there and I'm doing like push-ups and sit-ups and my coach comes over and he's like my parents, like wow, you guys are hardcore. Like you make really good push-ups and sit-ups on the sideline. No, it's like no, no, no, like that's. We're not making her do anything. Like this kid's crazy. Like we tell her to stop and slow down. Like she's in kinder soccer. We're not making her kindergartner, like, do push-ups and sit-ups on the sideline. So that's like me as a kid. That was just an example of my life and how my parents are. Like you need to dial it down for the rest of my career.
Speaker 3:It never stopped, it was. It was always.
Speaker 1:You need to dial it back and I just never did do you think that was always something that was a part of you, or you think sports kind of pushed that even more like in terms of that kind of mentality?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think, uh, it's intrinsic for me for sure. Like with anything, my parents never had to remind me to do homework. That was just. That was just who I was. But sports definitely was a different level Because I just I cared so much about it, I fell in love with it. It was like my probably my first love of soccer. I would easily say that it's like the day I die. You know like I. Soccer is there, is always been there, always there. It's one of those things. But sports allowed me to have a different complexity where I could just push my body past its own limits and allow myself to spread my own wings and do my own thing, which you can't really get in a lot of different fronts of life.
Speaker 1:I'll ask this to to both of you what impact do you think if any youth sports had on you outside the field, like if you didn't play youth sports and sports in general do you think you'd be a different person, and why?
Speaker 2:um, I'll kick it off. I think a thousand percent. Not that I'd necessarily be a different person, but they've had such a large impact in my life. I started off going to school to be a PE teacher. I'd love sports. I'd love soccer, like any sport that I can get my hands on and do and participate in. I did it. I used to be signed up for every summer camp. It'd be like tennis camp Sure, we'll put Jenna on that for a week and it was like everything. And I wanted to go be a PE teacher and spread the love. And I just happened to find a love for science and I didn't know even in high school that there was really even science to study, like sport and the human body and all that. And as soon as I kind of learned that and realized that, it opened a whole other door for me. But that wouldn't have been there if I hadn't had a love and a passion for sports.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. And again, this is the crux and the whole, you know, inspiration for this podcast for me was I would not be the person I am today without sports, without that experience Not only like those hard skills, like time management and like working in groups, you know um, and like it definitely building character. You know, for me, you know, goal setting was something that was helpful in sports. That you know definitely like kind of transformed how I kind of operate, you know, both personally and professionally. It's definitely um, I would not be the same without it. So I'm just super, super passionate about sports and you know how it transforms our lives.
Speaker 3:Elena, how about you? Yeah right, we talk about that all the time. We'll talk about transferable skills, and that's the biggest thing that sports has done for me is given me skills that I can use not only in the field but off the field and become a better person in my regular life. It's one person. I'm not just an athlete, I'm not just a coach, I'm not just a criminal analyst, I'm not just in the military. Everything comes together and makes me who I am, but sports has definitely been one of those big, I guess, beams in my life that just holds me together.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. Uh, I guess beams in my life that just holds me together, you know, oh 100. And to shift gears a little bit here, it it's. It saddens me to hear sometimes, you know, kids falling out of sports. Um, for, you know, whatever reason, sometimes, um, it's an it's due to intrinsic factors, sometimes it's due to extrinsic factors.
Speaker 1:Uh, I'm a firm believer that sports has such a positive impact on youth development from not only you know again, from a health, um, athletic perspective, but also from self-esteem, character building, all of those things. And that's why it's super, super important to have positive influences in youth sports. Like you two, especially at the younger ages. There's so much molding and development and excitement going on there and you get to be a crucial puzzle piece to that growth, to that development. I love all of this positive, wonderful talk about youth sports.
Speaker 1:I'm going to shift gears a little bit because in my experience I know I've had a lot of. I've been fortunate enough to have a lot of wonderful, positive coaches in my life that have propelled me forward both athletically and professionally. But I've had a lot of tough coaches and toxic coaching and I know it only made me stronger mentally and I'm going to throw it to you guys. Do you guys have any horror stories, both either as coaches or as players? Because we know it's not all sunshine and rainbows and sometimes that's not the fault of the coach, that's just a fault of inexperience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um for sure, I think. I think it's a really delicate situation to talk about. When we talk about whether it's youth sports or even collegiate or professionally, like right, like good coaching, can make a huge difference at any and every level. But for me, arguably, I think good coaching or more so, bad coaching makes a huge difference at the youth level, because those in that youth setting right, if we set kids up with a coach who maybe isn't the right match for them or not the right match for them but not the right match for that level um, that those kids are ready for in that commitment, um, it can lead to a whole bunch of issues of right. If you have your first experience with a sport being one that you don't enjoy, they're probably not going to come back and play. Um for particular, for me, that was softball, which I know, mina, you love so fondly.
Speaker 2:But I started playing softball when I was in first or second grade. Like I did the t-ball like teams and stuff as a kid, but really it was like the town, like rec league, that was like more organized in, I think, second grade and I did it again in third grade. But when I was in third grade I got invited to try out for this fourth and fifth grade all-star team and it included third graders. But it was like excited to play, I was so happy and it really that season ruined softball for me. Um, I never played softball. Afterwards.
Speaker 2:I basically signed up for this team thinking that it was going to be. They told us, yeah, it's going to be a couple of times during the week, couple tournaments during the summer. It's going to be so much fun, the girls are going to love it, right, like that was a vibe. And little did I know and my mother know that it turned out to actually know we're having softball practice every single night of the week during the summer, so you can't go on vacation. Oh, and then we're playing in tournaments every weekend and if we're not in a tournament that weekend, we're having practice. And we were told to be like maybe a month or two. It depended on how well we did as a team. Well, we started in, I want to say June for that softball league because it was after the regular softball league. We didn't end until September because we just kept playing and my coaches took it very seriously. Mind you, I was in third grade and now this is fourth and fifth grade, but it wasn't. So my understanding wasn't.
Speaker 1:it wasn't aau, but it turns out it was yeah, it wasn't really like a like a travel, because in my experience there's like your, your town, all-stars, and then there's like club travel, where that's a bigger commitment, which that seems like what they were trying to push here, when that shouldn't have been the case and the crazy thing is is like we've talked about this before, but in third grade we had signs like so I'm getting signs at the base when I'm going up to swing about whether I should swing, if I should bunt no, swing right.
Speaker 2:And this is third grade third grade we were also taught signs for base stealing, like base running, right, if you should steal a base, stay.
Speaker 2:Like what was going on. And it was a lot and obviously that's a lot of pressure and, being one of two third graders, it was kind of like, well, don't mess this up, because you know you're already the weakest link, right. And there was so much pressure and my coaches found out that I could run fast I don't know how, but I was fast so they decided I was only ever going to bunt, swing from my first game all the way through and, mind you, third grade, which, if you ask me now as a coach, my perspective would be player development. I want my girls to be getting practice in all aspects of the game of softball, not just bunting because, right, I might be fast as a third grader, that doesn't guarantee I'm going to be fast when I'm in high school, college, wherever. But nope, I wasn't allowed to bunt and and I had one game. It was near the end of the season, I was tired, I was drained, I was not happy.
Speaker 1:It wasn't fun, and that's the whole purpose of playing a sport. Granted, it should be fun all the time, especially when you're that young's about. You know gross motor skills and growing a passion for the game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, having fun it's fun.
Speaker 3:so in third grade you're in third grade, you're a kid trying to learn how to play a sport and it's mostly social at that point, like plus you didn't sign up for au where you're trying to have that development, where you're maybe trying to get to college or the parents are trying to get to college. But like I feel like that's a good example of coaches that are not necessarily having a terrible mindset for like kids, but like knowing the level that you're coaching at right and the like you're coaching third, fourth and fifth graders like they're not college, they're not even in high school, they're not trying to get Not even in middle school.
Speaker 3:They can't get talked to Like. You can't talk to a kid about anything to have to do with college sports until their sophomore year of high school. So you're telling me the third grader needs to be acting like that in order to get no Like. You just need to know where you're coaching, what you're doing and maybe you have a good mentality and it's something that you're like just trying to push the kid and like whatever it may be. I'm sure there was good intent in mind, but you know it's sometimes intent also is harmful. I mean, the good intentions are still harmful.
Speaker 2:The crazy thing is is like thinking back on that experience right Like at the time.
Speaker 2:I think part of issues that I had with it was like the coaches were still parents.
Speaker 2:Right, they were girls on the team's parents who were the coaches and it was also I was catcher in softball and I got moved to the outfield because they were like oh, jenna, of all the girls on the team, jenna can throw from the outfield to home, just like she could throw from home to any of the bases, so we want her in the outfield.
Speaker 2:But I was one of the youngest players on the team but well, their daughters wanted to be a catcher or their daughters wanted to be a pitcher. So they played in those positions and I can't imagine the pressure and scrutiny that they were under, because I remember, like catching for the girls at practice a lot, not practicing my position, but they wanted the pitchers to be getting reps and that was my job was to sit there and catch and sit there and catch and sit there and catch, and I can't imagine that pressure of like that's a parent and I thought it was favoritism and of course it is, it's their kids, but it's crazy to think about and those girls kept playing and their dads kept coaching and I'm like no wonder they went and played college softball because they had to.
Speaker 1:It's definitely. You know, daddy ball is a huge or parent ball is a is a huge factor in youth sports. It's very rare that you get like an outside coach that doesn't have some sort of um ties, like ties, um to the players. Uh, it's gonna, it's gonna be there and my biggest advice for that is you, um, you have to kind of put on your, on your coach hat and not your parent hat. That was something my dad did extremely well. I'm not going to say he was perfect at it From a coach, he was definitely that person.
Speaker 1:Where he went to coaches, clinics, he learned the game. He is the number one reason I was the player in person that I am, because he went out and he improved himself as a coach and it's it's a lot of pressure. You know, being the being the uh, the head, the coach's daughter or the head coach's daughter, um, but I'm super. He treated me like the rest of them when I was not on my butt, was on the bench or I was in the bottom of the order and, and we talked about it and there was no animosity. I was never like dad. Why did you do that? Because when we were on the field it was coach, and when we were off the field it was dad and parents. I think it's really good to have that distinction between coach and parent.
Speaker 3:I prefer that parents don't coach, and that's like just me through and through If you can.
Speaker 1:No, I 100% agree with that, alayna, you can. Yeah, yeah, speak more on that a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So for me, I just had a meeting with my academy kids just literally two days ago and I was like to the parents I like I'm gonna be completely honest with you, like you can. I am open for any questions about anything about your kid, regarding recruiting, nutrition, whatever it may be, any question you may have along those lines. But if you're coming to me to talk about your kids playing time, or if you want to teach me tactics or you want to do something, um, on the sidelines, come apply for this coaching position and take it from me, like I we would love to pay you for it, like we pay every coach gets a salary like we would love to pay you for it. But if you're not going to commit to that, then by all means leave it to me, because that is my job, that's what you pay me for, it's what you guys trust me for, it's what you trust the club for. They've hired me for a reason.
Speaker 3:This is my job. This is what I do on a day-to-day basis. I know you have so many skills and so many things. You probably played in college, you probably went to club yourself, you've probably done all these things and I love that. You have that angle. But by all means, like, please, I beg of you guys, just let me do my job like.
Speaker 3:I am not going to sit here and argue yes, your job is to support your kid. Your job is not to teach them or scream at them. They need to do something on the sidelines. Like that's not your job, that's my job. Like I will teach your kid. And like have faith in me to do my job, because I can't do my job unless you do your job and they're doing their job, and then we all trust each other. That's how it's going to work.
Speaker 2:Elena, I'm pretty not saying that parents can't be coaches, but I'm pretty aligned with you in the sense that we need to have some sort of separation and especially at the youth sport level, where I know we haven't talked too much about it. But like we're talking about youth development, athlete development, right, it starts so young and it's starting younger and younger and it's crazy to think about. But when your kid is even in those kinder, soccer or kinder, whatever, t-ball, developing those skills and those fundamental movement skills are so important because not only do they translate across sports but they translate skills across life. And I'm not saying, you know, when your kid's playing soccer at four, three, four, five years old, wonderful, that's great that they're out there and they're playing, right, it's supposed to be fun. You as a parent should be enjoying it. Yeah, you want to help them practice their skills at home by all means, like get your kid active.
Speaker 2:But when it's the parents are coaching, I've seen it too many times where it's just, or even as my own experience, where it's like parent ball is like I'm going to play my kids and I'm going to get my kids the skills, or I know what I'm doing and it might not be the best right. We have specialists. There are people who go into fields like this and motor development specialists. That should be the ones that are kind of teaching our kids how to move and gain these skills. But that's not the way youth sports run right now at the moment, and it's sad because there's no money in it.
Speaker 3:That's the reason, right, and that comes back to a lot of things in life there's no money in it. It's really hard to be a parent and be unbiased and teach your kid the fundamentals in a way in which they're going to be able to be one number one receptive of it, because it's your kid. I know. When my mom tells me like random things, you're like me, x, y and Z and it'd be the best advice ever. Someone else would tell me the exact same advice. I'm not listening to my mom, I'm listening to the other person. I'll tell my mom oh, someone gave me this great advice. She's like I just told you that last week. You know what I mean, but it's just coming from my mom, who, I mom, tells me something, probably not going to do it. If my coach told me something, I probably would do it.
Speaker 2:To be honest, and parents, I think, are sometimes blind to their kids' faults. We all know nobody's perfect and if you think your kid's perfect, maybe they are. I just haven't met them yet, who knows. But when coaching my middle school girls basketball team, I had a 24-hour rule with my parents and they didn't want to follow it and I had a lot of times where parents were yelling at me about playing time. And you know, my first year coaching I was like it's not.
Speaker 2:It's like yes, we need to win, or we want to win because it's middle school basketball, it's not rec league basketball. But also I'm trying to balance my fifth grade girls who had never played before basketball. But also I'm trying to balance my fifth grade girls who had never played before. And we had fifth and sixth grade games and then also seventh and eighth grade games and I had parents who were mad at me because their fifth grader, who's just picked up a basketball for the first time a month ago, you know, is not playing as much as they think they should be playing. And I was like, well, right now we're in a seventh and eighth grade game.
Speaker 2:Your daughter is going up against a girl who's five, nine and she's four foot. What do you want me to do? I want your daughter to be successful and I can't put her in that situation and have her be successful, because repeated failure as a kid right Like failure helps you grow. But when it's so demoralizing because you don't have the skill set, you're not ready for that. No-transcript. But I'm not gonna let your kid fail over and over and over and over again and make them unhappy right, we do the same thing in college.
Speaker 3:I mean, you can see it like when a kid's learned like how to fail and when a kid doesn't build those coping mechanisms to like face the adversity and move forward with it, it's like make or break in college athletes I'm even in high school athletes, even in younger. But like when you're first developing those skills, those coping skills of how to um navigate like specific failures in life which I don't know about you but like a lot of kids don't see like huge, substantial failures in general in life. So like because you're you're just youthful and guarded by a lot of things, um, so when you aren't taught those like in a like, introduced to them systematically, or like in a way which you're building confidence, like in small increments, and you see the detrimental effects as you go into college, in the topic of struggles and resiliency in sports is so important and right, like, we know that sport builds so many skills for kids, whether it is social, emotional, if it's mental, if it's physical.
Speaker 2:Right, there's so many different things that you can get from sports, but it's so important. In the topic of coaching and burnout right, we know, as age, less and less participate in sports all the way from youth up through high school. Right, like, kids are dropping out at higher rates and it's happening earlier and earlier. And right, we're not building that resiliency with these kids. And if they're dropping out earlier, right, we have to do these things earlier and earlier and try to build that strength. And so the importance of good coaches it needs to be emphasized even more because, well, if we don't have those good, really good coaches at youth, right, they're not going to get them when they're in middle school, they're not going to get them potentially when they're in high school.
Speaker 3:Right, we need them across the board just to build those skills and you introduce kids into like that mentality, that confidence boosting, positive environment. It also fosters an environment for them to embody things like that into their professional life, into their future college careers, maybe, endeavors that they decide to move forward with doesn't have to sports, but it builds these leaders and mentors in every walk of their life, not just in sports. So that's why it's also super instrumental.
Speaker 1:Oh, 100%. That's super, super important and I think what we're seeing a lot of is it's becoming more of a thing in younger ages as well, where there's this pressure to perform, there's this pressure to be a specialist and specialized in in a sport you know it's I I think jenna, we were just talking about the other day like some of these parents are getting their kids like gene tested to see what their um what their potential height, their wingspan is going to be like.
Speaker 2:are they going to have big hands or their body morphology and all of this and deciding what sports to get their kids into. It's crazy, yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's like it takes away from the fundamental aspect, that one it's supposed to be fun to, it's to be something that you know builds character, builds healthy habits, and then, like later down the line, obviously, yeah, you can specialize. If you want to take it to the next step in, you know the collegiate level, then, yeah, you're going to have to specialize, Like when I was a freshman that's a choice, right, yeah, that should be a choice, it shouldn't be something that should be pushed, pushed upon.
Speaker 1:Like I was a multi-sport athlete up until my sophomore year of high school and then I'm like you know what? I want to get more serious with softball. That's the path I want to go down. So then you start to get a little bit more more specialized. It's just it's.
Speaker 3:It's such a pressure that doesn't need to be there like yeah it's also so weird and like having young kids specialize in one sport and they're only using specific muscle groups and they're getting so much fatigue from it. It's getting earlier and earlier on emphasizing and like specializing in specific sports because everyone wants to get a scholarship in college, and that's where it comes back full circle and we're talking about like a lot of it has to do with money and things like that.
Speaker 2:People want their kids to go number one because they went or number two because they don't want to go to college, and it's really sad it's crazy and I think, elena mina, I think we're both kind of products of right title nine happened over 50 years ago and our mothers right, they didn't have the chance really to play sport in college and and I think that push really happened with us in youth sports for girls, but also still for boys too. There's that pressure to go and pay for college because college is getting exponentially more expensive. I don't know. When I was a kid, I remember playing soccer. I got into it. I loved watching the US Women's National Team, Like I love soccer. It was.
Speaker 2:Soccer was my passion for me for a really long time and started playing basketball and I love basketball, but there is no WNBA for me to look up to at the time and softball fell apart and I fell into track and field and you know I love, love these activities. But soccer was like my dream, like my dream as a kid was to be on the US Women's National Team and it somewhere in middle school or high school. Instead of soccer being fun for me, it turned into the like this is a job, this is a career, this is like I need this to get a scholarship and I need this to go play in college, because if I don't play in college I'm not going to get on the US women's national team. And you know, I still love soccer. I still do to this day. But it really did become a job and all of a sudden, that specialization. I was still playing basketball until my sophomore year of high school and I was still doing track, but everything was really for soccer.
Speaker 2:And then when it came time to graduate in high school I'd talked to a couple D2 schools, had talked to a couple D3 schools and was like I really wanted to play D1, but at the time one I wasn't a good student because I kind of had always focused on soccer and I thought, whatever, which isn't the case right, Kind of realized too late I needed good grades and it just was like, well, why am I going to go to college, take out these loans, or go to college on a scholarship and not be able to go to class? Like what's the point of that? And I ended up playing D3. And I'm so grateful that I did because it gave me the opportunity to balance my academics along with the scholastic side of things.
Speaker 2:And now did I have to take out loans? Of course I did, but I don't think the scholarship side of things even if I had gotten one would have made that much of a difference. And right like, most kids going D1, D2 aren't becoming professional athletes. Those student loans still catch up to you. Or now you lack job career skills because you didn't go to class.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Jenna, this could be like a whole I can get in a whole plethora of the recruitment process and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Maybe we'll circle back to that at a different time, because it's definitely the the biggest misconception is that you're going to get a scholarship and you're going to go play in college and it's going to all work out yeah, or that all the money is in division one and division two.
Speaker 1:I got more money academically going and being a division three athlete at depaul than I did at any division one or division two opportunities, and that's. I could show you the paper Like it is such a misconception there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's also funny because it depends on the institution I mean my. So when I played. You know, my freshman year was at Franklin Pierce and the full ride. Like athletes student athletes they also had to pay taxes which wasn't told to them before they came here internationally. So they're like at the end of the semester and having to come up with five grand in taxes that they weren't told about and it wasn't paid for by the program.
Speaker 1:So they just had to come up with five grand each semester like that's insane it's such a such a misconception and again like that's why there shouldn't be this big emphasis on. Now, don't get me wrong. There are very, very specific circumstances in very, very specific sports. We call them, like, number sports, so those are teams where they get a specific amount of funding because they have to have a specific amount of players on a team that's in, I believe it's women's rowing, women's basketball, and I know like football has something like that, which, yeah, it's such a misconception.
Speaker 2:And I think the question to ask is, like parents, what is your ultimate goal of your kid? Getting a scholarship? Is it saving you money? Because if it's saving you money, okay, great, but if they're not going to build skills outside of that sport, right, they need a degree. They still need to go to class, they still need to pass their classes.
Speaker 2:And, you know, during my master's and now during my PhD, I not only have those athletes as my students, but I also have athletes who are my peers, right, and whether they're still competing or, you know, they had just finished up, it's crazy to have these conversations with them because, okay, yeah, they had just finished up.
Speaker 2:It's crazy to have these conversations with them because, okay, yeah, they might be on scholarship, they might not, but traveling with those teams.
Speaker 2:The number of my students who have to come and make up assignments at the end of the year because while I was gone for you know eight of our, you know, 12 weeks is crazy. Because what are they getting out of this education that they've worked so hard for that scholarship all those years through high school, and they are busting their butts to not only, you know, be an athlete still, but also they have to do their coursework. If they don't do well enough in their classes, they can't play, and the mental and emotional toll that that can take on a student athlete is insane. And then now we're seeing a lot of athletes go on for their masters because, well, there isn't a career for them for that professional sport. After they finish up and they realize I didn't go to class for three, if not four, years of college and I don't know what I want to do and I haven't explored any of these other things. So how much is that scholarship really worth it to you, for your kids?
Speaker 3:yeah, I was going to say what's the extent that what you're willing to pay for your third grader to get to college? Like? Instead of allowing them to just explore their own opportunities and do their own thing and grow and develop and build those life skills? Like? What is the focus? Why are you so focused on getting them a scholarship at third grade? Like it's not that deep at third grade? It's really not, I promise. Like, slow down, enjoy life, because it goes by so quickly. There's no reason to force your kids to grow up at third grade and become this little college athlete at third grade. You know when they can just enjoy their life.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what we're getting at here, guys, is youth. Sports is supposed to be fun and it's a very important time for these kids developmentally.
Speaker 2:I think we forget sometimes as parents and coaches um what that sport is supposed to be about or what your kids feeling, what you felt at that time right like, let's just make it fun. Let's just go have fun. Who cares right, win losses. It's fun to win, but it's also just fun to play it's's fun.
Speaker 1:It's supposed to be fun and that's what we're getting at here. You know, keep it fun, keep it informative and don't put so much pressure on these kids. You know, very, very crucial, important time and it should be fun and exciting. Jenna Elena, thank you guys so much. This was a great talk, a very informative talk and hopefully, you know, we can inspire those youth coaches out there and, you know, make that time fun and exciting for those kids.
