The Winning Mindset
The Winning Mindset is for empowering athletes, parents, and coaches to excel in sports and life. We focus on building mental toughness, positive attitudes, and promoting personal growth through shared insights and motivational content.
The Winning Mindset
Mindset Mastery with Rebecca Dyer: From Player to Coach to Parent
What does it truly mean to develop a winning mindset in sports and in life? Basketball legend Rebecca Dyer takes us on a captivating journey from her days as a young hoops prodigy in Kentucky to becoming Miss Kentucky Basketball, playing in the NCAA Elite Eight, and eventually transforming adversity into opportunity through coaching and sports analytics.
Rebecca's story isn't just about basketball achievements—it's about the profound life lessons woven throughout her experiences. When a misdiagnosed heart condition threatened to end her playing career, Rebecca faced the ultimate test of resilience. Yet through this challenge, she discovered deeper purpose and perspective that completely transformed her approach to sports, coaching, and eventually parenting.
As both a former athlete and now a parent to a multi-sport youngster, Rebecca offers wisdom that bridges generations and playing fields. She introduces us to the concept of "competitive excellence"—focusing on controlling what's controllable while letting go of everything else. Her memorable phrase "choose your hard now" perfectly captures the discipline required for long-term success in any endeavor.
Parents and coaches will find particular value in Rebecca's thoughtful approach to developing young athletes. From the importance of playing multiple sports to allowing children to experience different coaching styles as preparation for real-world challenges, she provides a refreshing counterpoint to today's often hyper-specialized youth sports culture.
Whether you're a sports parent navigating weekend tournaments, a coach seeking to make a deeper impact, or simply someone interested in developing mental toughness, Rebecca's insights will inspire you to focus on what truly matters—building character that transcends the scoreboard and lasts a lifetime. Listen now to discover how attitude, effort, and perspective create the foundation for success in sports and beyond.
Hey everybody, welcome to the Winning Mindset Podcast. Super excited for you to listen to this episode today. I have a great family friend, rebecca Dyer, on with us today, had the privilege of coaching Rebecca's son, harrison, last season on the Yardgoats baseball team. You probably remember Harlow referring back to that team during his interview podcast that I did with him. But Josh, rebecca's husband, coached alongside me on that team.
Speaker 1:Just a phenomenal family, phenomenal group of people. Absolutely love having them part of our sports family, which is a group of families that we're all supporting each other, encouraging each other, showing up to games and all of that. Rebecca and Josh and Harrison actually came to a lot of football games this past season just to cheer us on. So it's just such a cool part to have their family part of our group of sports family. So Rebecca has an incredible story, an incredible journey from starting basketball at a very young age all the way through her college career to coaching to moving into sports analytics. I'm super excited for you to hear from her her perspective of being an athlete, being a coach and being a parent now and and the way that her and josh are raising harrison to to think about with sports and and what they're encouraging with him is just absolutely phenomenal. So just not with me on this interview. He was actually traveling to canada, so the way this podcast episode is going to work, I'm going to do the interview. Then I'm going to flash over to jeff, following my uh interview with rebecca, so that you have an opportunity to hear some key takeaways. Him so super excited for you to be on and listening with us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for tuning in. Let's get started. Hey, rebecca, thanks so much for being on the Winning Mindset podcast. I'm super excited to have you on. Why don't we start off? Let's talk March Madness. Since you're wearing your Kentucky hoodie, I already see you repping it. How's your bracket doing, because mine's already completely busted.
Speaker 3:Not bad. Actually Not bad in terms of the two different groups that I'm with. There's a family group and then there's a work group. I'm sitting in second in the family group and then middle of the pack with the work group. So I'll take it for day one.
Speaker 1:I imagine the work group we'll dive into work a little bit further into the podcast, but I imagine that one's probably a little bit more competitive with the amount of the knowledge that you're having to compete against there.
Speaker 3:I mean, I will say my family. They are some basketball junkies, college basketball specifically, so they can hold their own. But yeah, that work bracket is great, all that data.
Speaker 1:You know, knowing all the data probably probably helps out with that, um, well, cool. So so start off with let's. Let's talk about our connection, how we know each other had the awesome privilege of of coaching Harrison last spring in baseball. It was awesome to get to know him. Incredible kiddo, uh, incredible athlete, um, your husband, josh, uh he, he coached with us alongside the coaching staff, so it's cool to get to get to know you. I realized as I started doing this and kind of taking some of the pictures and stuff that I have for you know, of me coaching, I was like, holy crap, all these are thanks to Rebecca, so you're also an awesome photographer, so I greatly appreciate you being on here. Why don't we talk about you? Let's get to know you a little bit. Let's talk your story, how you kind of started in the sports world from wherever you want to start at that point early on in life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So growing up in Kentucky, basketball is pretty much a religion in that state, and so you don't really have a lot of places you can hide from the game there. But thankfully I come from a family that's just absolutely basketball junkies. Like I said, both of my grandfathers were coaches at the high school level. One played collegiately. The entire family is just stacked with athletes. Both of my parents are also basketball players and they were well-rounded.
Speaker 3:Back then, I feel like there was a lot more engagement in multi-sports, and so they played a little bit of everything in their high school careers as well, and so for me, picking up the round ball at an early age just made too much sense. I've been a passionate player since I was tiny. I mean, I was dribbling the ball. My parents told me I was dribbling around like two years old, just picking up a ball and being able to understand like, hey, this is what we're doing. This is what we're gonna be doing on the weeknights is watching hoops and then taking it all in. So my love for sports is I feel like it's just in my d.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome, that's awesome. That's, I kind of feel, like similar to that. That's kind of how Riggs is with with us, with the sports world. I mean like three days old at a football field and so you know he doesn't. He doesn't play with cars and all that. Very often it's always basketballs, baseballs, footballs whatever we're watching on TV, that's what he's got in his hand. So you played high school basketball and you had I guess I'll brag on you a little bit, since I did a lot of the research with it. You had a phenomenal high school career, you know, going from being Miss Kentucky with that had an incredible game where what 53 points, is that what? It was 53-point game and went what 16 for 16 at the line that night too. That's the same game, right.
Speaker 3:The same game. It was an insane game, I think it actually. This was actually a really big game in the moment. It was our last regular season game of my senior year. We traveled all the way to Louisville. My high school was in central Kentucky, just a little bit north of Lexington. This was number one versus I think Fern Creek at the time was number four or five, so top five matchup. It was played on a Saturday at like 11 am so there were maybe just parents in the crowd and this game was back and forth. Maybe just parents in the crowd and this game was back and forth. It was incredible. I think it still holds a state record for single points scored without an overtime. It was just insane and so every single point was truly required from my end. But yeah, it was one of those games. I'd love to see the tape on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic. So is there film? Do you know? Is it somewhere in the archives?
Speaker 1:Somebody's got it in the archives. This was before we were putting stuff on digital or, of course, social media really taking off, and so I'm kind of thankful for that'd be awesome to have, and be able to be able to show off. So, um, so you, so you phenomenal high school career. Um, you also, you also played, uh, aau basketball during the time as well. That that's correct. Um, tell us a little bit. Tell us a little bit about that journey yeah.
Speaker 3:So I uh had the privilege at about 10 to really come into contact with the local aau team. That was just, you know, grassroots to its core. We had an incredible group of coaches who were parents, really, of the players themselves, but just again, people with a true passion for growing the game in the women's side. So I played locally for an AAU team up until I was about a sophomore in high school and then this thing called the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League spun up and was recruited pretty heavily out of.
Speaker 3:I went to a blue chip camp up in Indianapolis one summer and one of the guys that was running the camp was actually a coach for this team called the family, and I came in just expecting to run a camp that weekend and it turned into us staying in Indianapolis and playing for the family, which was again one of those crazy things. My parents were just on board for this and so we got on with the family and stayed with them for a few years. It was interesting because we made the commitment every weekend in that summer to drive that three and a half hours up to Indianapolis and back in the same day for practice and getting ready for different events and whatnot. But yeah, it was interesting to see what the Nike EYBL was back then and then fast forward and see what it is now and all of its glory.
Speaker 1:It's very different, I'll say that yeah, well, let's talk about that because because, right you, you came in at what, if not the very beginning of what that was, right. So, so what are like, what are some of the dynamic changes that you've seen from from then you know at the start to what it looks like now?
Speaker 3:yeah, when we came in it was very much. You're paying for everything that you need to do. So, like we had, we were given a set of uniforms. We had a pair of shorts and then a way in a home jersey. They were mesh, it was kind of like what you would imagine a practice jersey look like. We got a pair of shoes. They were like the Taurasi's, like Taurasi ones. So we thought we were hot stuff.
Speaker 3:When we were given that you go down to North Augusta for the actual Nike Nationals after you've competed most of the summer at the different events and host cities like Chicago and Birmingham, indianapolis, you then get to go to the Nike National Tournament. So that was a whole event in itself because nothing had really existed before that. You would go to aau nationals and that was a cool thing. But to be on a, the shoe circuit, as it's kind of called now, it was really kind of just a next level and then before the games would start, one of my favorite memories was doing the sparks training and uh, if no one knows what that is, it's just really just agility testing and then, you know, looking at like max verticals, speeds, that sort of things, and being able to compete in that against the other teams before actually taking the court was a cool kind of memory. But you know, back then there wasn't like there wasn't X, there really wasn't any social media presence. You didn't have a ton of photographers, you were not live streaming the games. It was very much whoever was in that gym was going to get coverage.
Speaker 3:Now I will say there's an outlet that I was actually fortunate to work for called Hoop Girls, who was later acquired by ESPN. But you know that was grassroots reporting. It was. You know you were not getting exposure or you were not getting news coming out of these events unless someone like that was there to document it, and it was long form content that you would typically see days later. So it was not live in real time or were no stats being collected. It was very much the beginning of something that you could see. That's really cool.
Speaker 3:And then fast forward now. As you know, there's a ton of money involved in that. There's a ton of exposure that comes with it and visibility from the social media side of things and just how they promote it. Now it's an entire kind of just. You know, it's its whole dynamic in itself and its whole ecosystem and so it's. You know it comes with its pros and its cons in terms of the growth and the kind of the guardrails around it or back thereof. But yeah, it's crazy to look back and see it. We were the inaugural national champion and then now, anytime that someone goes and sends me a picture of them going and recruiting or evaluating, and they send me the picture. And the 2005 national champs were the family.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that's awesome. So in 2007, you're Miss Kentucky Basket, which that is. That that's you. You graduated high school, or, ok, awesome, I'm 2008. So we're right there, right there, beside each other on graduate. So you finish at Scott County, all time leading scorer. Right, I got the number, I want to make sure. So two thousand nine hundred and seven points scored, so that's your whole entire high school career. That's, that's phenomenal. Um, what? What was your mindset with going into that? Was that, when you, when you played were, were you like I'm, I'm bashing every record I can possibly get ahold of? Or was that just something that you just naturally were like I'm just here to play and it's just the natural talent ability. Just that puts you on that, on that record?
Speaker 3:that record. Yeah, we moved to Scott County when I was entering kindergarten and was really fortunate in 1995 to be able to go and watch this women's team. That was absolutely stacked. The name Yukari Figgs is a legend in Kentucky and a very, very well-known name in the women's basketball world. She's an absolute world, she, she, she's an absolute freak. She won a state championship, she won a national championship with Purdue and then she went on to the LA Sparks and won a WNBA championship and so she's just a winner.
Speaker 3:And so when I moved there I was able to take in a couple of her games and again, I'm in kindergarten. So she left an impression on me and she hung a banner. She was Miss Basketball, she was the all-time points leader and not really fully understanding what that meant. My mom will tell this story quite often when she keeps, you know, gets going down the back roads of history here. She said that next year when I went into first grade and we came back and started watching the boys team at Scott County, I look up and I see the banner hanging up in the rafters. It's your car, is Miss basketball banner and it also has, like you know, all time points later.
Speaker 3:And I'm like mom, what's that mean? And she explained it to me and I told her as a first grader I'm going to get that, not really fully understanding like what all the work would entail there. And so if I look back and think about my entire career in Scott County, it's you know, I just had a true passion for the process and understanding where I was at each grade level and fully understanding that in team sports in particular, it's not about you, it's about the we concept and you're only as good as your team is and you're only going to be as good as you buy into that concept of we, not me. And so all of the individual accolades that I have from that time are the exact kind of product of taking in the team culture and having incredible teammates and incredible coaching, and so none of that's possible without that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, from a very young age I was putting goals in front of me and saying let's go get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. It's funny that you say that about the team culture. So Harlow collects basketball jerseys and, like, when he first started, you know he already had the Jordan jersey, you know the 2-3. And you know he was looking around and he was like, you know, we started talking. I was like, dude, you got to get the Scottie Pippen jersey and he was like, well, why? And I was like Jordan, wasn't Jordan without Pippen being there and being the vital support that he was as a teammate and helping him. And he was like, OK, and you know, and it was a cool lesson to teach him that, in that, exactly what you said, right, Like it's, it's a team culture. A team is what creates success. It's not not an individual thing, so, but that that that's phenomenal. Um, so, so we move on from high school career. It's time to decide, right, where we move collegiate. Obviously, you're from Kentucky, but you decide to go to North Carolina. What? What led to that decision with? To that decision with going to North Carolina as opposed to Kentucky?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I grew up a diehard Kentucky fan. I'm talking like that 1996 team. They were the untouchables. I mean that team was just loaded with talent. Rip Pitino still is one of the greatest minds offensive and defensively in the basketball world and I just gravitated hard to that. I was a diehard Kentucky fan. You couldn't even get me to look at the lighter shade of blue.
Speaker 3:There was a game where Tayshaun Prince it was in Rock Arena. They were playing North Carolina and Tayshaun Prince comes down and hits like six straight threes in the first half. He scores literally the first 18 points of this game were Tayshaun points or Tayshaun three-pointers. And so to look back and think about me landing at North Carolina, if you told me that at Harrison's age, at 10, I would have been like you're crazy. You're absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3:But I was playing on the high school team at an early age and involved real early and our high school coach was a diehard Dean Smith fan and a diehard North Carolina fan and a diehard North Carolina fan and we would go down to the team camp. We started going my seventh grade summer and we'd go down there. The campus is beautiful. If you have never been to Chapel Hill or you've never been inside of Carmichael, and Carmichael is where the women play and that's where Jordan played it is. It is just like walking into the Mecca, in my opinion. But yeah, that that sort of.
Speaker 3:I fell in love with the campus. I fell in love with the culture. I played for Sylvia Hatchell while I was there and I will never forget this conversation. We had my eighth grade summer. We had just run through teams on the team side of things, in the elite bracket, and we go down to the court to collect our trophy and I remember Coach Asheville being like hey, what classification are you? And at that time I was like what is she even saying? Is that English?
Speaker 3:I was like I don't know what you're asking me. She's like what grade are you? I was like, oh, I'm going to be going into eighth grade and she's like I'm going to keep an eye on you and so fell in love with it there. But then we went, like you know, kentucky was still in the midst of really establishing an identity on the women's side. North Carolina had consistently been like just up there in that top 10, constantly over like my high school, middle school and high school career.
Speaker 3:We go down to the Beachball Classic. Let's see my freshman year so this was the summer after I just had a conversation with coach. We go down to the Beachball Classic and that is the most like highly touted regular season high school event around Christmas. It's still got a very predominant kind of recognition to it on the boys and girls side. But we go down there as a little county school and we're playing. You know teams from all over the place that are huge powerhouse teams from New York, from South Carolina, florida. Well, we go down there and we win and Coach Atchell was there and she was kind of evaluating because the North Carolina and South Carolina women's basketball teams would do, they would play a game during that high school event, so like all the teams who were playing in the beach ball would come and watch North Carolina versus South Carolina.
Speaker 3:So she stuck around and was watching me and she's like I just fell in love with that number 15 from Scott County and so like we had built this really strong relationship, and she ended up offering me the summer before before my sophomore year and I said yes, and so it was more of. It wasn't so much like, hey, kentucky versus north carolina, it was the relationship and I'm a relationship person and she just came off as like a family figure and so I made that decision to go there and, uh, it turned out to be a pretty good one for that season. We had a. We had a really good year freshman year.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about that season. Right, you're playing in the ACC, you make it to the Elite Eight. Let's dive in and talk about that. Share your experiences with that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was insane. The ACC is really known for physical play. There were, just like anyone, and everyone who had a name was playing in the ACC at that time and it was, you know, just insane to think about some of my teammates. Erlana Larkins is going to be in the Hall of Fame at some point in North Carolina. Latoya Pringle just incredible athlete. Rashonda McCants, who's Rashad's sister, you've got you know, my freshman class was Saterra de Graffenried and Italy Lucas, and just the incredible amount of talent on this team.
Speaker 3:We were undefeated in the regular season and then we went on to win the conference championship as well in the ACC and I just it was such an enjoyable ride to just be as dominant as we were and take on some of these different teams that the size in the ACC was the biggest thing for me in adjusting to that, like I would have liked to think in my senior year of high school I was super physical, I was seeking out contact and I got to the ACC and I'm like, oh man, y'all are, y'all are huge. You guys are like built. So adjusting to that speed and that size and finding your place in your role on the team and how you can be a good teammate and influence the game with the minutes that you're getting and taking full advantage of. That was something that was just huge that year. It was such an enjoyable year had such a great time with that team. We were just absolute competitors.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's phenomenal. So you were at North Carolina. How many seasons did you play at North Carolina?
Speaker 3:I was there for one season at uh, north carolina, and then, um, you know, it's one of those. It's one of those things that people always ask like, hey, how do you leave there? And one thing that people who are very close to me know is family matters.
Speaker 3:Like that's the number, that's priority one for me, my family yeah moving from north carol or kentucky to north carolina that you can't get there any faster I don't know like driving wise than like nine and a half hours.
Speaker 3:So, just assessing what I valued most for my career and what I could do for my family and be able to be in a space that you know, had an opportunity to go back to Kentucky, maybe build something and kind of resurrect that program. You know, after a ton of prayer, a ton of discussion, it was one of the most difficult decisions that I ever made, because I had no real reason to leave North Carolina other than my heartstrings, kind of saying you probably should go back home, you belong back home. And that was a really difficult conversation but one that I'm really grateful for the staff at North Carolina at the time because they were so understanding and definitely didn't take it personal, because again it wasn't like hey bye, I'm leaving because there's grievances, I've got to go and take care of this business. But thank you so much for the opportunity Still to this day. I love that staff, I love that team.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's incredible. So so so you leave there, you transfer over to Kentucky. Did you? Did you face the North Carolina team after after you transferred over to Kentucky? You never got to run into them, I got you, we did not, nope. Yeah, man, that would have been kind of a cool, cool aspect to see, like how that would have turned out. So you transferred to Kentucky and then you know, I know, I know as how many, so how many seasons were you at Kentucky did, were you, were you playing there?
Speaker 3:yeah, so like that, this was the, this was the times when you didn't get the free pass to transfer. So when I came back to Kentucky I had a whole season that I sat out and then was able to play a whole year before. Like, injuries and all the things overtook my life and I'm sure we'll dig into that, but like yeah, two, two full seasons at kentucky as that player I got you so.
Speaker 1:But but even sitting out you still were able in that year that you were sitting, you still trained and and were able to work with the team and kind of be part of the culture. So that's, that's cool to hear. So let's talk about that. That's kind of actually where I was going to segment. Next, obviously, is kind of moving into the, to the, to the part of your career where you started to kind of run into, you know, some injuries and some health complications. Let's, let's, let's talk about that too and kind of I'd love to obviously know your story behind that. But then also kind of talk about the mental aspect and the emotional aspect of that too and how you dealt with that and how you worked through that, you know, during that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. When I transferred that year and came into the program at Kentucky, as I was leaving North Carolina, I knew that I was going to need to have surgery on my right femur. I had a tumor that was beginning to really aggravate the muscles around that area and so, like the femur is the longest bone in the body and sometimes there's situations where it can grow benign tumors. Some people are susceptible to that and others and for the most part you would never know that that's there, but it's just like it's a common area that you get kicked or you get hit or you get impacted. And so, as I was leaving North Carolina, there was really a decision to be made Do I do the surgery here or do I go to Kentucky and just go ahead and get that kind of started in the books? And so I knew within that transfer that step one was going to be surgery, and so I came in. The staff was understanding of that, we took care of that that summer and it was really difficult to work through that surgery. I'd had a couple of surgeries before back in high school for like broken nose and other things, and so surgery really wasn't anything new to me. It was more so working on like a lower leg injury and having to overcome that in a new environment with new teammates and kind of filling each other out in terms of how that looks. And so the surgery took most of the summer to recover from, and so I was in. I was in training sessions to an extent like doing one legged squats on the on my good leg. Coach Tracy was an absolute dog. She was our strength and conditioning coach at Kentucky and I am so grateful for her because she really just oozed a strong mental toughness about her to where, like, hey, you might not have your right leg right now, but you're going to sit on the bench and you're going to do a bunch of upper body presses, you're going to get your upper body right, our left leg is going to be super strong. And so from her, just in even that situation alone, you're understanding like, wow, this is going to be a great person for me to have around, because there's not going to be any excuses, there's not going to be any way that you work around and not to say that that was ever in my DNA, but it was so great to be around her to where you're doing your like the life of an athlete is, especially in college.
Speaker 3:It's a full-time job. You're waking up, you're doing your therapy, you're doing PT, you're going to class in the summer, you're coming back, you're playing pickup, you're you're. You're going back into study hall. You've got to get your study hall hours. You've got to come back and be able to go through film play pickup again, like it's. It's a full-time job, and so making that transition was was really it was. It was easier for me because I feel like I came in with the right mentality of just understanding that work is work and you've got to. You've got to put in that work every day. That you're. You know your dues have to be paid. You've got to come in and make that deposit and there's no, there's no way of working around and getting like that fast lane. You've got to put the work in in order to see on the other side of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, heck, yeah, and, and I think and I think basically like talking, referring back to like you're you, you're coming up right through through elementary, middle, high school I feel like you know the sacrifices and the commitments that your parents made with you know, traveling Indianapolis and and and doing all, all of those. I think that your parents, you know, maybe not realizing it probably instilled a work ethic in you that you didn't realize with, with, with teaching you what it looked like to sacrifice and what it looked like to have to grind and, like you said, pay the dues. So, um, yeah, that's, that's phenomenal. It's funny that you say that, jeff, you know, jeff said it on his podcast the same thing with you know, talking about going to Florida and and and what it looked like there, with it being a full-time career. So it's uh, it I. I definitely appreciate you sharing that, but I know I know you also, with the injury aspect, you also battled a misdiagnosis. Is that, is that correct? Do you want to share about that? You want to discuss that a little bit?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So I just come off the surgery, um, with my leg and was really getting into the preseason rhythm. And again back in the day, when you were sitting out, you had to make the commitment to know that you're basically transferring and you are committing to a year long of just practice. You are never going to see a game, you are never going to see anything other than your warmup and the end of the bench for that full year. So you've got to have the right mentality coming in. And so, following the surgery, we get into pre-season and off-season training and I'm finally back at it.
Speaker 3:And uh, just was one of those early morning sprints in the fall we had, uh, I think it was a five, 30, 530 conditioning where we were doing 17 and 70s and what that is is 17 suicides. Right, like you get 70 seconds to finish each suicide. You've got to do it in this small amount of time. So it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Well, we get into the heart of that at 530 in the morning and I had just finished. I feel like what would have been like maybe the halfway mark, get going again on a sprint and I'm going back and down the court. So I go all the way down the full length of the court, come back, go all the way down, touch the three quarters free throw line, come back and as I touched the baseline to make my next turn to go to half court. I don't remember anything, and it was apparently a very scary moment. I just collapsed in the middle of the sprint session and the first thing that I remember coming back to was I was in the back of an ambulance trying to figure out what's going on, and so fast forward, kind of, to a diagnosis. The local hospital at Kentucky, the University of Kentucky, had done a ton of testing on me. I'm talking like I was, you know, constantly hooked up to all of these different um nodes, had constant IVs, or just trying to figure out what's going on. Um, a little bit of a Guinea pig is what I felt like in this, in this office for a few weeks.
Speaker 3:It came up with a diagnosis of long QT syndrome and that's basically when you look at the electrical current of a heart. It wasn't getting enough of a recovery time of the beat until it then resurged and pumped, so it's like an electrical issue with the heart is basically what they were looking at, and so I immediately went on beta blockers. And the way that I can describe what a beta blocker is is for any of the Harry Potter fans out there when a Dementor is sitting over you and sucking the life out of you and you just never see happiness. You're kind of just in a state of existing. That's what a beta blocker is supposed to do it's supposed to prevent your heart rate from increasing, because that's the dangers with long QT syndrome is, if you get your heart rate up and it's elevated, then there's the potential that you, just like you, could die, and that was the scary part of being an athlete is what they were. What they told me with a long QT diagnosis was you'll never be able to play sports again, you'll never be able to be fully submerged in water again, you'll never be able to live like the life that I knew was completely off limits. And so for me, mentally, I was destroyed. Um, my, I remember when we got that, when we had the diagnosis I have, my dad is the toughest guy that I know and he was broken in that, um, broken in that room, and so we had some time to just assess, like, how are we going to move forward with this and my mentality there was if I can't play, then I'm going to find a way to impact this, we're going to find a way to make this a win for everyone. But thankfully we went and got a second opinion, so we were working with the Mayo Clinic up in Rochester, minnesota, and it took a few months to get this all kind of set up and coordinated.
Speaker 3:So during that time I was doing nothing. I was on a beta blocker, just living within my own headspace, really trying to figure out. Like you know, we're humans, we're, we're, we have a flesh mentality here. It's a little bit more of like, ego centered on like. Why did this happen to me? How can this be happening to me? I've got so much more that I'm trying to do in this sport, like that's my identity is being a basketball player and trying to fight that with like for me and like my Jesus centered view of just being like hey, here's a purpose to this, there's a purpose to this. Like there's a mountain in front of you, you, but we're going to try to figure out a way that we get a path that makes sense and there's there's a reason why this is happening. Let's just figure it out.
Speaker 3:And so a few months go by and I could finally go and get some testing done at the Mayo Clinic and my dad and I flew up there. It was negative like 20 degrees by the time we got up there and we're just working through the masses, but they were so incredible. We spent three days up there and it was so regimented and they, they did a series of tests every day and at the back end of it it was we were going to find out hey, you, you have long QT syndrome and your career is done, or hey, this could potentially be like a misdiagnosis situation and we'll see what we see what we have. So I was trying to be very just centered in my mindset there but luckily for me, it was a, it was a misdiagnosis and I will never forget the just the, the absolute, sheer, overcoming sensation of just joy that my dad and I shared.
Speaker 3:I mean, we were jumping around this hospital like, just like we had won a national championship, and it really felt like I did, because you get to come back and have a second chance and a lot of things. You know, a lot of people don't have that opportunity to do so but was really grateful for even just quality of life after the game to be able to say I'm going to be able to have a lifetime fitness regimen, I'm going to be able to exercise, I'm going to be able to do the things I love, like go to the beach, get in the ocean, go underwater. So there was a lot riding on that, but really grateful that that was the case.
Speaker 1:With the misdiagnosis, yeah, wow. So I love what you just said there about having a second chance. Do you feel like, obviously, I'm sure that with it, you know at one moment, right, your life is completely changing, right, and then all of a sudden everything's back together, but that perspective shift right? When that happens, do you feel like it shifted every bit away that you thought from that point forward with life, with having a second chance, like what was your mentality walking into, like walking onto the court for practice, like do you feel like that really changed everything for you on that aspect?
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. I think that for me again being we've all been there right and you know you're a young 20 year old and you're trying to figure out how to ground yourself in those moments, but I was so grateful in the pursuit and coming back and just hungry to feel the process again, to hungry to go day by day and figure out what does 1% better today look like and how do I go and attack that, how do I impact my teammates in the same way, and so I'm bringing that energy of hey guys, you get one shot at this as a team together. We're not going to play forever. And understanding that kind of concept as being like a 20 year old, 21 year old is just. It's hard to get 21 year olds to buy into that, but I think that I had just. I had great teammates who understood that and when we bought in and we got to work that summer, man, it was a sight to be seen because we had really put together an incredible recruiting class and when we brought those kids in and they understood the culture and they understood the work man, we really saw some incredible results from it.
Speaker 3:And for me personally, that year off probably did my body in Looking back now, having to be on a beta blocker probably changed a lot of the chemistry that was going on in my body and how, like being able to train, I did notice I couldn't, I wasn't reaching the same capacity as I was previously, whether that had been taking a full year off to deal with all of that, or maybe the beta blocker was, you know, part, partly kind of to do with the situation, who knows. But like, yeah, I wasn't able to fully get back to the place where I needed to be physically but, yeah, the impact I could have on our group and on our teammates in a different role was just. It was important to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's that's incredible. That's that's awesome to hear, like you, you know, even even in that situation, right, you had every bit of the opportunity to play victim to the circumstance, right, like that very easily could have been, you know, to go that route. But for you, for you to go. I'm not the same, I'm not who, who I originally was, because of going through all this, but I still have the ability to make an impact like wow, like that, that's a that's a phenomenal mindset to go into as a leader on the team. Kudos to you. That's incredible. So your college journey starts to come, you know, to a finish with all that happening. What are some of the biggest lessons that you think in that college journey that still stick with you today? What are some of the biggest lessons that you've taken away from that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the biggest thing here is learning a different level of endurance and a different level of figuring out ways that every day, no matter what the difficulties are or what challenges you faced or adversity that you've been thrown, at the end of the day if you're still standing, then that's the win At the end of the day, if you have impacted your team and you have positively kind of poured in for that day. It might not look like a win in the moment but it will reveal itself in due time If you come in with the right mentality and you're a positive teammate and you are helping people the right mentality and you're a positive teammate and you are helping people work through that and you're not giving terrible body language and you're not bringing people down and you're trying to build and uplift. It might not look like it in the moment but those small wins add up and they show themselves in the most important times and, whether that's in a game, when you're down five, there's adversity. You're less than a minute left and you figure out a way to scrap and you're just gritty and you're in that moment because you've put all the work in and you're confident in all the things that you've done to that point. It will reveal itself if you've put in the right work and, in the same time, if you're down three, with 30 seconds to go, and you're just like, well, there's no point in this, and you've put in, you've been putting in and laying the ground for, just you know, a pessimistic attitude, or you've been putting in kind of half in, half out, kind of you know, deposits, like we talked about. That will reveal itself then, because you will.
Speaker 3:My high school coach always said it it only takes one rotten apple in the bag to infect the whole thing. And so if you're going to be that guy, that's not going to be a value add, or that girl, that's not going to be a value add, you're going to be an energy taker. That's the biggest thing that comes from this. And you can apply that to individual sports. You can certainly apply it to team sports. But you can control your effort, you can control your attitude. You can't control the refs, you cannot control making shots, missing shots. You can control what you bring every day. And if you're not coming in to put in work, then you've got to go have a heart-to-heart with yourself and figure out what needs to be done to be able to put those things in motion.
Speaker 1:Yes, I, as a coach, have preached attitude and effort since day one Because, obviously, same thing, right, like that's what was taught to me and that was what was continually preached. But, yes, a phenomenal, phenomenal point, like with attitude and effort Control what you can control. I love that. So, 2020, right, you're like An incredible recognition for you. Right, you're inducted into the Kentucky All-Star Hall of Fame. What was it like? How did they tell you? Right? Did you get an email, phone call letter? How were you told that you were chosen for that?
Speaker 3:2020,.
Speaker 1:what a year it was an asterisk year, right, right, everything. You just put an asterisk by that year, right it was such a weird year.
Speaker 3:Like Kentucky loves to do um, their like award ceremonies in the biggest way and I love that because, again, basketball is like a religion there. If you win, miss basketball, mr basketball, if you're put in the hall of fame, it's just like wow, it's humblingbling, to say the least. But I got a phone call and an email and they're like we're, we're, we're so glad to be able to extend this to you now. We're, we're pumped to be able to do this and what we're going to do is we're going to have a Zoom, we're going to have, we're going to have a Zoom celebration. And I was like, oh man, that's you know.
Speaker 3:And again, in the moment, you can take the, you can take the perspective of well, I'm a victim, why did I have to get in this year? Why did I have to be the Zoom year? But, like, that certainly was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just so grateful for all of that to like a culmination of your high school work, to be able to have that put together. It was awesome and so like, yeah, it came across in those wavelengths. I was really excited because I know the people so well who put on the event and they're great. They're just such servant leaders and it was so fun to be able to kind of do it in a way that probably, hopefully, will never be done again. I hope it's always in person from that point forward, but it was unique. It was a very unique experience, but one that I will never forget.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. So you transitioned from out of college, right, and what did that look like for you? You know your college career is coming to an end. What was your approach with transitioning out and moving into the next?
Speaker 3:approach right With with transitioning out and moving into the to the next, yeah, so let's touch on. I brought him up a little bit in the previous kind of conversation about the work playing with the family and the Nike YBO. But ESPN hoop girls, my, some of my dearest friends who I consider family now, glenn Nelson and Chris Hansen, who started Hoop Girls. They came to me actually during that long QT diagnosis and they were like, hey, how about you come and you write for us? How about you come in and you help us with the grassroots movement, whatever that looks like, you can be a national evaluator and then you can be a columnist. So let's just work through that. And I got to do a little bit of column work for them. Um, when I was at North Carolina. It was just more of like a day in a life of what it's like to be an athlete.
Speaker 3:So I did some weekly work for them. But then we were able to take it to the next level when I had that diagnosis, cause I had all the time in the world, and so, as I was working with them straight out of college, it was like, hey, let's just bring you on full time. And so I was really fortunate to be able to come in and work for those guys. And then, right in the middle of what we were doing straight out of college, ESPN acquired us.
Speaker 3:So that was cool.
Speaker 3:So I was traveling around going to the same events that I had played in on the circuit.
Speaker 3:I was actually evaluating talents, which is really cool, because one of my first events was down called the Deep South Classic and they held it down in North Carolina, so you use the whole triangle area. It was like Chapel Hill, durham and Raleigh, all these teams from across the country, and one of my first eval was on Kelsey Plum. She's a pretty big name but I eval her when she was just young, young, young, and I'm like this left-handed phenom is insane, like y'all got to keep an eye on this name, and so, yeah, that was a lot of my work, was just work, that you keep staying close to the game, but on the other side of the line, you know being able to write and do that, and so I fell in love with the media aspect of it, obviously already in love with the basketball side of it. But yeah, I was really fortunate to walk into that stage of life and kind of have it, you know, a transition that worked really well in that moment.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's awesome. So you go from that. And how long were you working in the media aspect before you transitioned to coaching correct? Yeah, several years.
Speaker 3:So the beautiful thing about it was during this like we'll call it, six to seven year time span, there was a lot of different things going on that was really just able to pour into the mix. I like to call it sort of a Swiss army knife but was doing all that travel, was evaluating and writing but at the same time, was able to go back home to Scott County and help assistant coach while I was there, and so getting to learn under the coach who had coached me was huge, and being able to impact my local community was just so, so fantastic in that space. And so as I was doing that, I was helping in the summer at a camp, and this is AW Hamilton, who is now the head men's basketball coach at Eastern Kentucky University.
Speaker 3:He was previously at a prep school, hargrave Military Academy and he came and would do camps in Georgetown because he was also a Scott County graduate, incredible basketball player, incredible role model for the community. And I was like, hey, let me help, come in. I took pictures at camp. I was, you know, helping coach as well. And it just so happened as we got into the conversations one summer he was like, hey, my uncle's hiring down at this school in Florida. And I was like, okay, what is it? And he's like this school is called Windermere Prep. They're right outside of Orlando. They need a girls basketball coach. What do you think? Right outside of Orlando they need a girls basketball coach, what do you think?
Speaker 3:And at the time, josh was, you know, working for a huge, massive fan company and they had an opening in Florida as well. So this is totally a God dang delight it was. It all came together really quickly where it was like we'd love for you to come down and see the campus, we'd love for you to be the head coach. So I go down and everything checks out and Josh gets that you know, that ability to come down and take the Florida territory with the company he was at and from there it was just all right, let's rock and roll. Harrison was all of seven months old when we made the move, and so a lot of it came together quickly, but it was kind of awesome to see how it all culminated into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what? So what was it? What was the difference for you as far as with coaching at Scott County, with coaching at Windermere? How was it for you? I mean, obviously I know coaching and playing is different, but what for you, as far as the mental approach to it all, how was it different, coaching versus playing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the coaching side of things, you're in charge of everything as a player.
Speaker 3:It got to the point like, as a player, I 100% was so attuned to like I'm in control of this game because I'm hands-on and I know what plays to make, I know what passes to make, I know when a run is happening, I know, like, when we're on defense and we need to stop a run, and all of those things you're in control.
Speaker 3:And then, as a coach, you quickly find out oh boy, you need to now go and instruct your entire team to be able to have them go out and be player coaches on the court. And so for me and the type A personality I had, that was difficult, making a mental kind of switch in my mind of you're no longer impacting points, you're not going to score another basket with your hands. You've got to teach and instruct and lead these girls, to give them the tools necessary that they can go make the plays, and you've got to trust that they're going to go out and execute and they're going to go out and you've prepared them well enough to where you can go out and make small tweaks here and there. Uh, but yeah, that control piece of it where you're no longer scoring the buckets it's a whole thing.
Speaker 1:It's tough. It's tough, like, I know, for me as a coach, like I still, I still, emotionally, as a coach, feel the same way that I did as a player on the football field, right, and so it's like and I'm sure for you it's probably very similar and so, like I know, like and I'm coaching 10 year olds, it's completely different, but like stepping on that field and you still feel the same level of anxiousness, right, the level of control that you wish that you had in impacting it. It's like it's very hard to to to turn those emotions off as a player. As far as coaching versus playing, comparing which one do you feel like you enjoyed more? Do you feel like which one would you really sit at if you could do it all over again, if you had a choice?
Speaker 3:Coaching- not even hesitating, without a doubt, is the most fulfilling thing that I've ever done, because the second that it clicks in one player's eyes, or the second that you, you have demonstrated something and they have failed over and over and over again, but they get back up and they continue to try and in the game, in the moment when it finally clicks and they have executed, and they look over at you and they're just like's go, I mean there's nothing better, there's absolutely nothing better. And so for me, uh, now, uh, without hesitation would say, coaching yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I, I feel the same way. So it's funny that you say that like I, you know, I remember a couple football seasons ago, senior towards ACL. He's out there on a Saturday during youth games just hanging out watching. He had torn his, literally tore his acl the night before and he's like I'm done, you know, and he's like you know, and I'm like, look, I, I don't, I don't necessarily know in the moment what I'm going to say is going to make you feel better. But you know, fast forward, you know, fast forward your life 20, 20 years from now.
Speaker 1:I or, let me tell you this, I loved playing in the moment, but I would not trade coaching over anything in the world, because what you said is spot on and that's exactly how I feel too.
Speaker 1:Having the ability, the opportunity to be able to pour into young athletes and, like you said, to see just that quick change or that like aha moment for them, like and just a pleasure to pour into young athletes, is, yeah, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I kind of joke like there's an amateur football team that plays out in Cherokee County and I'm like every year they do tryouts and I'm like I just one time, like let me put the pads on one time, and I'm like I just one time, like let me put the pads on one time, but I like I know if I got hit I would be like one hit, I'm done, I'm out of here. So, um so. So you finished coaching, I know, I know that, uh, you did a little bit outside of the sports world for a little bit as far as, as far as doing for a different couple of different companies, but now you've transitioned kind of back into the sports world, but kind of in a completely different realm. Right, you're doing business development, sports data and analytics, right?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm Yep.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Let's talk about that. I'm so curious.
Speaker 3:Yep for sure. So the interesting part about your passions is they always come back and they find you. And so, while I'm so grateful for the experiences I had outside of sports and was able to learn how to develop a true business acumen in those other roles that I had, your passions they come and they find you and sometimes you have a little bit of a pulling or the heartstrings where you feel like man. I feel like I need to get back into a certain space or go serve in this capacity, right. But yeah, I had the opportunity to get on board with a wearable, like a GPS wearable data company, as my first role in sports data, and so what it did was like you're wearing, you're wearing a, basically a GPS device, and you're learning like, hey, here's different load, like different ways that players are moving and being able to use that information and that data in the way that you would train them right. And so you can look at, hey, we have a game on Thursday. How are we training on Tuesday? That impacts the game, learning how to like, basically take your training schedule and regimen and figure out the best ways to prepare your athletes with that device and then fast forward to where I am now.
Speaker 3:We are basically an optical tracking company. So what does that mean For the basketball side of things? I'll talk specifically to that. We will take our cameras, hang them in the rafters and basically what we're able to do is track the player and the ball hundreds of times a second. And now that raw data itself is really unusable. It's very just heavy data and it's not easily digestible. And so what we have done is we've taken a machine learning and an AI layer to go over top of that tracking and we've taught a machine to essentially view the game and that tracking data through the lens of a coach.
Speaker 3:So where we got our start was in the pick and roll and identifying hey, in this pick and roll, we know that the defense is blitzing and when they blitz, we've got someone in the corner, we've got someone in the dunker position, and we're just understanding these player movements through the lens of a coach and putting it in that sport language. So that way the coach can take all of this data and understand what each individual player is doing in certain situations, certain trends. What's the team doing in terms of like, hey, when we're getting played in this particular defense, how are we operating? How efficient are we? What are we looking at? Being able to build those things or build like draft reports out of that or build you know front office kind of strategy and how that goes.
Speaker 3:You can think of it in that way to where this is like super serving all of this data.
Speaker 3:We've worked with media partners where, if you've seen like different executions on, if you've watched basketball or football and there's been like explosions on the rim or different ways that you're highlighting shot probabilities to where, like, there'll be a little halo that goes under a player and as they're dribbling, you'll see a number or like the, the light will change under that specific player to say, hey, uh, if we're looking at one of the best shooters in in the league and he comes across half court and all of a sudden the halo turns green and you see like a 39% under where he's standing and getting ready to take the shot at the time, you're looking at all of that data live in real time, just hundreds of thousands of data points being brought in, and the way that these teams and the way that different use cases and outputs are being able to be used from that data is just fascinating and I would have loved to have had something like that back when I was playing, to be able to really dive deep into it, because with this particular job I found out that I'm not just a basketball junkie, I'm actually a basketball nerd.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's funny that you say that because I I started watching, so, like, when amazon does the the thursday night football games, it does, it does the data almost very similar to that where you can watch it from the amazon view. And I, like somebody I saw it on like facebook about it and somebody was like, yeah, check this out and try it. It's, it's, it's pretty cool to see and I did it one time and, and, like you said, I was fascinated by it from the football aspect, seeing, like you know, they're set up in this formation. It's this. So, yeah, I totally agree with you and I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize how much, like, how interesting and fascinating the data and the analytics from it could be from that aspect.
Speaker 1:And I actually read something on facebook, uh, yesterday that it was a guy who sent a letter to the uh, the cardinals about, um, about being a statistician for the baseball team, and it was like a letter and I guess the general manager or the owner wrote back and was like, sir, nobody in professional sports has anybody that does analytics or status or stats for for teams as individuals.
Speaker 1:This is like right, early 2000s, late 90s, somewhere around there. And it's funny now because it's like, right, like you're talking about sports data and analytics, it's like every team has their own department of that. Now, you know, and they're obviously like you guys contracting that out too and and and and all that, but it's, it's fascinating to see how much that data has really helped improve the game and improve teams, just from them learning that stuff, besides just going to watch and film and being like you know, hey, he rolls left every time and you know, it's that kind of stuff look back at, like moneyball everyone's pretty familiar with moneyball and baseball and baseball is really, I think, the the first place that data and analytics took off, and you understand that story just from the Hollywood perspective, right, if you watch the movie or if you read the book.
Speaker 3:But this data now is just powering so many different decisions and it's not like this data should be viewed as complementary, because you have coaches who are absolutely masters of their trade. You have front office people who have been around long enough to where you know what you're looking for when you evaluate talent. Let's just use the data as a supplement to that to help complement the decisions that we're making. And so it's fascinating, like you said, being able to see a QB timer or being able to see those route trees or being able to see the different like blitz indicators that are coming into it. And having that level of data and real, like live time is just insane. It used to take ages, if not the next day, before you had like a real true box score to where you know you had columnists who could write stories around it. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 3:I sat on a panel recently with Jackie McMullin, of all people, and she's you know. If you don't know her, she's. She got her start in Boston at the Boston Globe. She covered the Celtics and, like she was really into the weeds back in the day before you know, people were asking the right questions about data and, like, ray Allen shot and like looking at all these different things that went into the efficiencies around it. And now if I wanted to look at a shooter's efficiency, all I've got to do is go into the portal, like our software, and do a few clicks and I have all these answers 10 years worth of historic data in a matter of 20 seconds. I can look at all of these things, and so it's fascinating to see where we started and where it's going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I love viewing it. I just for clarification love viewing it. But like, if somebody ever asked me to do that, like you start throwing thousands of numbers in front of my face, I might as well be reading a different language. It's like I'm terrible with numbers. So I'm like, just give me, just talk to me like a second grader if I need to know something, because that's that's really the way that I break down data. But that's that's so interesting and fascinating and and and. Hats off to you. So let's talk about the dude, let's talk about Harrison. I want to, I want to transition into that. Obviously, we, we we've talked about your, your phenomenal career from high school to to, to college, to what you're doing now in a professional world. But let's talk about let's change hats, right. Let's go mom vision, right. Let's talk about it as a mom. And talk about Harrison. So correct me if I'm wrong. He plays, obviously, baseball. It's baseball season, plays basketball. You coached him. Have you always coached him, or was this season the first year? First?
Speaker 3:year.
Speaker 1:And then he also does flag football. So, um, are there any? Am I missing any sports, or is that that kind of cover it?
Speaker 3:no, if you, if you count the random events that are out front of our house or in the neighborhood, then we'll, we'll throw that in the mix, but in terms of for proper teams. You nailed.
Speaker 1:It's awesome. So so, as far as that goes, like, how how do you and Josh manage the the multi-sport balance for him? Is that something that you guys obviously both you know playing sports growing up, you know, was that something that you were like? This is important to us to make sure that he he's playing multiple sports. Elaborate on that for me, if you don't mind.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. Um, it's so important to me. I was a one sport athlete that's kind of the era that we came from and in Kentucky, like I said, yes, this is what you did and I devoted myself fully to that and the overuse injuries definitely caught up to me as a result, and so my undergraduate degrees in kinesiology and understanding all the biometrics that go into that and go into consistently using the same muscles and movements. It's just, it's so critical that we educate parents on the importance of playing a lot of different sports. And you're looking at so for Harrison's perspective, he's really tall for his age and coordination is going to be really key as it comes together. You know his mind is probably moving much faster than his body's able to, and that's 100% fine at the age of 10, right, and that's why you play all of these different sports to where you're getting exposure to having to make lateral cuts. You're getting exposure to having to make explosive you know stopping motions in football, in basketball, and a little bit different with the hand-eye that comes with baseball, and so josh and I took a really strong stance that you know you're going to play multiple sports and he loves them. It's not like we're forcing him to do so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he absolutely loves to do it and he has. He has no idea the benefits. Right, it's not like 10 year olds come with the equipped with the understanding of oh, this is actually going to be really good for me 10 years down the road. I'm just having fun. I'm out here learning, and yeah, we were. I tell everyone who will listen to me please have your kid playing multiple sports. I just don't care if it's tennis, golf, baseball, football, like go do it. If it's track, do it. But yeah, it's critical to our. You know, that's our personal standpoint.
Speaker 1:Hey, I, I, I'm totally in agreement with you on it, because it's like when we, when we started with Harlow, with it, it was more so the approach of like just get them outside and make them play a sport because he's driving us crazy inside, and it was like that was, you know, at five, six years old, and like now, for us, you know, we're kind of looking at it like from the same perspective that you're, you're sharing is like, you know, I don't, I don't, burnout is the biggest thing I fear, and it doesn't matter to me whether it's burnout for for baseball, burnout for football, whatever it is, it's like I just I fear burnout because what you just said is spot on too. At 10 years old, they what you just said is spot on too At 10 years old, they should be growing and developing. And are there life lessons that they should be learning right now? Absolutely, are there, you know, memories that should be made? Absolutely, should they be specializing? In my opinion, no, not at nine, 10 years old, you know, and I and I and I think, based on, like, what we're talking about, you, you agree with me on that that you know, specialization at an early age is just is, is is. You know, and if that's your opinion, that's your opinion. You know what I mean For somebody who doesn't agree with what we're saying. But you know, for for us, like, I totally agree with you on that. Like, just get them out there moving and and and.
Speaker 1:What I've learned as a coach is, like you know, the kids that I have that play football. For me, that are the most multi-sport athletes. Everything that they're doing is complementing that sport. Right, like you know, I'm thinking kid specifically plays basketball and baseball. He's a, he's a freak of a running back and and and a secondary, you know, defensive back, like and all I and what he learns in baseball and basketball complement that to football. And you know, and I'm sure you know, that their basketball coach or baseball coach would say the same thing about, about the football aspect, complimenting it. So, um, yeah, I, I'm 100 right on with you on that. As far as, like, multiple sport athletes being well rounded athletes, um, so, what's it like for you? Right, you played, you know, you were coached your whole life. You were also a coach, so you have that, that perspective to look at from it as well. But, like, what? What is it like for you to have your child coached by somebody else outside of yourself, like what. What are your views with that?
Speaker 3:I love it and the way that I think about it is a little bit more big picture. And the way that I think about it is a little bit more big picture. There will be different philosophies from coaches, there will be different strategies, there will be different deliveries involved, but when you think big picture, what we're preparing these kids for is less than 1% of these kids are going to go play pro. So what we're preparing them for is life after sports and getting ready for what we call the real world, and you're going to have bosses that have different styles. You're going to have coworkers that have different ways of thinking, and you've got to learn that those different styles are absolutely necessary in terms of learning how to deal with adversity. It's just a different capacity of the adversity you're learning and dealing with on the field or on the court. It's learning how to work as a young adult and a human with other humans that think differently than you do.
Speaker 3:And so for me, I am completely hands-off. I encourage him. I think the most important thing for him to see from us on the sidelines is just a positive body language and an encouraging kind of spirit. Do we approach him with an expectation of the standard is the standard. If you're going to go out there, you're going to play hard and it's a non-negotiable your attitude and your effort. But in terms of what coach is saying, don't look over at us on the sideline, because coach is coach and whatever he's saying is what needs to be done in that moment and we a hundred percent trust in that and we believe in that for him as a developing, uh, young boy, and that you have to be exposed to the different ways of learning, the different ways of people leading you, and you've got to be able to adjust accordingly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's wow, that's spot on. I love that especially. You know you're saying the standard because that's in the episode I did with Harlow. I talked about that and shared it a little bit too with, like you know, here's the expectation. This is the non-negotiable standards, regardless of what you're playing, who you're playing for, when you're doing, you know, and it goes back to the attitude and effort thing and I love that. As far as, like you know, with feedback, you know, obviously you said you're hands off during practices and all that Does he come to you guys after practices, after games, and pull feedback from you guys.
Speaker 3:Let's go, let's do a two-part with this, right. Let's talk uh him on other sports and then let's talk about it from the basketball side, where you guys coach them for sure. So let's start with the other sports first. Uh, harrison is a funny guy. Um, he he, he's 10 years old but I swear, mentally he's like 45 the way that he thinks about things or the way that he will project things to us. If you know his personality, you know he's not the kid that's coming right to me, like I was, and being direct, like the way I went to my dad was like, hey, how do I fix my shot? Or hey, what did I do wrong? Here I'm looking for direct corrections, whereas Harrison will come and he'll just start kind of probing and put out the vibe. He's like, yeah, that catch was pretty good, wasn't it? And you'll just start laughing and you're like, yeah, man, you moved your feet, you played the ball really well. We're talking baseball here. He had an incredible catch last week in the outfield. He had an incredible catch last week in the outfield, and the way that he'll come and just look for, you know, correction is very different. It's one of those like, hey, this was pretty good, what do you think, and you're expected then to meet him with yeah, buddy, I loved your effort, you made a great read. You backed up the teammate, made sure that ball didn't get past you, or you made a great catch, or you understood exactly where the ball needed to go and you got it there Great job. He's definitely not to the point where it's direct.
Speaker 3:And now from the second piece of that question, with the basketball side of things, having coached him this year, I had to be much more direct because that was what was required in the moment in leading his team, and so I coached him the same way that I coached everyone else, and for some reason, maybe you have the same experience early on with Harlow he loves to go head to head with me, and so he will.
Speaker 3:There'll be some friction from Harrison in the basketball space when I coached him, because that's just, you know, like 10 year olds man, they're, they're, they're strong willed, and so I would be correcting him in the middle of the game and he just would lose his mind a couple of times. And so what I did in one of the games this season was I, you know, brought him over to the sideline after he'd blown up and was trying to challenge the ref and I came over, corrected him, was like go back out there, you do your job, we're not worried about the ref, we're not worried, you control your behavior, you do your job. Well, he was unable to do so again for whatever reason, right In that game during that day, in that moment he's 10, not capable of kind of regulating those emotions. He lost it again. So I caught a timeout, pulled him out of the game and put someone else in.
Speaker 3:And you really don't sub at this level because everyone's got to have sort of consistent playing time and I pulled him and I hadn't subbed all year and so he was my first sub and that was to ride the pine because his attitude was terrible. And so the direct approach there. There's moments where you've got to be able to get their attention in that moment and let them know it's unacceptable and show them that, no matter where we are or what the circumstance is, that the standard must be maintained for yourself, for our team and for how we're going to move forward and grow and develop. And so a little bit different, coaching him directly this year, um, but I think that he he learned once we got to the end of the season, he understood off of that correction and we didn't really have that issue again. So a little bit of a balance there.
Speaker 1:Striking a good balance is important yeah, I for me, as far as like with coaching harlow, like one, I try to like as best as possible. Obviously, basketball is a little bit different, it's a little bit. Obviously, team size is smaller. Coaching is limited. You're not, you know you're not, you're not, especially at the youth level. You're not carrying, you know, a full, a full coaching staff. It's, you know, it was, it was you and josh, right, like that's. It's different.
Speaker 1:But, like with football, I try my hardest to avoid harlow. As far as like directly coaching him, just because, like you said, it is that cause he, he is a hundred like he is 50, 50, me and Caitlin, and it seems like the, the half of me that he is, is the part that does this and the part of Caitlin that he is they do that and so it's like you know they're, they're constantly butting heads. You know we're bunny heads. So, like for that, like I've had to have conversations with him on the coaching aspect of I'm not your dad right now, I'm your coach. So I expect, if I'm your coach, I expect your approach as an athlete, as a player, to speak to me how you would any other coach. When I get in the truck I'll be your dad again and we can have a conversation, father, son.
Speaker 1:But it is, it's hard because you know again in their, in their, in their young minds, they don't know how to shut that off and on in in the moment, right, especially when they're frustrated and they're feeling it emotionally. You know it's like you're, you're still parent to them and they don't. They don't have that so, like that's always been kind of, my coaching rule with football is like right, don't don't correct your kid, allow another coach and I've done it with some of my coaches like they'll start yelling at him and I'll go nope, I got it, I got it, walk away, let me handle it. Because they don't. That's the thing. Like they don't take it as as coach correcting me, it's automatically mom and dad and so inherently their, their automatic response is that like the solitary mindset, defensive mindset, to where they're like nope, this is mom talking to me, or this is mom talking to me, or this is dad talking to me.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I, I, I feel you on that one and it is, it is an art to coach your own kid and and and that's honestly for me that a lot of that is is the whole concept and premise behind why I, why I started this podcast from a, from a youth parent perspective, was like, hey, here's what I've absolutely sucked at, you know, and and unfortunately have had to learn. The hard lessons and and and and and have, you know, hurt my relationship with Harlow, specifically because of the way that I was coaching. Okay, like, let's back up, let's analyze how can we fix it. And and you know, I always like to clarify, like I by no means have it down, you know, a hundred percent correct either at the time, but you know, I think the biggest thing is is is always taking the time to learn and write and analyze what you're doing right, what you're doing well and how to be better at it.
Speaker 1:So, back to you, let's talk, let's talk about the opposite flip side of that coin, right, like, as far as, like, say, say, harrison's playing for a coach that you know maybe there's a coaching style or something that they don't necessarily like. There's something happening that maybe you and Josh are like I don't know about that, I'm not keen on that. Like, how do you guys handle that when you may not agree with coaching philosophy, a way that coaches are like what's your approach to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you made a commitment. You joined a team. You made a commitment. There's always opportunities in those moments where let's not even look at wins and losses for a second, but let's just look at internal conversations that you're having with a team or one-on-one direct conversations you're having with a coach. The most important thing for me with Harrison is, yeah, in every single situation there's something that you can learn, there's a lesson you can pull from that and down the road. It's either a decision of I'm going to take that and I'm going to keep it and I'm going to use that because that was good, or I'm going to remember that I didn't really love that and that's going to be something that I learned, that I don't want to do that, or I don't want to, you know, implement that later on. And so the for us, there's been a couple of different times that we've been on teams where we likely aren't aligned with the strategy or we aren't aligned with what's going on. But what we touched on here a few minutes ago was, when you're out there, you are 100 percent in control of your attitude, yes, and your behavior and your effort. Okay. And so, regardless of what the score is, regardless of if coach is playing you out of position or not, it is required of you to go out and be a good teammate. It is required of you to go out and give your best effort.
Speaker 3:I talk about competitive excellence because I am a wooden fanatic, so John Wooden fanatic. And he did not preach on like basketball right, like just an insane basketball coach. He did not preach like wins and losses. What he demanded from his team was competitive excellence. And that's not going out to try to be the best loser mentality. It's a loser mentality to blame, to look around and say it's coach's fault or they missed the ball. It's their fault, absolutely not.
Speaker 3:Like we're looking for competitive excellence. And that means taking accountability. That means going out and controlling the controllables. That means going out and being unoffended by what's happening, because you understand that your job and your role is to go out there and execute. So, regardless of what's going on, I'm actually happy sometimes when he's around. We loved our season with you all and winning that rec league championship, because that was special. That's like one of those unicorn moments where that group of kids, parents and coaches likely doesn't happen again. I'm glad he had experience and exposure to that, but that's just not the real. That's not the real world. That's not, doesn't happen consistently. You're actually fortunate to have that experience if you ever get one, but most of the time it's learning how to deal with different levels of adversity and learning how to deal with different characters and deliveries of communication and figuring out what works, what doesn't work. And you have to still go out and you've got to go execute and you're expected to do so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and to that I feel like two things right, Like talking about, like the competitive excellence that's phenomenal, because I think what happens, especially in the youth sports realm, from what I've experienced from being a parent, from being a coach is like we don't allow that anymore, right, like we don't allow, we don't teach and coach kids all the time. Go out and be the best version of yourself, right, we take out the of yourself and we teach. Go out there and be the best version of yourself, right, we take out the of yourself and we go out there and be the best version. And if you're not the best version, then a lot of times what happens is that kid gets pulled, that kid gets put, you know, in the corner and in the shadow, right, and then what is a coach are you doing in that moment for that kid? You're not developing that kid anymore.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, and that's also a standard that parents hold to their kids sometimes, and I think what happens is like the kids, it creates frustration and and and children and athletes and that's where you see kids quit sports is because over time they, you know, they, they're held to this standard of like you are supposed to be the best and if they they constantly fall short of what that standard is supposed to feel like, they get frustrated and all of a sudden now in their head, I'm not good enough, I'm never going to be good enough. Why continue to keep trying if I'm not going to be good enough? And and and yeah, like I absolutely love that, that mindset and philosophy of like go out there and be the best version of yourself, you know, and what that looks like. Like.
Speaker 3:Probably it's important as like we are the parents right, we, we are the gatekeepers to what our kids you know what they are digesting, and I mean music, shows, social media. We're the gatekeepers, we're responsible for building a a guardrail for them in terms of building that confidence, building separation of what's expectation versus reality. And so it's very important for us anyway, as a family like Harrison doesn't have social media, harrison doesn't get on like those different platforms or like we're not letting him watch things where you have the ability to let comparison come in and comparison is the thief of joy and as parents.
Speaker 3:you need to understand that. Like if you are looking at social media, please understand that that's a highlight of a kid's life, that's a highlight of a family's story. 99% of the rest of it is actually like, not as pretty as it's being put out there. Or if you're looking at it from an athletic standpoint and you're constantly on a message board or you're constantly on you know, websites who are ranking these kids at like, eight years old. That's crazy to me, because some of the best athletes in the world and we'll just talk about basketball they weren't basketball players first and they didn't pick up a ball until well into high school.
Speaker 3:And we're already writing kids off that have either passed the test and said this coach says you're really good, you're going to play, or have bought into man. There's some real potential with these kids. I'm going to coach every kid that I get the same and I'm going to give opportunities and we're going to develop at practice. We're going to have opportunities where we'll have individual sessions where you can come in and learn. There's resources everywhere, but you got to start putting actions. Where you're scrolling and you're, you know, looking and putting your focus, you've got to go actually do these things to help your kids, and so a little bit of an aside there, but like, we're the gatekeepers as parents and we've got to set that example and be that model.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, I say that all the time. What you just said, comparison is the thief of joy it is, it is so true in it and, like you said, especially the baseball world, for some reason, you see it specifically is is, it seems like, you know, you know, little Johnny hit a grand slam. That's phenomenal, Like that's awesome. That's his journey, right, so don't turn around. And for me, right, I can't, I can't hold Harlow to that standard, and I and I and I did a post about it the other week because he was getting frustrated and I just said, dude, your journey is your journey, you know, your career is your career. It doesn't it. There's not. That's not the end of you know, hitting a home run is not the end of your career. Right, it's just a step in the journey and that's and that's and that's great. But, like, what you have to remember is like what you don't see when, when somebody is sharing that, that that happened for them is the grind that happened behind the scenes, you know, and and and things like that. But yeah, I, I love that, I'm, I'm spot on, a huge, huge, huge fan of saying that, like, don't compare yourself, it's the worst thing you can do, right and that's in any realm of life.
Speaker 1:And talking about adversity, like you know, unfortunately, I think that what we see a lot in again in the youth sports world and you're seeing it trickle up, you know, unfortunately, as these kids are getting older now, because they're, you know, I mean, two UGA football players got suspended yesterday because of driving and like, but what's happening is like I don't think that we, you know, on the youth level, are doing a great job of allowing our kids to face adversity. I think what happens is we see a lot of times with adversity. We're seeing, we're seeing parents shelter the kids from that adversity, right, or making excuses as to why a little Johnny's tired, he can't come to baseball today. No, I mean, little Johnny made a commitment to stay up and play video games all night. Now you gotta go play baseball like that, because that's what you, you know, or we just or we don't like coaching styles or we don't like some. You know we don't agree with something. Or you know he wanted to play third base but coaches got to play in right field and like, and we we get upset and we protect and we pull away from that and like we're not teaching our kids.
Speaker 1:You know true life lessons of ownership, of discipline, of you know those things, and then what happens is fast forward, they're out on their own, they, they're at college and they're, you know, driving 120, driving 120 miles an hour down a you know, 35 mile an hour speed limit, Right. And so I think it's important as a coach, what I see you know and and and is is allowing your kids to face adversity, right, Because it that pressure is going to create you know lessons for them and it's going to teach them lessons that they're. You know. I think you learn as many. I think you learn more lessons in valleys than you do on top of mountains, Right, and I think that that you learn a lot about yourself as an individual. You learn a lot about you know life lessons in those moments than you do just that.
Speaker 1:And so we can't continue just to try to protect our kids. Should we protect our kids Absolutely? There are things that, like you said, social media, heck. No, you know, like we, Harlow, just got a cell phone and there's so many restrictions and limits on it. You know that, like I'm, like dude, there's things in this world that your heart and your mind are not prepared for and shouldn't be exposed to. And so it's important that we protect you from that. And I love you saying that about, like the being the gatekeeper, because I think that that is important and it is our job, Like as a parent, to protect our kid, don't get me wrong. Like I totally agree with that. But like, sometimes those those pressure situations are going to form them into, into young athletes. You know we have to allow that. We can't just say pull them away from it as soon as things get tough. Like sometimes you got to allow them the opportunity to go through that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I agree 100 percent with that, and there's a there's discernment that comes with knowing when to step in, because, like Michael Jordan is my goat, you're not going to argue with me, I don't. Michael Jordan is it, and it's not because of the rings that he won or the success he had. It's because of how direct, how directly he speaks to his failures and being able to say I was cut from my high school team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right. My mom did not give me the opportunity to be a victim or complain about it. She said you're going to have to go to work, you're going to have to get better to make it. And so we don't get Michael Jordan unless he fails and he will keep. If you listen to anything that he's ever said in the past, it's he is successful because of the thousands of times that he failed. We get the highlight reels of the dunk from the free throw line. We get the like three point shot that put the dagger into the Utah jazz. We get the highlight moments. But all of that he failed hundreds of thousands of times before he had all of those successes. And so the discernment there is what I think people, especially parents, get so caught up in is immediate gratification, immediate success, immediately seeing this instant return on investment, which is just not. It's not real life at all.
Speaker 1:It's the microwave generation that's what that's what I call it Right. It's everything's. We expect this and it's not that always.
Speaker 3:And like yesterday sort of like, brought all of the you talked about, like they're not going to play forever. Right, we, we know that, like you're not going to play forever I touched on, you're not going to play forever. Most of these kids aren't going pro, it's just not. It was kind of a humbling moment. They uh, they got a brand new softball and middle school baseball facility and they did a dedication for the field yesterday and it was back in 2022, there was a fourth grader at his school that tragically passed Um and this kid was a multi-sport athlete, just did everything the right way, like, had the best attitude, the best outlook on sports, was an incredible teammate and we were able to honor and dedicate this field to his kid. And his mom got up and spoke and it was just so humbling to hear their perspective, even in loss of like, how that kid approached it and how they sort of perceive, you know, his, his journey, his young journey in athletics and how he just gave everything. And I'm just like if I could take what she's saying, even in this moment where it's still so fresh, like they lost him just a few years ago and everyone on this campus, like our, the motto there is live like him and like play like him.
Speaker 3:And it's one of those things where, if we just step back as parents for one second, remove ourself from the moment of instant gratification or instant success or instant return on the investment that in time that you've put in, and we just look at them, as you know, the young, developing, growing humans that they are, they can, they teach us a few things if we let them. And if you let them go out and fail, in these moments there's so much more you touched on it as well there's so much more room for growth in those moments because you didn't fail, you learned. It was a lesson. You didn't lose, you absolutely didn't lose.
Speaker 3:And this mom mentioned she was like when she was growing up. She went to school at UGA and was a gymnast and her coach said you know, winners make corrections, losers make excuses, but winners make corrections and when you fail you've got to correct. And they don't know how to do that if we get in their way. So just all of that to say humble yourself as a parent, step away for just one second, and and, and see what this particular moment can teach both you and your kid.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh yeah, spot on, absolutely. I, I, I, we. I could do two hours just talking about that topic in and of itself, just from everything that I've learned and experienced as a parent and as a youth coach. Um, so let's go back to spring 2004 season. Like I, you know, it was so ryan and I both came from, you know, coaching separately. Like we both came to the same, or I actually came to oregon park because of ryan being there and we being a football together. He was like we love it, come play, you know.
Speaker 1:And then harlowlow, and Harlow and Will knew each other from football, Never had the opportunity to play together. They kind of came out of a season where they were a little bit frustrated. I was like, at the end of football season, I was like, hey, if you, if you want to coach a team, I make one heck of an assistant coach. I'm just saying and literally a week later, he goes, hey, I signed up. Later, he goes, hey, I signed up, we're coaching together. And I was like, oh, shoot, and so, uh, but I was pumped because harlow and will had never had the opportunity to play together. But, um, I remember pretty quickly on, like when we started talking through the selection process and kind of figuring out, he said, look, I've had this family on my team for a couple seasons. Harrison's a great kid, they're a great family, he, he's an athlete, we, we're going to put him on the team. And I was like you're the boss, whatever you say, and it was, it was cool, you know, to bring that team together and to do the do the work and prepare and coach those kids. And see, you know, specifically highlighting on on Harrison, and you know he has so much athletic ability and potential there. And I remember I remember having a conversation with you and Josh one time.
Speaker 1:I think I kind of got on to Harrison. It was pregame. He kind of had a little bit of attitude and I was like I kind of was like hey, we're not walking into a game like that, like let's fix the attitude, like we got to have the right mindset, right approach going in. And I was like I like these people, okay, we're good, yeah, okay, I see we're in the same, you know, in the same mindset with that. But the dude had a phenomenal season in and of itself just to see, you know, his growth from. You know, from that February to the end of, I think what, april May, when the season ended, to see him put in the hard work, the growth and development.
Speaker 1:You know it was the first year these kids are, you know, dealing with kid pitch, so it's having to work through that a little bit. You know you're going from a coach that's, you know, dialing it in for the most part right where the kid wants it to, all of a sudden, like one's buzzing the tower. You know you smell the baseball coming past your face, you know, and they're all over the place and it was, it was cool for him specifically to see him kind of work through that mentality a little bit. And you know you could tell the beginning he was, he was frightened, which he had every right to be, because it's terrifying having a ball like hurled right at you, right and you're trying to like stay in the box and stay confident. But but we worked with him all season long and coached him up. But we worked with him all season long and coached him up.
Speaker 1:And you know, and I remember several games, you know they would all go to the field and he and I would stay in the batting cages for, you know, 20, 30 extra pitches and I'm like dude, just it's the mindset walking in I'm going to smash the ball. I'm going to smash the ball and I'll never forget, like for me as a coach, a very proud moment for me. With him, we're in the championship game, it's game three of the series and he just freaking, annihilates a ball out the center field and I, I it was. It was an incredible moment because it literally shifted the momentum for that game just 100 to us at that point. But like for him as a player and as an individual, to see him accomplish that in that stressful moment, like I, it was. Like I'm my eye chills talking about it because it's just a. It's such a rewarding experience as a coach to see that happen. So let's flip it. For you as a parent, what was that moment like? Like for you, how? What were you experiencing in that, in that moment?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was wild because we were down, like we were down and it was not looking great. And if anyone you know follows along or has been around 10-year-old boys when they get down, you know they have a tendency to just get really emotional and you just don't know where it's going to go. Are they going to fight? Are they going to lay down? We don't know where it's going to go Are they going to fight?
Speaker 3:Are they going to lay down? We don't know. And so Harrison gets up to bat. And this kid like you you painted a picture here he had been he struggles because the ball coming at him is not natural in the slightest.
Speaker 1:Well, he's hyperventilating too. I mean, mind you that, like he was like breathing heavy, like you could see the panic on his face and I remember being like hey breathe, it's going to be okay.
Speaker 3:And so, like, the biggest thing you hope for your kid in that moment is I don't need you thinking about all the failures, I need you thinking about all of the work that you've put in to prepare yourself for that moment. And he in that moment, to me, cause I was behind, I was beside our dugout on the first baseline, so in between like home plate and our dugout, shooting, you know, just getting pictures, it's a great way for me to stay engaged, but also like not freaking out either Because, again, I had no control in this moment. I want it so bad for him. Let's see what happens. And so you know he gets up there and that first pitch comes in and it's a swing and a miss and I was like, okay, well, he swung, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 3:And so you know when the second one comes in and you hear the sound is what I remember still. Yeah, I heard it hit off of that sweet spot in the back. And then I looked up away from the camera lens and that sucker was flying. Yes, up away from the camera lens and that sucker was flying. And I'm like, oh man, we got left field out here. This kid couldn't make this catch. And he goes over the left field, kid, and I'm like oh, wow.
Speaker 3:And I go back and I look at the game changer video and it cracks me up because you're the person I watch on this video. You're sitting on a bucket right next to the dugout on the first baseline and he hits it and your head immediately whips over and finds the ball and you're watching it. And as soon as it lands behind that left field, you jump up and your hands are like up in victory formation. And then we have andy at first base who's just bringing them around like oh, go, go, go, go. And then ryan's at third base and so we've got a runner leaving second, coming home. That would was it a tie or would it have given us the lead?
Speaker 1:I can't. I think I think it put us in the lead. I think I think it put us in the lead on that yeah, so we had him come, and so they throw it home.
Speaker 3:It's a late throw. David comes flying and scores the run for us, harrison takes off from second to third and then the dugout is losing it. Harrison looks over at you guys and you know last year the big thing that the Braves were doing that Albie started was bringing the hands together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So he looks over at you guys and you meet him with the same energy and it's just. It's one of those moments I will literally never forget. It'll probably be my favorite moment, um, unless something crazy happens down the road, but sure it will he them.
Speaker 1:But you've got to like again we talked about.
Speaker 3:you've got to know and have some discernment and a sound mind and when you come in and say something, that's either correction or when your kid just needs you to give them a hug and some encouragement, and you'd be surprised how, like someone like Harrison who's just an incredible teammate, lifting up everyone, making sure the energy in the dugout is there had like only a handful of hits all season.
Speaker 3:He came into his own in that game, made sure that like energy was up over there and then when it came time, he came through for his teammates and that's really what I think Like they always encouraged him and kept him up and in the moment when they needed him, he came through for him and the team more importantly. So I think that he was able to just think about in the moment what's required of me I can do this and just launched one, and I'm glad he did, because we don't get that moment unless he's failed so many times before in that season. And yeah, he was down on himself. Yeah, you guys had to do a heck of a lot of work to get him to the point where he was at, but it's a beautiful thing when you see that development all come together. I just wouldn't trade it for the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and I think too for him, like, I think it's an important life lesson he learns in that moment that, like, failure doesn't define who you are Right, like, like we've talked about that, you know in depth already with this, but, like you know, like I remember saying that to him several times it's okay, that's baseball, it's a bad day at the office? Right, it's going to happen, everybody has a bad day at the office on the baseball field Like, but that doesn't that moment, that game, it doesn't define who you are as an athlete, right, you know, as an athlete, right, and what matters is that you're learning and you're building and you're improving. And I think seeing all of that like in that clutch moment for him that showed true definition to who his character was as an athlete, is that he didn't doubt himself, he didn't make excuses as to why he struggled all season. He stepped up to the challenge and rose to the occasion and pushed his team to the occasion and and and pushed his team to where, exactly where it needed to be.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's that's a great life lesson for for him and for everybody not to not to make the excuses, like like we've talked about, of like, well, I just suck at this, or you know, I mean there's, you know, all the wind, the dirt blew my eye. I mean there's so many reasons and excuses that we can easily make, but for him to go, nope, and then come in clutch on that because he believed in himself and his teammates believed in him, that's, that's, that's huge, huge and phenomenal, and and um, let's so, so, let's, let's kind of, let's kind of get wrapping up. I know, I know you, you have a work call here. You got a hot ball in here in a minute. But looking back on your journey in sports, what's the biggest takeaway for you from everything?
Speaker 3:The biggest thing from my playing days was if I can look back and be proud. It's not wins and losses, it's not individual accolades, it's the mentality that I took about everything that I did and it was competitive excellence and coming in every day, understanding that you put in the work, it's dues paid. You might see it today, you might not, and that's going to have to be okay and that's a mentality that you have to have coming in and that's for any age, but the quicker that you can understand that hard is actually like required. And you have the choice of choosing your hard now or, unfortunately, being dealt your hard later. And what I mean by that is you can choose to get up early and get your work done. You can choose to go get those extra shots in before practice or after practice. You can choose to put your work in and that's your hard right now. And that is you get to make that decision every day and that choice to put your work in and it's going to be hard. Or you can take the easy route. You can say I'll do it tomorrow, I'll get that done later. And easy route you can say I'll do it tomorrow, I'll get that done later, and you don't get to choose your heart with the outcome. It just it's going to get dealt because you didn't, you didn't put in that work. And so the mindset, this podcast. If there's one thing I could leave with with parents and young athletes is just do your work daily. Bring an amount of joy in doing it.
Speaker 3:Understand that not every day is going to be easy. We cannot be guided by the feelings of like oh, I am definitely about it today, I am ready to go. You have to be disciplined in your approach and if we're guided by our feelings, those feelings aren't facts, you're not going to be motivated every day off of feelings. You're going to be disciplined in your approach and if we're guided by our feelings, those feelings aren't facts, you're not going to be motivated every day off of feelings. You're going to be tired. There's going to be days when you want to quit, and so for me, in the way that I approached it, it's absolutely this is discipline. I will be disciplined. I'm choosing hard now so I can see the benefits of what I want to do later.
Speaker 3:And the much bigger picture down the road for players is you hope there's development, you hope there's learning, you hope that all of these skills come together and you have a successful career. But way more than that, it's the life skills, the life lessons and the preparedness you have moving outside of sports and as parents. The same thing applies, just in a different way as we look at it from a different perspective. It's be disciplined with your kids. Don't let them be complainers. Don't let them come in and have an excuse every time.
Speaker 3:You can correct them in that moment to say, hey, we're going to stop right there, we're going to change our brain is what I tell Harrison. Change your brain, change your body language. Next play Everything is next play. Did you hit a home run? Great. Next play. Did you strike out? Great, next play.
Speaker 3:It doesn't matter. Every single play is different. And if you take that mindset and you take that mentality of I'm choosing my heart now and I'm going to direct and steer this ship where it needs to go, based off of my decision to just do it now and not deflect it, then if we can get that kind of mental shift from me, me, me what's in it for me? How do I highlight myself, how do I put myself out there and just get every kid focused on, how can you come in with a better mindset. And how do you get better today? Just 1% better across the board, like man. We're gonna see a huge shift in youth sports if we can get buy-in at that level oh yeah, next time you see harley, ask him because he'll answer it for you.
Speaker 1:I always, because I say to him all the time, like when he starts making excuses he'll say something I'll go hey, what excuses make. And he'll go losers, like walk away. Because it's just like you know, I'm not trying to be harsh with it with him on that, but I'm just like there's no sense in making excuses. Like we can make excuses about everything, like own up, fix it, move on, like spot on, um, let's go rapid fire real quick, and then, uh, and then, and then we'll wrap it up, um.
Speaker 3:Jeff Shepard, kentucky insane. His kid, reed Shepard, is now playing for the Rockets. But man, if you can go back and watch some tape on Jeff Shepard, that guy was filthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice Go-to pregame hype song.
Speaker 3:Oh man, I think back in the day it was. Oh, I think they, like me, did. You know what that is. That's so pride and ego back in the day. Yeah or halftime. I liked halftime too.
Speaker 1:There you go, there you go. What's like one coaching phrase that, like you swore you'd never use, but now you catch yourself saying it all the time.
Speaker 3:Oh boy, there's a ton. Like there's so many goofy things. My coach in high school was like just a you know great guy from the mountains of Kentucky, but he'd be like you know, like it'd just be random country things coming out of his self. Like dad burn it and just like it's not so much a full saying as it is like words and single one-liner, like you're just like where did that come from?
Speaker 1:yeah, that's, that's hilarious. Uh, favorite basketball shoe of all time oh the two, the hirachi 2K4s.
Speaker 3:Those are filthy, just absolutely disgusting to play in. It's probably rivaled by a Jordan 10. I'm a little bit biased by having that at Carolina, but like those two shoes were go-tos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you have a pretty extensive shoe collection.
Speaker 3:It's a problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have none. Like Harlow was like showing me today like here's a video how to fix crease shoes. I was like I don't own any shoes that I have to worry about creasing. That's not, that's not me. Um, and then, uh, what's your favorite place that you've traveled?
Speaker 3:playing sports oh man, um, that's a toughie. Let me think back to it. I think that there's nothing special to it. We played in high school at this gym across the Kentucky and West Virginia border. It was called Williamson Arena and it's this. I don't even know if it's still standing. I really hope it is. But like, look it up when we get done with this call. It is this like old school, like supersedes, even the movie Hoosiers type of gym.
Speaker 3:It gives this insane old school feel Like we went and we played Huntington Prep up there and it was just an absolute, like we'll call it. This is bringing up some of those words that I would never say but I'm going to say like slobber knocker of a game in between, like us and this powerhouse, huntington Prep team and we were playing venues amazing, but go look up Williamson arena.
Speaker 1:All right, awesome, I will do it. Well, rebecca, I greatly appreciate your time today talking about this. Good luck with your March madness brackets Mine. I might as well throw mine out the window. Who do you have winning at all?
Speaker 3:Florida. I mean, gosh, if they stay healthy, there's not going to be too many people I see stopping them. But like I love coach golden style, his tenacity, he's gritty, he has that same kind of fire in his belly that I like to have when I'm coaching and I just think that that's going to be a tough team to get out.
Speaker 1:I somehow ended up with Duke putting Duke to win it all. So I know I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I I. You know I knew Georgia wasn't lasting very long, so I worked around with it, but, um well, I greatly appreciate your time on this. Thank you so much for for all your insight and wisdom on it. And, uh, and and. Thank you very much for being on the call. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 3:That was good. Appreciate you, Chris Yep. Bye.
Speaker 1:Jeff, what's up, buddy? Welcome home back from Canada.
Speaker 2:How were your travels? Travels were interesting, to say the least, but we're back, we're here, we're home with from Canada. How were your travels Travels?
Speaker 1:were interesting, to say the least. But we're back, we're here, we're home with the family and it was a good trip. It was a good trip, heck. Yeah, man, that's awesome dude. So I wanted to make sure that you had a chance to listen to the recording with Rebecca in the interview. But let's start it off with Rebecca in the interview, but let's just let's start it off. What, what are, what are some key takeaways that you got from that interview that you want to. You want to make sure that we highlight on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first off, I thought Rebecca did a great job. I mean, I don't know much about basketball and hoops and I feel like I got a crash course in about an hour and a half of how it all works about, at least like back in our day, cause I feel like she's she's around our age and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But um you know one of the first things that that I got was just the inner drive that she had from, you know, being a young kid to growing up like she lived and died playing basketball, playing hoops and um, always putting goals in front of her um and going out and getting them, and I think that's huge. I think there's been a common theme with some of the guests that that you've had on and that we'll have on it's, there's a there's, there's no substitute for having an inner drive. There's not, and I thought that was that was something that I took away from from Rebecca. That, you know, is a pretty important message is you can have all the motivation but if you don't have the drive, you're not going to go very far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hundred percent. No, I thought it was cool to talk about that inner drive, like for her. I think she said kindergarten age, but for her to be in kindergarten and to see a banner hanging on the on the gym rafters and be like I'm going to eat that as like a kindergartner and then to actually accomplish it, man, like that's such a cool story for her to be able to share and I thought it was cool. Her mom said that. Like she said her mom still brags about that and talks about that, tells people that story.
Speaker 1:So another thing I like that that I thought was was pretty cool to hear from her and I obviously know her personally from from coaching Harrison and they're kind of in our our sports family group but, um, but you know her saying that you know putting family first was a huge reason why she transferred back to kentucky. Like, yeah, you don't, you don't really. I'm sure it still happens this day and age, but it doesn't seem like that's a that's a common narrative anymore with athletes. Like I feel like, yeah, most this day and age, most kids are like I live in georgia, I'm gonna go play in california and get as far away from home as possible.
Speaker 2:So like for her to make that decision to come back to kentucky to be close to home I I thought that was awesome yeah, I thought the the thing that hits home with me obviously, I think about the recruiting side and kids going to choose that for her.
Speaker 2:Basketballs in any sport you play in college is only one piece of the puzzle and there's a lot of things that go into it. Distance away from home, Um, the city you're in, um, those kinds of things all need to be weighed in and you know she I can't say she made a basketball decision, but she probably made the best decision for her and her family. And then she realized, wow, I'm from a small town in Kentucky and family is important for me. I can go back home and get everything that I want out of the experience in college. So I think it's important just to. That always hits me on the recruiting side of things because kids are just chasing a logo and all that kind of stuff and I don't think Rebecca by any means was doing that. But the sport she plays is only one piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 2:And if that sport goes away in baseball. I like to call it the Tommy John test. If you go off to XYZ school and you have Tommy John and your career ends, are you going to see yourself there for four years enjoying the city, enjoying the school, getting a good education, education?
Speaker 1:if the answer is no, it's probably not the right environment for you right, yeah, and and and to that I mean, you know she, she went through all the crazy health complications and issues that she did, like once transferring to kentucky and you know and I think about that too like what her mindset would have been like differently and how she would have dealt with that being in north carolina nine hours away from home, as opposed to being, you know, close enough to home there.
Speaker 1:She had her parents and her support system there to to help her through that and, and, you know, I think I think that was huge and and and such such a benefit to her, you know, with recovering and working. And then, you know, finding out all that stuff. You know that she had with the, you know, with the QT syndrome was a misdiagnosis to then turn around and get her basketball career back. And you know, I thought it was cool, like you know, I asked her, you know, did it change her perspective on having a second chance at playing? And she was like, yes, you know, and going to give it everything she had at that point was so cool to hear that that second chance just made her grind and work even harder than she did before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tried to put myself in that situation just like where would I be mentally? The type of mental toughness that it takes to get through that when you live and breathe a sport for your entire life and you're sitting on the doorstep of being done with it forever. I mean it goes back to that inner drive. If you don't have that, you probably crumble and you probably give it up. I see a lot of God's timing in that as well. Up and you know I.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of god's timing in that, as well, like you know what happens if she stays at unc and you know she goes through this hours and hours from home. Like is the result different? Like I feel like there's a lot of god's timing in that for her as well. And um, it's just, I saw a big blessing in disguise, um, with her injury and how everything kind of played out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:I think another cool thing that we got on the topic of talking about that that I love to hear is is she used the phrase competitive excellence and, like.
Speaker 1:I love that from a perspective of, like you know, I'm sure for you, like coaching, on the collegiate side of things, it's a different, it's a little bit different aspect as far as, like, what the expectations are as opposed to to youth athlete, but at the same time it's it's still the same, right, I know that it's different, but the same Right, Like for youth version, right, I'm dealing with kids that are still young and developing and and you know, and and you have to make sure that those expectations aren't so great that the kid gets frustrated, right, and it doesn't feel like he can ever accomplish anything because the expectations are too great. So I love the phrase competitive excellence and her saying come out and be the best version of you, which I think that phrase in and of itself can translate to from youth level to collegiate, to professional level, right, and I, I, really, I really hung on to that. I like that.
Speaker 2:She said the other thing too, kind of in in that little portion is. She said you know, you, you get this big picture view of what you feel like success looks like, that that view can be so big and so daunting. You feel like success looks like that that view can be so big and so daunting. And if you take a step back and you look at each piece of the puzzle as small wins, that's when things start to snowball and and move quickly. So you know, for her I think it was a combination of small wins over time kind of got her, um, her confidence back in that inner drive back to you know, kind of work through this misdiagnosis and stay competitive along the way.
Speaker 1:Another thing I really liked that she shared was talking about allowing her son, harrison, to be coached by other coaching styles and I like what she talked talked about how that actually helps prepare kids for the world outside of sports and prepares us right to interact with different humans, you know, and and have differing personalities and opinions and things like that.
Speaker 1:So I thought that was really cool that that she said that. You know, I kind of wondered that like once I, you know, I I got to know her a little bit but like before I coached Harrison on that team, you know, I knew, like you know, our friends were like, yeah, she played basketball, you know, at Kentucky. You know, you hear somebody that's like a D1 athlete. You kind of are like what's their expectation as a parent coming into that? But like to then now hear hers and I had that interaction where I kind of was hyping Harrison up one game and was like, hey, I think that's okay. I kind of got on to him a little bit and they were like, yeah, 100%, go for it. And I was like, oh, good, okay, but that was cool to hear her say that that's kind of the way that they view that is like preparing him for the real world.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think it's huge. I mean, I think you just and kids don't see that they have Harrison, doesn't see this in the moment that he's learning. You know different teaching styles, different learning styles, this and different discipline styles. Like Rebecca and her husband realized that and I think there's a lot of value in that and, um, you know, when she said that, I was like man, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1:That's my excuse to not coach my kid in the future?
Speaker 2:But no, it does. And I think back to kind of the people that have shaped me in my life, and you can probably attest to this too. They're all coaches, all of them different sports, different leadership styles, different motivation, tactics or strategies or whatever you want to call them, but all those kind of shape like how you learn and how you view the world, and you kind of have to sift through that as a kid to kind of say, ok, you know, these are good things, these are bad things, this is what I like, this is what I don't like. And you know, as you grow, up and play for more coaches.
Speaker 2:When you get to that point where you're choosing a college or wherever you want to be, or a job or anything along those lines, you're going to think back to these different leadership styles what kind of makes you tick, and things like that. I thought that was a phenomenal point. I can't say that I've thought about that as a dad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, I I would say for me too, just I mean, it's probably that aspect of thinking that way as a parent really probably for me hasn't really started to shift that that way in that mindset, probably until the last really two years of getting into understanding like the psychology behind coaching and, and and all of that, as opposed to just going out there and coaching the, the game of football, or and all of that, as opposed to just going out there and coaching the, the game of football or the game of baseball just for what it is right and and. So I think, like understanding and appreciating that psychology is kind of realizing there's more to the landscape of it besides just being the game itself.
Speaker 2:So and on and on. The flip side of that too, I mean. I mean she mentioned how she does coach her kids. She's almost harder on Harrison when she is the coach. I know she gave us the example of how she had to yank him.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think it's good for when she said that I think of Deion Sanders and how he walks down the sidelines before every game with his two sons and like, hey, this is the last time in this moment that we're going to act like father, son, once, once once you guys come out for kickoff, like it's strictly business, strictly relationships.
Speaker 2:So I think, as parents, coaches, parent coaches, whatever we are, if we're coaching our kid, if we can draw that line and have them understand it, I think it it's going to be hard for them to understand it, obviously, but in the moment it'll be hard to understand, but I think in the future and in the long run they'll really understand. Oh wow, I, I see what my mom or dad was doing. You know back in the day with with, you know coaching me harder and stuff like that. Because you're the coach's kid, you're gonna be held to a higher standard and you're coached differently. Everybody's gonna see it.
Speaker 1:Well, you are the standard. I mean that's the problem, especially like in youth sports, you know. I mean you are the standard. And Harlow and I talked about that a little bit in his episode where you know unfortunately it's the cross you bear, if you will that you are the coach's kid, because that's what happens inherently is like every kid watches the coach's kid. If the coach's kid slacks off, guess what they think they can do. Slack off, if the coach's kid has a bad attitude, everybody else has a bad attitude.
Speaker 1:And I remember, like probably four years ago, harlow like, walking up to me on the football field, to me like, hey, dad, and I'm like, don't call me that, I'm not your dad, like you know, like, and he was like what? But but it was like teaching him he has to understand the separation of like in the truck, I'm your dad. On the field, I'm your coach and I expect you to turn it off of the mindset that I'm your dad, because I don't want you to think that you get any different treatment because I am your father. Right, you're an athlete and a player on this team and that's the expectation that you do.
Speaker 1:Obviously, kids know that there's it's still, you know it's regardless. Right, we can say turn the titles off, but it's still my son, and so that's where it's important to hold them to a certain standard. But yeah it, it is hard, and that's that's what I said in that when we were talking about that segment. I'm like coaching your kid is an art, because whether you want to try to turn it off or not, emotionally, there's still that, that emotional connection between you and your child, and in it's you want the best for them and and so it is very hard to turn that off and turn that away a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:So it is like learning that balancing act, so, um, and it's also like even on the flip side of that too, I think about like we find it hard to coach our kid and I'm saying this theoretically because I'll probably be coaching my kids here but it's gotta be equally as hard to be like dang, my dad's the coach, you know what I mean, like oh yeah, I'm pretty sure that comes with that.
Speaker 2:Like if they have their little conversations in the huddle or on the sidelines and one kid says something to Harlow or Harrison, is he going to go tell his dad? The coach.
Speaker 1:It's tough for the kid too.
Speaker 2:I just think, if and I think these are good avenues to have these type of conversations I know it's hard to play for dad, but I'm coach and I know it's hard for you to play for your dad, but, like, these are the expectations, like if you can just lay it out there for him, I think it helps them. Okay, my dad is like vocalizing the reasons he's coaching me hard or you know those things. I think it'll allow your, your kids, to kind of you know, maybe start to see behind the scenes a little bit of what mom and dad are trying to accomplish with you know, coaching you or not.
Speaker 1:So well and and and to all of that. You know what? What I'm learning is the balance of right I'm coach, but like also learning the balance of when it's time to be dad. Sometimes they don't want you to always be coach, sometimes they want you to be dad and sometimes just being dad is saying great job, I'm proud of you, I love you, you worked hard out there. Today, sometimes coach can be the constructive criticism, but dad needs to be the support group. Right and and and and be the be the encouragement that they need because it, you know, sometimes it's like games over with. Your emotion and adrenaline are still, you know, at a hundred and you get in the truck and you know it's like you're frustrated or angry about something and it's like let it go, like let it go. They need you to be dad right now.
Speaker 2:I think, having some empathy in that moment, I think it's easier for us to have to empathize with other kids because they're not our son or they're not our daughter that we plan for. But you know, we're old enough to where we're coaching these kids that we can see. You know something's wrong and you know that's the place where you got to be like, okay, he doesn't need coach, he needs dad. And I think, if you know, I think you can earn a lot more respect with your kid and just be like, like you said, hey man, I love you. May not have been the best day or I know it's a tough day, but you know let's move on. If you want to talk about it, let's talk about it, if not, that's fine. I think those things are big for the kids as they as, as they kind of grow, because they can be at that tough age, that pre-adolescent age, and even into the adolescent age?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:One other thing that she said, that a phrase that really stuck with me and we've all heard it in a different aspect, in a different realm and probably in a different version, but when she was talking about choose right, like that's kind of a conversation Harlow and I have been having recently about not just sports but about school, right, like you know, I'm like look, discipline, right, you have to choose to do the work now and you have to choose to put in the work whether that's homework, batting, practice, field work, like just strength training you have to choose to do that stuff now because it's going to come back to find you one way or another later.
Speaker 1:The negative hard can be you lose a starting position, you have bad at-bats, you have bad grades because you're not doing your homework, and so that phrase of being being disciplined and choosing your heart and like I heard that phrase said another way around, and I think I posted it on the social medias too is, like you know, discipline is choosing. You know is choosing to do the hard work now, because discipline makes it hard today but it makes tomorrow easy, as opposed to making today easy and tomorrow hard. Right, like you know, choosing to be disciplined. I think that's a huge and you can probably attest to this right, being a former D1 baseball player like discipline is crucial. I think discipline probably sits as a huge cornerstone as a successful athlete, regardless of what level you're looking at it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny she said that because it hit home with me too, because at Reinhardt last year our team saying was choose hard, and anything in life that's easy is not as gratifying in the end when you get it. If it's hard it makes it worth it. And I remember the beginning of last year. I mean this is, this is. We didn't know it at the time. This team started like I think we started one of four and like four and seven and we finished this season like 44 and 16, third at the third in the country at the world series, a game away from the national title game.
Speaker 2:But if you look back, like we had to choose hard in each of those moments okay, we're one in four or we're not playing well, like how do we get through that? So you know, it can be anything like I just think when you have a path to choose, the hard, one may be the most resistance, but getting to the end that way is going to be the most rewarding. And it just, it just goes to show like there's, there's really no shortcuts. Really, what is easy? Nothing's easy. Making that conscious effort to like okay, I'm going to do it the hard way. I know the hard way is going to be more beneficial in the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that principle in and of itself is scriptural. That's scriptural right. That's talking about the wide gate and the narrow gate right and choosing that. The wide gate may seem like the easier option, but ultimately it leads to death and destruction, as opposed to the narrow right. It leads you to glory and I mean that's wow. I mean to take a biblical principle to that and all of a sudden translate that to your life across any realm, in any aspect that you look at. So yeah, man, I it was I was yeah, she was great.
Speaker 1:She was great, yeah, yeah, they're, they're a fantastic family. I, you know, I, I I've absolutely, you know, love getting to know all of them. So I, uh, I'm sure that, uh, you know I don't know if you saw, you got to watch the video you know, I kind of surprised her. She didn't know that I was going to talk about all that with Harrison at the very end, about, you know, hitting that hit and, like, dude, it was it like for me as a coach, like such a fulfilling and gratifying moment for for a young man who just had a great attitude all season long, for a young man who just had a great attitude all season long and you know it was dealing with with the, with the mindset of kid pitch for the first season.
Speaker 1:And you know he had, you know, had at bats where he struck out and it just was frustrated, but like he never got down about it, you know he would drop his head a little bit. I'd be like, hey, man, next play, next play, your time's coming, your time's coming, and like for his time to come, like you know, and he had some great hits all season long. Don't don't, I don't want to sound like that was literally his one hit. He had all season. That's not what I'm saying like, but like you know it. But for him to have such such a play, a huge vital role and such a huge moment for a nine-year-old like dude it was, it was. It was so awesome, I was so incredibly proud of him.
Speaker 2:Those moments, too, are validating. It's like I can do this, you know, because you can be, discouraged at that age because it's like maybe I can't do this or everyone else is doing it and I can't. So you know she mentioned it, like seeing it click for the player. I know she mentioned that. Yeah, it's satisfying. So, yeah, I thought she did a fantastic job.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I think that's all I got, man. I greatly appreciate your insight on everything. I wanted to make sure we got you included in on the on the interview and got your takeaways from it. So, um, but just want to tell all of our listeners thank you so much. We greatly appreciate the support and and and all of the encouragement that we're getting via text messages and all of that. So just keep listening and we guarantee we're going to have some more great content ahead. Thank you.
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