Navigating Youth Sports as a Christian Parent: W/ Away Game Authors Brian Smith & Ed Uszynski

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How can Christian dads navigate the challenges of youth sports while leading their families well?
What practical steps can fathers take to disciple their kids through competitive environments?
Is it possible to keep faith at the center of your family's sports experience without burning out?

This week on the MOI Podcast, we sit down with authors Brian Smith and Ed Uszynski to dive deep into the realities and pressures of youth sports culture and its impact on men, their marriages, and their children. Hosted by Ryan Zook, this episode tackles powerful questions every dad faces: how do we balance our ambitions for our children with God’s call to spiritual leadership? How do we cut through the clutter, reclaim our weekends, and make space for what matters most?

#fatherhood #leadership #discipleship #youthsports #christianmen #familylife #menofiron

Transcript

Ryan Zook [00:00:00]:
This episode of the Men of Iron podcast has been sponsored by Garmin Builders. Garmin Builders sets the standard in home construction. With more than 50 years of expertise, Garmin Builders has been building homes, communities and connections that positively impact the lives of others. By blending tradition with innovative building science, Garmin delivers a better built, more efficient home. Discover the edge@garminbuilders.com thanks again to Garmin Builders for sponsoring this episode of the Men of Iron podcast.

Brian Smith [00:00:27]:
And I'm doing some, some analysis of my own heart, of what's going on and what's coming out of my mouth as I'm watching my kids play. Just realizing there's a massive gap between who I claim to be as a Christ follower and how that looks practically when I'm sitting in the stands or on the sidelines of the games. And me wondering, man, where do I go to get discipleship in this space? Where do I go to get resourcing from a Christian perspective on this space? And there's not much out there. There's a lot of secular research on it, but not a lot of biblically grounded resources. And so that's, that's what led Ed and I to write the book, is we needed a resource for our own heart and lives.

Ryan Zook [00:01:10]:
Hey, welcome back to the Men of Iron Podcast. At Men of Iron, we want you to thrive in your core five, that is your faith, family, friends, fitness and finances. We have all kinds of resources that can help you on that journey.

Brian Smith [00:01:21]:
You.

Ryan Zook [00:01:22]:
If you could use some help in one of those areas, check out the links in our description, we'd be happy to help you. Today on the podcast we have Ed and Brian. They are the authors of Away Game, A Christian Parents Guide to Navigating Youth Sports. And I'm excited to have them on the podcast because we have bumped into this issue of Youth Sports over and over and over again as we work with guys in small groups or one on one mentorships. Youth sports are everywhere. If you're a dad, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And sometimes it can kind of be challenging to figure out what to do and how to use them. So Ed and Brian are here with us. Make sure you check out the book if you think it'd be helpful to you. And we're going to jump into the conversation today. Welcome, guys.

Brian Smith [00:02:00]:
Thanks for having us, Ryan.

Ed Uszynski [00:02:02]:
Yeah, thanks, Ryan.

Ryan Zook [00:02:03]:
So just to start off, maybe if each of you could just let me know a little bit about yourself and what led you to want to write this book.

Brian Smith [00:02:10]:
My name is Brian Smith. I'VE been on staff with a sports ministry called Athletes in action for 17 years. I ran track and cross country at Wake Forest University, married to my wife Lindsay for 20 years. Now she's on staff with the same sports ministry as I am. She ran track and cross country at Wisconsin. We have three kids, one in high school, one in middle school, and one elementary. They all play youth sports, so I've also coached at just about every single level possible from Division 1 Track and Cross country all the way down to like third and fourth grade basketball, football, soccer. And I'm currently a high school cross country coach right now, so been in and through it, every level of sports imaginable and I'm, I'm living the experience of the book that we, that we just got done writing. Ed will probably speak a little bit more to this, but even as I got into this space and I'm doing some, some analysis of my own heart, of what's going on and what's coming out of my mouth as I'm watching my kids play, just realizing there's a massive gap between who I claim to be as a Christ follower and how that looks practically when I'm sitting in the stands or on the sidelines of the games. And me wondering, man, where do I go to get discipleship in this space? Where do I go to get resourcing from a Christian perspective on this space? And there's not much out there. There's a lot of secular research on it, but not a lot of biblically grounded resources. And so that's, that's what led Ed and I to write the book, is we needed a resource for our own heart and lives.

Ed Uszynski [00:03:50]:
And my name's Ed Yusinski. I have a very parallel story to Brian's. I grew up. It's just got different colors on it is all. I grew up in a football coach's home, high school football coach's home, but I was a basketball player on the west side of Cleveland. I married Amy, who was a two sport athlete in college basketball and soccer. We have four kids, all of whom have played sports. Three are in college right now. One has played college basketball, the other two have. And we have a ninth grader who's still at home. And I keep saying we get one more chance to try to get it right with him. We also have worked with athletes in action, but for 33 years. And so. And even to say this, so what? Athletes in action is, for those of you who don't know, we work with college and professional athletes to help them Come to Jesus. But then how do they live that out in the context of sports? So our whole vocational life is kind of wrapped up in trying to, in a sense, deprogram college athletes in so many different ways in terms of how they think about sports and themselves and how they think about their purpose in the world and get it aligned with a kingdom vision for that. But like Brian said, when I started to get involved in youth sports as a coach, as a parent, around 10, actually about 15 years ago, just realized we didn't have many voices that were helping us think about how to do that well. And so there really were these two different lanes. One was, like Brian said, the effect that it was having on me and the different things that were coming out of me, which we can talk more about as a man. But also then just what do we do with our kids and how do we play the role of primary discipler in their life when we don't really have anybody teaching us how to do that or even to think that way? So, like Brian said, we needed the book. And so, so much of what we wrote is really for us as much as anybody else. And we've just been gathering stories and listening to parents, listening to other coaches, listening to the athletes that we work with, listening, reading the research that's out there and just living our own lives. And the combination of that turned into a way game.

Ryan Zook [00:06:03]:
Ed, let's. Let's just dive right into. You already teed us up. What was the kind of stuff that you saw coming out of you that was concerning?

Ed Uszynski [00:06:09]:
Yeah, man, this. Brian. Brian and I talk about this all the time because this might be the most important stuff to think about, but the stuff we least want to think about. And that is just how much baggage I'm bringing to the table when it comes to my youth, my kids, youth, sport experience. I realized how many regrets I have in my own sports background. I went to college to play basketball. I ended up not playing. I got to play overseas a little bit, but it was always scratching and clawing and just trying to hang on. And so I was kind of that. That guy. And so as I looked at my firstborn son, like I wanted something different for him. And so I just brought all of my own wishes this had been different moments and was projecting them onto him, projecting my own insecurity onto him, my own desire to see my own fears of what will happen or, you know, this imagined future that I have that I'm afraid of for him or that I want for him. And the crazy thing is and again, Brian, Brian's great at saying this. He doesn't want all that necessarily. He didn't. He wanted some of it, but he was on his own sports journey. But it took me a decade of hounding him and harassing him and correcting him and shaming him. And again, just stuff that makes me embarrassed even to think about, as I think about some of the things I did to him in the car on the way home or, you know, trying to manipulate him to work out more or whatever. And it was just coming from me, it was my stuff, you know, it wasn't him being a bad kid or him being lazy or him not being tough enough or whatever. The issue was really me and my expectation that really wasn't fair to put on him.

Brian Smith [00:08:06]:
Yeah, we, we preface this too. Even in past conversations with. Most of us are very well intentioned in the space. Like, even Ed, like, he's hard on himself, but his, his intentions in that space were good. He and we collectively just don't have a lot of, we don't have a lot of help in this space of what does it look like for us to act Christianly while we're in the stands or sitting on the sidelines, but also upholding a high value of man, we really do want our kids to play well. We do want to see them succeed. We want to see them get opportunities and make sure they're getting the fundamentals right and all that good stuff. But yeah, what does it look like for us to hold this tension of this is the God we serve and the character he calls us to model. But also we're just thrust into this environment that is telling us to win at all costs, to specialize at a young age, to mortgage, get a second mortgage on your house, to pay for a travel squad, to move across state lines, to go to the next championship, the next national meat. So what does it look like to hold those in tension? And one of the reasons we wrote the book is because we, we want to follow the model ultimately of somebody like Daniel who lived in this Babylonian culture, a culture that was averse to the values of God. And instead of Daniel just like forming a holy huddle and ignoring the rest of culture, or instead of Daniel just like trying to escape Babylon and get up, get out of it, he. He figured out, what does it look like for me to live faith, this, this system, what does it look like for me to live counterculturally within a culture that does not love God at all? And so that's what we're trying to do in this book is what does it look like for us as Christian men and women and parents to live faithfully in a very, very broken youth sports system right now?

Ryan Zook [00:09:59]:
Okay, you guys have both alluded to some of the research that you've done. Let's. Let's dig into the research and what you found, and then off of that, go into what does this mean for us? How do we actually do the Daniel thing that is being engaged meaningfully in this culture that we've been placed in by God, but actually for God's purposes?

Brian Smith [00:10:16]:
Yeah, I'll set it up with some of the research, and then, Ed, you can start talking about practical ways to move towards doing it in a godly way. The research is telling us, it has been telling us for quite some time now that 70% of kids are quitting youth sports by the age of 13. So just to let that sink in For a second, 70% of kids by the age of 13 are quitting in a youth sport industrial complex that is encouraging us to get our kids involved by like, the age of four or five to specialize early, to really professionalize them at such a young age, before most of them have even hit their physical peak before them, before they've hit puberty, they're saying, no, I'm done. And largely they're saying they're quitting because it's not fun anymore. And so just to think about that, we. We built an entire system trying to professionalize youth sports, but we can't even get them to adulthood in sport because they don't want to be professionalized. They just want to be kids and they want to play. So that's one. And then, then another jarring statistic is that they found that the more money parents spend, the less kids actually enjoy sport. And so to think about that, too, the more money you are spending in sport, the less likely your kid is to enjoy it. And so the. The question we always get with this is, why? Why is that the case? And so just, just put some flesh on this and think about it. And we're traveling across state lines. We're paying for them to be on the best team. Our, our kids are smart enough to internalize, like, there's a lot riding on me performing well or playing well in this competition or in this league. And studies are also going to show us that when kids are faced with enormous amounts of pressure to perform, anxiety skyrockets and performance actually goes down, that kids actually perform better when they perform out of a place of freedom and not fear. And so Again, we've largely, with good intention, we've just created this system where we're hoarding lots and lots of money, we're putting lots and lots of pressure on our kids and they can't handle it because kids are not professional athletes, man. Professional athletes can hardly handle that type of pressure. But we expect kids to and it's just not working.

Ed Uszynski [00:12:36]:
How about two more pieces of research? One, and this has been around for years, says that the kids worst experience, their worst memory of what happens in sports and Brian, maybe talk about at that, you know, that last, that last thing but their, their worst experience is the ride home after the game. Whenever you do exit, exit interviews with kids, when they quit sports, it always ends up showing up in one of the top reasons why they don't, they don't want to continue to play. So there's something going on and what we're doing in the car ride or right, you know, right after the game that's causing them to not want to come back and do it again. Brian, go ahead. What was that? Because there's kind of a clever phrase that goes.

Brian Smith [00:13:22]:
Yeah, yeah. It's what psychologists call the peak end rule. And you can research it, the quick elevator pitch for what it is that we as humans largely remember how events or circumstances played out in our lives by how that experience ends. We largely remember things and how the experience ends. If you think about this for most kids, how does youth sports end? It ends with the car ride home. For most kids they're getting in the car at home and what are they hearing from well intentioned parents? They're hearing coaching, critique, correction, correction, criticizing what they really want and what they need as kids from their mom and dad is connection in that space. But because we have been discipled by an ESPN culture which overanalyzes everything. Again, well intentioned. We want to talk about it, we want to analyze it, we want to. Why did you throw to Johnny when Tim was wide open? Can you let me know? Our kids don't care about that. They just want to listen to music. Maybe they want to get ice cream. Maybe they want to get on your phone like they just want to be done and move on to the next thing. It's us who want to psychoanalyze everything and try to turn them into the best possible athlete by doing all that back end work. They don't want the back end work. They just want to move on to the next thing.

Ed Uszynski [00:14:37]:
They want to play. They just want to play. Which again you do soul search and realize that this has become about something more than play. And again, this makes for great small group discussion. What, what else am I hoping comes out of this? When we go to this game on Saturday afternoon or Wednesday evening, that's more than play. And again, even when we say this, this is what's interesting is that just, that sounds soft or it sounds like we're, you know, like we're, you know, everybody gets a trophy kind of thing. And it's like that's not at all where Brian and I are coming from. But even that, even that reaction is saying no. We've been discipled so much by a value system within the current sport culture that's really only been around for the last 20 or 30 years. Again, Brian mentioned that professionalization word. You know, it's a $40 billion industry that's a relatively new thing that didn't used to be true this year round specialization that he talked about. So there's a whole bunch of stuff that's, that's relatively new, but that's shaping and driving us and how we think about these sport events. Here's another really important thing that Brian and I talk about all the time because we work with college athletes and we say, I think this is actually really encouraging. It sounds discouraging, but it's actually really encouraging. Your kid, my kid is not going to play college sports because of me. He or she is going to be a college athlete. I mean, you might even say he or she's going to be an excellent high school player.

Brian Smith [00:16:18]:
Okay?

Ed Uszynski [00:16:19]:
Because they're given a God given physical ability, their body will do something better than other people's body will do it. They were able to hold on to the skills that they were being taught and use that teaching to manipulate their body to do it better than other people do it. And they will have something that God has given them in their head. You know, their mentality will be different than other kids. They'll work on their left hand. They'll try. They'll keep doing the thing that nobody else wants to do over and over and over again. They're outside shooting because they want to shoot. They're running to push themselves past their, their, their personal best because they want to break their personal best, not because somebody's hounding them to do it. That's who winds up playing in college. And that's why it's less than a half percent of the total people that ever play sports wind up doing that. So as a parent, I'm being pressured when they're 10 years old that we got to do this, that and the other in order for them to be able to make it. You're going to fall behind. You're already behind. You know, we hear this all the time. It's like you're behind what? Behind what? There's a million things that have to happen even in high school for your kid to wind up playing on the team. There's so many things that are outside of your control. Who's going to move in and out of the, out of the school district, who's going to be eligible or not, who the coach is at that time, and who he or she likes or doesn't like for whatever reason. How many other kids are playing your position when you happen to be a junior. You know, there's just so much that you can't predict. And so what it really should do, if you believe this is just exhale and just enjoy being at the game when they're 12 instead of stressing about, again, this imagined opportunity or this imagined future that they're already behind on with that strikeout, because they can't, you know, they keep hitting the ball into the net in volleyball, they're hitting it on the way down. That's got to get fixed now at 12 or else they're not going to be fill in the blank. And it's like, dude, just sit there and enjoy the game and go get ice cream afterwards like Brian said, and tell him you loved watching them play. Ask them if they had fun and find out why, you know, what did they learn today? At the very least, we could do that, but we actually could even be more intentional than that. Brian, let me pass it back to you. I mean, what does it look like to be. For us to be more intentional in terms of what we're talking to our kids about besides just their performance?

Brian Smith [00:19:03]:
Yeah. Ryan, are you good with me going in there? Yeah, go jump in on any of this to double click on anything.

Ryan Zook [00:19:08]:
You guys are making my job easy. Just go for it.

Ed Uszynski [00:19:10]:
All right?

Brian Smith [00:19:13]:
You go ask the question to.

Ed Uszynski [00:19:15]:
We got three hours.

Brian Smith [00:19:18]:
So what is not available to my kids? Every. Like, let me speak to my, my freshman high school football player right now. What's not available to him, guaranteed available to him every single game, is that he's going to touch the ball or that he's going to score a touchdown or that he's even going to get playing time. So I, I can't control that as a parent. I can't, I can't really encourage that because I don't know if he's going to get the opportunities. What is available not just every practice, but every single game? Is, is he actually going to move towards people on the team that are on, on the margins? Like those outsiders on the team that are just weird and awkward and nobody either nobody talks to them or they talk behind their backs. The Bible is going to paint a picture, especially in the life of Jesus, where he is constantly making space for and moving towards the people on the margins. It's one of our ethics as Christ followers, that's who we're called to go after and show love towards, just like Jesus. And so that's available for my kid every single time he goes to practice. Is he going to see the people that nobody else sees? Is he going to offer words of encouragement to pat somebody on the back to speak life into somebody when even the coaches aren't speaking life into them ultimately? Like, yeah, hopefully he gets in the game and can get the ball and get a pass thrown to him. That's probably not going to make a difference in his life 20 years from now. If he can learn the skill, which it really is a skill of engaging people who are different than him and maybe who the world would consider a little bit weird. If he can learn what it looks like to love them through this beautiful gift of sport within the context of a team man, that's going to carry with him for the rest of his life, that's going to impact relationships, it's probably going to impact how he treats his wife and his kids, hopefully in the future. So sports offers us a much bigger opportunity for our kids if we see it through the spiritual lens rather than just earthly metrics. Like the fact that my kid gets to be on a team of right now, 40 other kids can offer huge dividends in his life for the next 20 to 30 years. He's probably not going to play beyond this year high school football, honestly, but hopefully he's going to grow in love and joy and peace and patience just through being on this team. And the way that I'm stewarding that process because Ryan, the coaches are not teaching that to him. They're not teaching him what it looks like to love. They're not teaching him what it looks like to have self control. That's my job as a parent to teach that. I can't just outsource that to youth sports. I need to own that process.

Ryan Zook [00:22:07]:
So one of the things that men of iron, we encourage guys to know God and know their purpose and then be actively engaged in building God's kingdom. And when it comes to family, we say, hey, you're the spiritual leader of your family. You have a responsibility that God's placed on your heart. I would say one of the things that we bump into all the time is this youth sports thing where a dad is sitting in a group or a dad sitting with a mentor saying, yeah, I get it. Like, I get it. Like I'm supposed to know God, I'm supposed to know his purpose. I'm supposed to build the kingdom. How do I handle this sports thing? Like, like it seems like it's really hard for dads to cut through the clutter. And you're doing that in a pretty clear way. Like, hey, your kid might not be a D1 athlete, but he's going to have an incredible opportunity to love somebody on his team. And that's a real life skill. How, how do you guys help dads cut through that headspace of like, okay, there's all this pressure to make sure that my son, my daughter is going to be a professional. How do you cut through that and actually keep the main thing? The main thing?

Ed Uszynski [00:23:08]:
Well, I mean, doesn't it, it kind of starts with us, doesn't it?

Ryan Zook [00:23:11]:
Yeah, for sure.

Ed Uszynski [00:23:12]:
Yeah. The first step is I got to get my own head, right? And, and like that's what we said at the very beginning. Sometimes I'm the biggest problem just because of my own expectations or my own idolatry, the distortions that I, that I've kind of bought into. And so again, what we're trying to argue for is let's just let sports be play. Yeah, that's what it is. There's actually a, there's a godliness. And we write a whole chapter about this, about just even recognizing that God created play. He's a God who knows how to delight in his creation. There's evidence, you know, from different Bible verses that talk about, you know, kids playing in the streets in the new, in the new kingdom. Right. There's just kind of these one off things that people don't pay attention to. But there's good reason to believe that play is something that, that God made for us to enjoy. Like all good gifts, they get distorted in this kingdom. Right? They get messed up. So how do I get recalibrated to what it looks like for my kid just to enjoy sport for what it is? Don't try to turn it into something that's got future goal that we're shooting for. If that happens, it happens. But in this moment, how do I just let them enjoy it? And how do I start Paying more attention to things that, like Brian said, are going to matter 20 years from now. And it's easier for at least for me to say this now because I got three kids that are already through the whole high school thing. Like I don't remember hardly anything from when they were 12 or 13 years old playing 14, 15. I barely can remember specific things from any of their games. And neither, neither can they. It was fun, but it's not like that stuff matters for my 24 year old now. It might matter that he learned how to experience peace when he was feeling stress. Did I teach him how to do that like Brian said? Have I taught him to see people around him instead of just worrying about himself? You know, have I taught him to not be entitled in the way he operates in life, that all that stuff. Have we. I taught him how to go through the handshake line at the end of a game and how to win with class and lose with class. And usually you're going to end up losing a lot more than you win in life. So did anybody teach him how to do that? Because that's going to matter when he's 25. And if I focus on those things, maybe he'll want to come home for Thanksgiving, you know, when he's. That's really what we're after.

Ryan Zook [00:25:49]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:25:51]:
And then we laugh about it, but I think so many of us end up losing relationship with our kids because of, because of youth sports and the way we operated towards them. You know, they don't trust us, they don't want to bring their real lives to us because of the way I talked to him or treated him after a bad game. Come on. Like I just. This is a men's podcast. It's like, come on, smack yourself in the face and say that's gotta stop. Yeah, that's gotta stop. Let me get with some other guys and let's talk about how to do this right.

Brian Smith [00:26:24]:
Yeah. And if we're going to recalibrate, one of the ways it starts is realizing a 12 year old's skill level at whatever sport they're going to play is not predictive of what they're going to be as a 16 to 18 year old. Like all the research is telling us that, that we're just horrible at predicting how good athletes are going to be or how bad they're going to be. But we, we think we can scout where their kid, where our kids are at from anywhere from 9 to 13 and then chart their future. And it's just, if anything, it's Squashing their love for the game. So that, that's one thing I would caution dads out there as well is man, let's, let's not squash our kids love for the game before they even have the ability to develop a love for the game. Like if we can just practice some patience ourselves and say, let's just, let's just see how this plays out. Let's try to create an environment where they're smiling, they're having fun and let's see if they can develop a love for the game. Let's see if they can develop this mentality where we're trying to call them in for dinner, but they know they're the ones who want to practice 50 more left handed layups instead of us being out there saying, no, we're not going in for dinner until you, you make these 50 free throws. Like, we want it to come from them. But for that to happen, we need to back off. Like Ed said, we need to take a deep breath. Maybe we need to stop spending so much money and let's just see if in our backing off, they take the keys and start driving forward. That's ultimately what we're looking for in our kids. We want them to be the drivers of the bus, of their athletic experience and we want to come alongside them and support them in the process.

Ed Uszynski [00:27:57]:
Let's just talk real practically about what this means for those of us that feel completely overwhelmed. I feel overwhelmed because I signed up for a team that's playing five tournaments in two states away.

Ryan Zook [00:28:07]:
Yep.

Ed Uszynski [00:28:07]:
We're saying you don't have to do that, play on the lesser team that plays closer. There's not even usually that big of a gap between, you know, the A team and the B team, especially when you're talking 12 year olds. Now. Maybe it's different when you get to 17 and 18. The rules might change a little bit there. When you're in your last couple years of playing, maybe you'll do some things that are pushing the boundaries a little bit on your time and your schedule. But the reason we're all losing our mind is because we're sitting on the sidelines for Friday, Saturday and Sunday watching 10 year olds who don't even know, they don't even know what they're doing, you know, and we're all screaming and yelling and giving them different instructions and we're driving and we're sitting in hotels and it's like, what am I doing here? I know everybody feels that at some level now, again, there's something fun about Traveling, we're not saying that's all bad, but when that starts to take over our life, we want to give people permission to say, you can choose the B team and it's going to be okay. You can choose to let them play with their friends for a season instead of having to play with, you know, driving from Dayton to Cincinnati, in my case, an hour away, to be able to play on this A level team with all these kids coming from all over the place that's got all the glitz and glamour, they don't usually have fun in those environments. They don't. And you don't know it until it's too late. So we're saying that you don't have to do that. You don't have to look, if you want to go to church on Sunday, and that actually still really matters to you, you can tell the coach ahead of time, hey, we just want you to know on tournaments, when we're playing on Sunday, we're not going to be available before noon. Are you okay with that? And most of the time, coaches, they really will be okay with that. If you do it respectfully and you do it ahead of time, maybe there's going to be some consequences, but okay, yeah, go to church. If you're not going to go to church, do you have some other plan for how it is you're going to feed your family, what they're missing from not being there on a Sunday or a Saturday night? Do you have a plan for these windows of time where you're actually traveling? You don't have to just sit there and feel guilty about it. Listen to a podcast, listen to a message, take them to a different church, actually, when you're on the road, just so they could get a different experience. Like, there's a bunch of different ways to fill in those gaps.

Brian Smith [00:30:38]:
But you.

Ed Uszynski [00:30:39]:
Don'T have to just be a victim of the system.

Ryan Zook [00:30:41]:
I think that's. I appreciate you going there with what you're saying, because I think one of the things we bumped into the most recently is guys that have three, four, five kids that are like, hey, I'm managing four different teams, four different schedules. I don't have my weekends. I'm not going to church. I don't know where I'm discipling my kids at all, because all I'm doing is bouncing from one game to the next game. I literally have no idea what's going on. And one of the things that is interesting to me is it seems like these guys actually feel trapped. Like. Like they feel like, as a dad, they can't do anything other than what they're doing, but at the same time, they know that it's not healthy for their families. So I appreciate that you're saying, hey, you can make space for church. It's actually, you're actually going to be fine. But. But for some reason it does feel like this monumental decision. Like, no, we're not going to do the travel team and we're going to be at home.

Ed Uszynski [00:31:32]:
Or you don't have to do the off season training. And I'll just say this and then Brian, you jump in. I mean, okay, so maybe you're in a season. We were in seasons where we had three kids that were all playing. Me and Amy had to go in different directions. There were some seasons where it was like that, where it starts to get overwhelming is when that never ends.

Brian Smith [00:31:49]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:31:51]:
You know, and so we're trying to go to every single workout again, that's six months away from even the next tournament. We're trying to, you know, take advantage of this offer and that offer. And again, we need to be able to say no to some of that and be okay with it. Well, we paid for it. That's okay. Like stay home for these two months.

Ryan Zook [00:32:14]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:32:15]:
You know, and just let your kid's body recover and let your schedule recover. You can say no to that stuff and you're not going to lose in the end.

Brian Smith [00:32:24]:
Yeah. And what would it look like when you're in that decision making process instead of us as the adults, just sign our kids up to ask them, is this the league you want to play in this year? Yeah, if you want to play in it. It looks like here are the, the expectations. It's going to require us to, you know, after school, you're going to be here for a couple hours and we're going to be traveling here. Do you want to do this or do you want to take a season off? And I think a lot of parents would be surprised that kids answer if we actually involve them in the process. Kids, kids want margin, they want space to play. And if they foresee sport as something where they're not going to have an opportunity to play, it becomes an obligation and we give them a choice to opt out of that. Most of the time I think kids are going to say, is it okay if I don't play the season? Then we need to say yes. It's your choice whether or not you want to do this.

Ed Uszynski [00:33:22]:
There's been a bunch of times where my kids have said they didn't Want to play something anymore. And we fought them on it again. I don't know, maybe I'm the crazy. The crazy dad, but I bet there's dads out there.

Brian Smith [00:33:31]:
Yeah, there is.

Ryan Zook [00:33:32]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:33:32]:
You know, I want my. I wanted my daughter to play basketball. That was my sport. There was a great coach at a very good school that had a great team that went deep in the playoffs every year. And I'm just like, this will be.

Brian Smith [00:33:44]:
Such a great experience for you.

Ed Uszynski [00:33:46]:
She played up through eighth grade, and then she said she hated it. And so he didn't know if she hated it because of us or she was just. She was kind of the rebellious one of the family. She's just trying to get back at us. Do we need to. What's our strategy going to be to get her to play basketball? And finally, Amy and I just looked at each other and just said, she doesn't want to play.

Brian Smith [00:34:08]:
It's okay.

Ed Uszynski [00:34:10]:
There doesn't have to be anything else attached to that. She wants to use her time in some other way. So we were disappointed about that. And again, I think we just. We need to be willing to face our own disappointment. Maybe there's some grieving because we wanted something to go a certain way for our kid, but I love what Brian just said. Like, let them be more in control of their own sports journey.

Brian Smith [00:34:32]:
And there's a tension, too. Like, if it's my daughter, if we are not pushing her to do something, she's just going to sit in her room and play dolls or make crafts. And I know there's a huge benefit for kids to be outside, to get sunlight, to move their bodies, and to be in a social environment with. With friends. And so there's a difference between me saying, hey, I signed you up for this YMCA soccer league, and I know you don't want to do it, but you need to trust me. It's going to be good for you. There's a difference between that and, hey, we're signed up to be in this elect soccer league where the expectation is three hours a day. There's a side part of training that you're going to be. No, like, I value the. The exercise. And so just for parents to understand, too, man, there is. There is a difference between knowing, okay, when to maybe push our kids and when to back off. Yeah. So I'm not advocating, like, our kid always needs to make every single decision. If they never want to play sports again, then you need to respect that. Like, no, sometimes they need to be pushed into environments that are, that are Going to be a little uncomfortable ultimately, because it's going to be better for them. The challenge is when we are pushing them into something because we want something more than they want for themselves. I think we see that a lot in youth sports where we're pushing our kids. Again, well intentioned. But we want them to make it. But maybe they've never even expressed that they want to make it, however we would define that.

Ed Uszynski [00:36:00]:
Yeah. Is it really what's best for them or am I just doing what's going to be best for me? Yeah, again, that's just a hard look in the mirror, you know, that I need to slow down and actually think about it and talk about it with my wife and what's really going on here instead of just running, you know, getting on that speeding train and never, never pausing to reflect or, you know, think of other ways to go about it.

Ryan Zook [00:36:27]:
So I'm just curious, you had mentioned earlier that this is a $40 billion industry. It's all only about 20 years old, that we're just going crazy over youth sports. How did we get here? Did you guys bump into any of that in your research? Like, how did we end up where we are?

Ed Uszynski [00:36:43]:
Yeah, there's actually a whole chapter. It's actually one of our favorite chapters because it just sort of traces all these different threads that have led us to this place culturally. Because this couldn't have happened 100 years ago. Sports couldn't have played the role that it plays. ESPN has played a huge role. When it came on board in 1979, that was a radically new idea that sports could be a 24 hour, seven day a week thing for consumption. And again, it comes with its own value system. It's teaching us. It's where we got the idea that winning is all that matters. Because on talk shows, if you just think about it, that's all they talk about are the people that win championships. If you don't, I mean, it's very overt. And so that's trickled down. A lot of that value system has trickled down into the youth sports world. You have things like aau no longer just being about amateurism, but actually being an industry in and of itself where millions and millions of dollars are being paid by the Nikes and the Adidas and the big shoe brands. And it really is turning into this performance and recruiting. And you got to measure up to be part of AAU. That's, that's a new thing.

Brian Smith [00:38:02]:
1997, Disney decided to build the wild world of sports, that complex in large part because they had all these older kids coming to their, their parks and they wanted to, to give them something different to do than just like hang out with Cinderella and Shrek. And so they built this massive sports complex. And then in, when 911 hit in 2001, they found that people just stopped going to their parks but attendance doubled to their sports complexes. And so it was this weird thing where it was like man, is, is youth sports actually terrorism proof? And they found like man, wow. Parents will, will go to any length possible to get their kids the best athletic experience. And so what's really changed over the last 20 years is entrepreneurs have just figured out, man, it's really easy to take advantage of. Again, well intentioned parents in turn use sports into a business. And maybe that's not being generous to entrepreneurs either because some of them are well intentioned, but it's really easy to sell the next sport advancement thing to a parent who wants what's best for their kid. Like man, even as a cross country coach myself to know like the shoes that are coming out now will legit make my kids 10 to 15 seconds faster. And so yes, shoe companies are selling our, our young athletes the shoe that will actually cause them to become a better athlete. And I think entrepreneurs and organizations and businesses have just tapped into this reality that man, parents will spend whatever it's going to take because they love their kids. And so as parents, what does that mean? We just need to be cautious when asks and offers. And the next shoe or the next what is coming at us to be able to ask, man, is this really going to be a game changer for my kid or is this, am I just falling into a marketing ploy? Because at the end of the day like the entrepreneurs and organizations have zero accountability in this space. And that's another thing we just don't talk about enough. If less than 2% of kids are making it to college sports, but every single elite team or youth travel team is promising, man, if you join us, your kid is going to become the next whatever or they're, they're going to get D1 looks. Where's the accountability? Like when that doesn't happen? Yeah, am I going to get a refund for my, for my daughter in this volleyball travel league when she actually does not get any D1 looks because she's 5:2 and she's not 6:2? So it is, it's entrepreneurial led, but with zero accountability.

Ed Uszynski [00:40:49]:
Brian And I say this all the time, they're not bad things in and of themselves, but it's the accumulation of them all coming together at once. I mean, there was another shift that was made really in the last couple decades of the last century. So 30 years ago, their parents started to become way more involved in their kids lives. You hear that idea of a helicopter parent, a snowpow parent that's trying to remove all obstacles and that hasn't died down at all. And so sometimes as parents we're overly involved in trying to control and manipulate what's happening with our 12 year old. Again for good reasons, for legitimate fears that we have for, you know, just not even gonna keep getting into it. But the point is, because we're so involved, we're involved and it's our issues that are getting, you know, interwoven with their sports journeys when they're 12 in ways that become smothering in ways that. Well, so everything we've already talked about for the last half hour in ways that actually hinder them from being able to grow. You know, us constantly coaching and correcting from the sideline, we haven't even talked about this. All the different things that are being yelled out from the sideline are hindering our kids from actually being able to just to try things and to fail and to learn from failing. Like Brian said, they can't even make their bodies do what they want them to do. They're trying to learn the sport. They've got multiple people yelling different things at them and it's like that's actually slowing their progress down. Yelling, go baby.

Brian Smith [00:42:31]:
They're like baby deer. Like you know what their potential could be but they're, they don't know how to move their legs. They just grew six inches. They don't know how to move into this new, new body or they haven't grown six inches, but they will. And so we're pushing all of this energy and pressure on them and it's going to cause them to quit before they actually sprout up. And they can be a beast in their sport and grow to love actually spiking the ball on somebody instead of playing in the back row. We need to take a deep breath and have patience and say, man, can we just get to, can we get to 16? Can we help them to love sport by the time they're 16?

Ed Uszynski [00:43:06]:
Yeah.

Brian Smith [00:43:07]:
And let them take it from there.

Ed Uszynski [00:43:09]:
But I feel really embarrassed when my 13 year old misses 7 shots in a row. Yeah, I feel embarrassed by that.

Ryan Zook [00:43:16]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:43:17]:
You know, or he's getting smoked on defense because he can't move his feet. Feel again, just think about this why do we feel this, this weight of shame almost as you sit up there amongst the parents when your kids having a hard time as they're learning the sport? Conversely, why do we feel like king of the world? Because our kid made three layups in a row and now he, he or she's the star because they're able to dribble twice without putting it off their foot. And so we think they're an all star. Again, everybody, it's like just. I just. Can we just take a deep breath, exhale, worry about more things than just their performance and let them have fun and see what happens? See if that doesn't turn out pretty doggone good.

Ryan Zook [00:44:00]:
Well, I appreciate your time, guys. This is a. Definitely a really good conversation, definitely a helpful conversation just to, to wrap up. Like, I'd love to hear just a really pointed thing from each of you. If, if you're a Christian dad listening and you're dealing with this youth sports thing, just what is your pointed advice to those guys?

Brian Smith [00:44:19]:
Yeah, we. We need to be aware of two things. One, we need to be aware of how the culture is sp. And specifically sport culture is forming us into the pattern and shape of the world. And so there's just benefit to being aware of what's going on and how it's shaping us. But then two, we also need to have different eyes as we approach our youth sports experience. Eyes to define discipleship. Moments in the margins, in practice, in game.

Ryan Zook [00:44:47]:
So it's just continuing to make Jesus the center of everything. We should do that in every aspect of life. And it doesn't mean we have to ignore sports completely. We can actually focus on Jesus in these settings.

Brian Smith [00:44:56]:
Yes, absolutely. God, would you help me to see something in my kid today while they're playing this game that I can use later tonight in a discipleship conversation with them? Yeah, that. That makes it worth it. Whether you're spending a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars. It makes that investment worth it. If we turn it into discipleship opportunities.

Ed Uszynski [00:45:16]:
The book is really. What the book is, is, is very practical ways to do that. By the way, it's not just a cultural analysis or a gripe session about what's wrong. We do that for a couple chapters just to set things up, to set the table. But then we say, whether you're going to play in a rec league or you're going to travel to another country to play, here's the kinds of things you could be talking about and paying attention to and the kind of questions you can ask to try to develop this virtue. I would say that too often we try to do this alone, these sorts of things, these kinds of changes. And so Brian and I have been huge on get with some Other Guys, Initiate the conversation again, use a book. This book isn't the only word on it, but it at least gives you the language and gives you a centerpiece to start the conversation. Maybe get this book with a handful of dudes and read some chapters of it and talk and ask how can we be different? How can our corner of the bleachers be different this Saturday? Because we're there. Because we're there as Christ followers where they're representing a different kingdom. Again, that doesn't mean that I'm not cheering or not excited or discouraged when things happen. We're not saying that goes away. We're just. We're just measuring something different together.

Ryan Zook [00:46:33]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:46:34]:
You know, and it's changing the way we behave and hopefully it's changing not only our own kids experience, but it starts to rub off and becomes contagious with the other parents.

Ryan Zook [00:46:43]:
Yeah.

Ed Uszynski [00:46:44]:
You know, it has an effect on the other kids too. We believe that can happen in and through the church.

Ryan Zook [00:46:50]:
Well, I appreciate your time, guys. Where. Where do guys get the book?

Ed Uszynski [00:46:53]:
It's on. It's at any retail retailer, but Amazon, you know, is an easy place to get it. We got a ton ofstuff@thechristianathlete.com so we'd invite people to come there. Brian's just written a ton of great articles, super accessible articles on how to think like a Christian athlete, but also like a Christian parent that goes beyond just the book. So that's a good place to come to. To the Christianathlete.com thanks so much guys.

Ryan Zook [00:47:20]:
Thanks for being on the podcast. Appreciate the conversation.

Ed Uszynski [00:47:22]:
Thanks for having us.

Ryan Zook [00:47:23]:
Ryan, thanks for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. We want you to thrive in your core five and we want you to just do your best in your faith, family, friends, fitness and finances. We hope this conversation has been helpful to you, especially as you navigate your role in youth sports and how you can invest well in your kids to know God and know their purpose through sports. If you appreciate this content, there'll be some links to how you can get these books in the description. Click those. Thanks for supporting Men of Iron and thanks for supporting the podcast. We'll see you next week.

Brian Smith [00:47:51]:
Thanks for listening to the Men of Iron podcast. Be sure to like subscribe and share at Men of Iron. We exist to change a culture one man at a time and we'd love.

Ed Uszynski [00:47:58]:
To have you partner with us.

Brian Smith [00:48:00]:
So go to menoviron.org to see how you can get involved or donate@menaviron.org donate.