The Kids Sports Episode

Today we're talking about kids sports.  Kids sports and dance have gotten so intense. We brought in the experts to help us navigate the allstars, the benchwarmers, and all the parents.  

We are joined by Coach Jay Recher, a long time baseball coach that has led teams to State Championships, and watched them grown into high school, college, and pro athletes.  Jay is also a sports journalist, media producer, and host of the Jay Recher Podcast.

To offer the other side of the cartwheel, we are joined by Danielle Manship, a long time competitive acro instructor and Assistant Principal. Danielle provides significant insight as a leader and teacher of children in the dance world, as well as the parent of a competitive dancing daughter and a travel ball star son.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Double Booked Podcast. I am Nicole and I'm joined by Michael Ann, my co-host. And today we have an amazing episode for you all regarding kids' sports. We can't wait to talk about all things kids' sports. It's a hot topic. And we've got two special guests today. First, I'm going to introduce Ms. Danielle Manship. She's a dedicated assistant principal at an elementary school, passionate about making a difference in the lives of students, families, and teachers every day. A proud wife of 17 years and a mom of two. Danielle spends much of her time cheering on her children. One is a competitive dancer and the other is a baseball player. And in addition to her work and education, she also teaches part-time dance and helping young athletes build confidence and strength. When she's not at school or teaching dance, she loves to go to Disney World with her family. So welcome, Danielle. We're glad to have you. Thank you. Welcome. And we also have very special guest, Coach Jay Rutcher. He is a longtime sports journalist, media producer, content producer, and host of both the Jay Rutcher Podcast and the Eccles and Rutcher Podcast. He is also a longtime baseball coach at a variety of different ages, kids that have gone on to be famous, college, baseball, pros, etc. He's my favorite baseball coach. And when he is not producing content, hosting his own shows, doing other sports journalism, or coaching baseball, he is building a new and fantastic life with a new and fantastic girlfriend. Oh, nice. I like that. I don't think she's gonna look and watch this and she's gonna go, I didn't know I got in there too. So thanks for having me. Super excited to be here with you, lovely ladies. Yes, we're so excited. This is actually, I would say, the second most requested topic that people were asking us to talk about. You know, Nicole, you have a daughter in competitive dance, and also you were a competitive dancer, so you kind of have a lot of history and knowledge. I pretty much did nothing as a child. I was a cheerleader, but now I have three kids, and they're all in different competitive forms of club sports and travel sports and things like that. So it's been a huge learning curve to me. And one of the things that I kind of want to just jump right into is that idea. So let's say you you have children, and I think we all kind of have that desire to sign them up for like soccer shots or you know, whatever, the minute that they're able to toddle across the room. But, you know, what is the real age that you two would suggest that that kids start to get more enrolled into an organized sport? I think once they go to school, I know with both of my kids, we kind of did the soccer shots, and I knew right away my daughter was not an outdoorsy kind of girl. That's why you never see her at any baseball games. Um she is an indoor kind of girl. So she started at age two dancing, and we're now almost at 16. So, and I knew from the time she was four that dance was her was her thing. She lit up the stage. She never liked, she used to cry in class at age two. I used to sit in there, and but when she got on the stage, it was like a whole different ballgame. So, like she she was born to be on that stage. And I tried to get her to change to cheerleading because that's was my passion. But she's like, No, mom, I'm a dancer, and I will be a dancer for the rest of my life. That's what she wants to pursue as a degree. My son, Owen, he we did a lot of different things. He actually started out in baseball when he was about four or five, but he actually his first love was the martial arts. He's a second degree black belt. Oh messed with Owen. Yeah, so he he got that at like age 11, I guess. And then once he started travel ball at 11, it just we couldn't do just two very high-demand sports. So he had to pick and he picked to pursue travel baseball instead of the martial arts. So he quit martial arts and then went the baseball route. So that's where we're at now. We're in the travel ball, you know, realm. And you know, so I I really think he he decided that around 11 to like cut one sport and just pursue the other. But until then, he was a double sport kid. He was doing martial arts on the days he wasn't practicing baseball. Don't you think that the kids are having to choose earlier and earlier kind of what they want to focus on? Because you know, you've got to to me, my mind is blown, right? Like you have all these private lessons, you can have baseball roles, like batting and pitching and dance, it's one you know, the tumbling or ballet or whatever else. Like, are is it are we putting too much pressure for them to choose so quickly, or is this the right path to kind of keep them towards this, if this is what they want for their career? I know this is controversial amongst a bunch of people. I I mean, I think you have to let the kid choose. Like, I've always told my two that like, I don't care if you don't want to dance anymore, that's fine, but you will find something else to replace dance. You're not gonna sit at home on your phone every single night doing nothing. You're going to be doing something. So I let them guide me. You know, if Owen wants to do a batting lesson one week, he does a batting lesson. If he's tired and doesn't want to, I'm not gonna force him to go. I mean, more than likely he does go because he enjoys it. But, you know, in the dance world, I see a lot of kids doing multiple privates a week and at a such a young age. And it's, you know, you're not gonna make it to age 16 if you're doing 17 privates at age five. Right. At what point are they gonna burn out? And that's what I think is I think some parents forget when they are in the heat of it, and it's almost like keeping up with the Jones, but for private lessons. Well, like to that end, one of the questions I had is with you two sort of being experts and seeing all scales of people, can hard work overcome a lack of natural talent? Yes, yeah, I think so. I mean, I've seen it kind of going back to what you guys were saying, like it is tough because I think this is the advantage of growing up, like maybe up north, like I did in New York, where baseball ended when the seasons changed, right? So once the once the baseball fields let's know what it couldn't play baseball anymore. So that's when your glove and your bad went away, and then you played hockey or you played basketball or you did something else. So, with you know, living in the state of Florida, you can play baseball all year round. So and I've said this on on many occasions, me being a baseball coach. If I grew up down in in Florida instead of New York, I probably wouldn't have played baseball after 12 or 13 because I loved putting my glove away. I loved playing hockey. I I found such a truer appreciation for all sports as I got older to be able to play different things. And I think with me as a coach, I I've seen coaches that if you play other sports, they look at you different and they don't give you that opportunity. We have a kid on our team who is a basketball player, and we and you know, the parents are very apprehensive to have that discussion with me at first. And I go, You got the right coach because I want you to play different sports. I had a young man that was many years ago played football, basketball, and baseball. And you know, he had to understand, okay, well, your playing time might tougher on like a Saturday for a tournament because we have to reward the kids that are here all the time. But as the tournament goes on, the best players are gonna play. But I never wanted to discourage that. He played three sports, he got drafted. Uh he went to North Carolina, he got drafted by the Reds. But I I truly believe that if you can play more than one sport, I think you really should. You're averting the risk of burning out. You're also developing different muscle groups, which is big. We have we sustain these kids sustain so many arm injuries nowadays because all they do is play baseball, they're not they're not functioning and using these other muscle groups doing other things. Like I remember growing up and I played more basketball than anything else. I never played organized basketball, but that was the thing. We went outside and played. So, you know, it's it's kind of a different world, and you almost you want to, and this is kind of the balance that I've learned. And one thing that I, as soon as I got into coaching, one thing I always wanted to tell myself was you never want to tell people how to parent their kid, especially myself not having children of my own. School always came first, family always came first. Base, you know, baseball was always, if not secondary, tertiary, and even farther down the line. But I never wanted to discourage kids from doing other things and keeping their minds and then their eyes and their ears and their heart open to doing different things because you never know. And and Danielle said it like you know, you want to give them every opportunity to succeed, right? And give them opportunities. If they want to do lessons, they don't want to do lessons, and that's kind of the balancing act uh with you with you guys as parents, right? It's like you want your kids to realize that nothing is given to them for free and you have to work for it, but you also want to give them a better life than you had, right? So it's it's kind of like that balancing act where you don't want to have your kids be spoiled, but you want to make sure that they have every resource to be able to fulfill their dreams. But I think nowadays with social media and all these different things, I think some people live vicariously through their kids. I think they like very much so they're kind of sharing those dreams when those kids are nine, 10, 11, and 12 years old. When really realistically, that's not your goal. Your goal should be using these sports to help your kids get to college to get an education because the numbers dwindle so drastically whether these kids are going to be a high school to college to pro ball players. So we really should be setting these kids up for success off the field, off the court, off the stage, just as much as we are doing on the court, on the field, on the stage. Yeah, I agree. And you know, we um uh you guys all know, but the list of the listeners don't. So my oldest is a baseball kid. He plays baseball, he loves it. He does play other sports during the school year, but it happened to be that that spring is baseball season for his school. So he was playing for the school and playing for his travel team. And so he had no time to do anything else. It was all just baseball. He didn't even have time to do proper stretching, conditioning, weightlifting. It was, you know, he was having baseball practice twice a day or baseball practice for the school and then running to a pitching lesson or a batting lesson. And, you know, unfortunately, he ended up with a spinal fracture because of just the constant rotation without some of that core strength. So, I mean, we're we're living it right now of just not having diversified and properly maintained condition and mechanics because you're just too much baseball, you know, at the same time that your body's trying to grow, right? Like you're going through puberty and all that good stuff. So definitely encourage. Uh and we're lucky that our kids' school, they none of their teams cut kids. So you can try everything if you've never, you know, both the boys ran track this year. They're, I mean, as slow as molasses in January. But they tried it. I'm like, this can't get you better worse at baseball and soccer, right? Like it can only get you better. And they tried like the discus. And I'm like, do you know how to throw a discus? They're like, I don't even know what a discus is. But you know, they did it, they played basketball, they played soccer, they played flag football. So we're very lucky at our school that they could dabble. But Danielle, I wanted to go back to what you're saying about your daughter. So, you know, she loves dance at four years old, and you know, did you also know? Because your daughter is like a very, very talented going to be a professional dancer. And so, did you know at four, and if not four, then when, that she had some magic? Well, uh, for my daughter, it's been a very, very long road. She was naturally always a performer, but her technique and her tricks, she was behind the eight ball on a lot of things because we stayed at a studio for a little bit too long, and then we transitioned to the studio that we're currently at when she was seven years old. So she was pretty far below her peers when she got there. So she had a lot of catching up to do. And she, you know, really, you when we speak to hard work, I I truly believe that I have two of the most hardworking children when it comes to their sports. That, you know, like they are very passionate, both of them. You see it on their face, they know when they make mistakes. I don't have to tell them it is the the fire is there. And she's always had that fire, just like my son has always had that fire, but it never really paid off until last year. We went many years where she didn't place, and everyone on else on the team would place, she'd go to a competition, she'd do her best run, and it just wasn't good enough. And last year, when she was 14, so she was at the top of what we call the teen division, which is age 12 to 14. She she placed every single place she won went as high as second place. And it was because of the years of like tears and not placing and doubting herself and being in the back of group dances. It wasn't till last year that this paid off for her. And, you know, this year she was a first-year senior, because 15 to 19 at most competitions is a senior. And she placed at every single competition this year as well. You know, beating 19-year-olds, beating adults as as one of the youngest in the division because she has a summer birthday and she's tiny. She looks like she's the age of probably sixth grade. But she went, she goes out there and she's a performer. I mean, what she lacks in some of her maybe technique, it's because of her facial expressions, because how she sells that routine on the stage. And people that that haven't known her her whole life just think she's this great dancer and that it's come so easy for her. And I tell them it's it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Um, that's super encouraging. And I will tell you, I did not know that part about it. And I equally transitioned studios in the past year. So for those that are listening, if you're if you're weighing on the studio, I will tell you obviously Danielle made the right choice. We made the right choice in moving for a lot of reasons. One was technique, one was the encouragement and positive reinforcement, and it makes such a difference. But I had I see Danielle's daughter on stage and I'm in awe. So to hear that she wasn't placing prior to that, not at all. Shocked. And I cannot wait to tell my daughter because she did she's gotten a little discouraged, but she still wants to do it because she wants to be with her friends, she has fun on the stage, she loves, like you said, she lights up the stage, she loves to be here, she feels as if she's meant to be there. And then when some of her friends get it, it's she doesn't intentionally mean to talk bad, but it comes off that way because of her disappointment. And so it's it is encouraging to hear that. But you're right, hard work. What was that like to see? Like as a parent, what is it how because I'm sure I because I know how it feels when you see your child giving it absolutely everything they can and working their butt off and just getting their heartbroken, and then conversely, what is it like for her to finally get the fulfillment of everything she's ever worked for? It is it's horrible. It's it's the you know, she is she's devastated when she doesn't score what she wants to score. Even now, at almost 16 years old, we still have tears when she doesn't place high, like she thinks she's gonna place, but she recovers a lot quicker than she did. It would be like, I want to quit, I can't do this. And then five minutes later, she'd be like, Oh yeah, it's it's fine, it'll be okay. Next time I'll do it. You know, it was just that utter disappointment that was so it was so hard to get her out of it when she was younger. And then now she kind of gets over it much quicker. And then last year, I we went to Nextstar, which is a big dance competition in March of last year. And she came off the stage very upset. She thought it was a terrible run of the solo, and she was like, I'm never placing. This was terrible. She scored the two highest adjudications and got second place overall. And when I tell you the tears, the it went from sad tears that we always have to the happiest tears. Like she was crying because she's never scored second place. She's never been that high. Never scored, I mean, she scored almost a perfect score on her routine on her one solo and scored almost only only like a point lower on the other solo. So like it's it's so gratifying, but people only see people only want to see the good times in dance and baseball. There's gonna be times where there's a bad play or there's a bad run of a dance, and the kids who let that bother them and bog them down, they'll they they'll never recoup. It's you gotta have a quick mind shift. You know, even this weekend, my son he made an error. First play out of in one of the games, made an error in the in the outfield. I knew he was gonna be upset. I knew he he made it and it is what it is. And luckily, you know, he's able to he he knew he he owned up to it. It was my mistake. I made the error, and then he has to go up and bat. So you gotta you gotta shake it off quick because he had to go up and bat right after that error happened, you know, and so it's the same kind of with dance and baseball. You gotta have a you gotta erase the memory very quick because you're on again. Yeah, memory of a goldfish, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, so talk. I want to know what do you guys think on the professional side, as the coach and as the teacher, what is the age that it starts to matter? Like it starts to be important. Like you might end up playing in high school and college, you know, or you might go all the way, or you might become a professional dancer, or you might start to get Broadway performances. What is the age that, all right, this is now you sort of either need to take it seriously, or you might be getting time to move on? Yeah, I think for the kids for baseball on that aspect of it, I it's hard. I think it varies for everybody, right? I mean, if your kid's athletic, I yeah, I think you have a chance to maybe wait until you're a little bit longer. Like baseball is such a tough game because it's such a mental game and it's played at such a slow pace. So you're kind of sitting around for 10 minutes, the ball might not be hit to you. Heck, you could be out there for three hours and nothing happens in the first game or the second game. And then the third game, seven balls get hit to you in a row. Like, and you just have to be on, like, there's no excuse for it. So it's tough, really. Baseball is not for the faint of heart, it's a game of failure. And I think mentally is kind of what you're looking for just as much as physically, because you have to be able to deal with all the trials and tribulations, because if not, you know, it it'll it'll crush you, and and it's not the same thing. If you're looking for a sport where you're gonna get instant gratification and things are gonna happen to you all the time, go somewhere else because baseball's not for you. I I say that to my 13-year-old team that I have now, I wish I had them when I was younger or when they were younger. My assistant coach now on the 13-year-old team, Danny. I had him at seven years old. So by the time he was nine or 10 years old, this kid was making these incredible plays. And by the time he was 12 or 13, like I could have stopped and just handed them over to somebody and he would have been ready for high school baseball. So, you know, with my 13-year-old team that I have now, you know, it's been a hard, it's been a crash course of like, I gotta get you guys ready for high school now. So I'm a lot harder on them, and I set the expectations really high because I don't want to just be a coach that's like, hey, you did a great job when you didn't, because baseball, there's so many analogies to life that you can make, and you you think you did a good job, but there's a results-oriented aspect of it too. So it's tough. I think right around the teenage years, you got to be in the right place. And I think, you know, what Danielle and the poll said about in the right environment when it comes to your dance studios, I think the same thing is with baseball. I mean, some kids are just gonna have natural talent, right? And it's just don't screw those kids up. But there's other kids, the majority of them are kind of like teetering right there at 12, 13, 14 years old. I mean, after your freshman year and high school, you really got to know if this is gonna be it for you. You see guys that kind of build up to it sophomore year, boom, it hits. Some guys kind of come out of nowhere, but you got to know 12, 13, 14, your kid has to be in the right place with the right people, with the right coaching, playing in the right games. I I think all that other stuff with travel as far as like showcase tournaments, that should be for later in high school. Right now, it should be about development and getting around people that care about your son to get them ready for high school. Because once you get in the better, yeah, or well, I'm just saying you asked me about baseball, but softball side, yeah, of course. Softball's always easier for me. For I always enjoyed working with my softball players better than the baseball players because the girls weren't there to mess around. The girls showed up early, the girls did their trial. Like it was it was not even close. And it was just the guys would show up and they'd hum hung, Coach Jay, did you see this? Do you see that? The girls would show up early, get their workout in because I want to make sure that I'm spending 30 minutes hitting, not stretching. Guys would spend seven or eight minutes stretching around. And I just I love that mindset with with my softball players over the years versus the baseball. So yeah, 12, 13, 14 is when you really gotta hone in with what it's all about. I think it's the same in dance. Yeah. I mean, we lose a lot of kids after ninth grade. I know, for example, like on Olivia's team going forth, like there's gonna be like maybe three seniors, maybe three juniors, and she's one of the juniors. A lot of them, once they make their high school team, like the dance team or cheer team, and they want to just do that, and they don't want the commitment of dance. Dance, like travel baseball, is a huge, huge commitment. You know, it's not just about you performing your solo, it's about you performing with a group. And if you don't come to practice, that group can't do run the Routine. And it's not fair to the other 20 kids in that dance if three of you decide, yeah, I want to take the night off. You know, so it is a very demanding sport, especially if you're at the highest level. I mean, my daughter just completed competition. She did 10 group dances, two solos, and one duet. That's 13 dances. You know, and so it it's and Danielle, your GoFundMe page will be up here later. Please, please, please. You need to go find me for baseball and for dance. Yes. Holy shit. So it it's it's you know, it is a very it's just like I mean, baseball too. If you don't show up, your team can't really play to the fullest potential if you're missing one person. You know, it's a team sport. And I always say, like, if you're going to be in a team sport, you've got to be committed. Go play golf. That's not a team sport. Go play, you know, tennis. That's you know, but if you're in a never competition, ever. Yeah. If you and if I mean you you have to show up to competition. I mean, even if you're feeling really terrible, you better be showing up to competition because that dance has to be then reblocked the day of the competition. That means all the formations, all the lines, everything has to change. It puts so much stress on the other kids. And we see that a lot in the younger groups because those parents don't really understand what it takes to reblock a dance the morning of the competition because you know they they forgot the costume or they had, you know, to go to a birthday party that day. It it's a huge, huge deal when someone's missing from a dance group. And so I think, you know, at 13 and 14 is where the kids make up their own minds. They might pursue something else, or you know, they're just not into it anymore. And and then it's time to go. Like if they're not into it, it's it's time to go because you're just dragging down possibly 10 other dancers or 15 other dancers, and then those dances never amount to the fullest potential that it could be. And it's okay not to be competitive, right? There's still rec leagues out there, and I think that's what sometimes parents forget is you can be, you know, do this recreationally. You do not have to do all of these things competitively. And if you're, you know, if your child wants to continue to try multiple things, go the rec route. It's it's perfect. Like we do rec tennis on our off days, and then we have competitive dance on our non-off day, you know, and our regular schedule. Yeah, and that's the good thing about it, is you can go and take classes. Yeah, yeah. That's on my bucket list. I'm gonna start taking dance classes, specifically hip-hop. Maeve loves hip hop, we like to do hip hop routines in the garage together. So can't wait. Actually, funny story. We we belong to a gym, and uh how can I say this politically correctly? Okay, when we are in Ohio, where I grew up and where we spent our summers, we belong to a gym. And this gym has like the best group fitness classes, and so to me, it's usually about timing versus like the class I really want to sign up for. So there's this class that was available at this time, it was like cardio hip hop or something like that. I'm like, oh, that sounds like so much fun. So I go, and it is not people like me. Okay. It is like real dancers. It's like serious. When your daughters are 25 and they aren't, if they're not doing it competitively or for a job, this is you know, something that they're going to do. Everybody there was like 25 and their cute little leotards with all this rhythm and all of this experience, and then me and two other, like probably like elderly, like 70-year-old um women that were also there. And I laughed my ass off at myself. Like, like I am like not totally non-rhythmic, but generally one beat behind, you know. And if you're one beat behind, it's terrible. Like you might as well be 10 beats behind and just be doing your own thing, so one beat off. So I it was the fun, most fun thing ever. So it's on the list. I want to take hip-hop. You'll be back up there again this summer. Absolutely. Michael Land and the Nanis. I like that group. Michael Ann and the Nanis. Yeah. That's exactly what it was, for sure. Okay, so I don't think it's a coincidence that both of you are independently saying that the time that it starts to get serious matches the time you generally start to see the non-serious kids start to fall off. And it also happens to match that time that puberty really starts to take precedence. So that's hormones, your body is changing, your interests are changing, you know, the opposite sex is coming into play, hanging out with your friends starts to take much more of a priority. Like I think all of those things are converging at the same time. And I had friends of mine that played, you know, college baseball or you know, even professional or minor league baseball that would say to me, because I don't know what I'm doing, none of this matters. Little league, nothing matters until at least sixth grade. And everybody who's a wild hitting home runs, you know, when they're in seven you and eight you and nine year, whatever, that doesn't have anything to do with what's going to happen in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Like those kids are gonna go away or they're gonna be great and it's 50-50 shot either way. And the kids that weren't so great, like like my son picked up a baseball at barely could walk, two years old, and he has been in love with the sport ever since. But he has never been the best player, he's never been the show pony, he's never been, you know. So when the kid, when your the dads are coaching and they're putting their own son and all their buddies on the team, you know, you're worried as a parent, like, will it reach a point where my son really wants to keep going and can't keep up? And there isn't a place for him, you know. Will he be not be able to find a team? Will his skills not match the opportunities? And lucky for luckily for us, it's really his hard work, similar to you, Danielle, has really started to pay off. And I think puberty is helping him. He's putting a lot of weight on, it's giving him strength. And he's always had this really super chill, you know, like he does internalize his mistakes, he does want to get better, but to him, every single pitch is a brand new pitch. You know, he isn't generally carrying the weight of the last pitch or the last bat or whatever with him. So I and I think it's finally really started to pay out. But there were years where, you know, I was terrified and trying to set him up, like, all right, this might be your last season, you know, this might be your last season because you just didn't know. So I just, you know, for all those other parents out there that are having those sleepless nights or those fears or heartbreak, it's glad. I'm glad to hear it, Danielle, that they're still just keep keep pushing, keep working hard, and you know, that opportunity will continue to be there. But I wanted to talk about the sort of the downside of that puberty. So once it starts to happen, I imagine this is especially you know important in dance. I think you do have to at some point, and I could be wrong because I wasn't a dancer, you have to start thinking about body type, about nutrition, about muscle tone, about fitting in leotards, about the pressure that all that brings. Can you, Nicole and Danielle, can you guys talk a little bit about when you these girls are already going through insecurities and body type issues, how that relates to dance? Well, I think like the costuming is a huge issue because you do have girls that are all different sizes. My daughter is very tiny, but she's extremely muscular, like so muscular. She's very lucky she did not get that from me, but she's ripped. Arms, abs, everything, but she's not your tiny tiny. Like she is is stocky, she's you know, she's she's very athletic looking. So she does not fit the role of a ballerina. And it it's it's a shame that we have the mindset of, well, you need to be tall and lean and long legs. That has hurt her in many years past. A lot of judges would say, you know, she the legs aren't, you know, she couldn't lift her leg higher than everyone else. And she still can't. She but she can tumble, she can do amazing tricks, but she's never going to be your ballerina. And, you know, this year she did have an experience where she was chosen for something for ballet. And then a week later, the teacher said, and this was not at the studio, but it was somewhere else, and said, you know, you're you're not a you're you're too hard hitting for ballet. So we're not gonna take you for this exam for ballet, even though all her front, she's at the same skill level as everyone else in ballet, they said, you know what, you don't have you, you don't match the group that we have because everyone else is tall and long-legged. So, and you're too hard hitting. And that was devastating to her. She doesn't really like ballet, it's not her favorite thing to do. She does it because she knows it's the basis of all dance and that she has to do it. But that really that those those words really hurt her. And as coaches, as teachers, as whatever parents, you know, they they hang on to every single word people say. And she was, it took it, she was really upset for a good three to four weeks. I had to really get her out of it and be like, you know what, who cares? You don't like ballet anyway. You don't even want to go to take this test. It's fine. Like you're better at than these two girls at a lot of other things. You get the scholarship everywhere you go because you're a great, you can pick up choreography like no one else. That girl has a memory like no one else for choreography. And yeah, you're not going to be a ballerina, and that's okay. And I think that is hard because the the dance world does have, you know, your very stereotypical body types. And it is it's difficult when you don't fit in that body type. And she definitely does not. And so it has been a it has been a challenge, but we've gotten judges lately that are like, wow, what an athlete. And they're focusing more on that athletic part of it, which is what they should be focusing on. They are athletes, they just do different things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're we're just starting to get into girls understanding this. And Chloe's a little bit younger than Danielle's daughter. And I think the other thing is they're trying to recognize as their body is changing what they're capable of. So, like Chloe's not the most flexible or doesn't have certain strengths at the moment, but I told her I was like, everybody's bodies are going to start catching up to them. Your legs, she grew six inches in six months. Like, that's very difficult as a dancer to then understand your body and how to how to do certain things. So I do think that part is happening, and I'm trying to navigate through that. I will tell you, my husband absolutely hates the little outfits all the girls wear. Like he hates even walking into the dance studio. He's like, I can't even look at this. He's like, they're just walking around in nothing. And yeah, yeah, that's what and and and it's funny because I was talking to another baseball mom at one of the baseball games. And it's funny when you have a girl, you're like, please, please, please don't hit puberty. Please, it's it's gonna, it's so devastating, it's gonna change your life, especially when you're a dancer. You know, we don't want to have to deal with that at a competition because that's a whole nother it's a whole nother thing when you're wearing a leotard and you got that. But for boys, you're like, please, we need you to hit it now. Like, we need lots of come on, please grow, you know, and it's such a different mindset when you have a girl and a boy. Like, I'm like, come on, Owen, what's gonna happen? Like, come on, you gotta grow a little bit, we're gonna get there, maybe one day, you know, and and and that's the it's so funny how we girls, we like, no, no, no, please don't, and they of course happen usually earlier, and then the boy were like, please, we were comparing notes, like one of me and the other baseball mom, she's like, I don't know, it's probably coming soon. And I'm like, Yeah, not for him, you know. And so it's funny we want to rush the boys because we want them to be stronger and bigger and all of that, but we want to keep the girls, you know, to the last minute possible. Yeah, well, Gray is full on full into puberty this year, so it's it's been interesting. First of all, the smells can we talk about his feet? I've never smelled anything like that in my life. It's like you took a bag of like kitty litter and just left it in your car for a month. It's horrible, horrible. And he, I mean, he showers for an hour a day. It's not like it's like this weird vinegar. I it's terrible. But I mean, he's also he's grown five inches in the last year, finally, thank God. And he's put on a ton of, I mean, he outweighs me now, which is crazy. That's all right. So, Cook Jay, let's talk about with the baseball. You know, we don't you don't necessarily need to tell your baseball players that they need to eat more protein and lay off the Twinkies because size is is really kind of a benefit. But do you ever find yourself in this cutch coach role at this really important time in a kid's life, like having to not parent them, but mentor them about things outside baseball, about life, about hygiene, about wearing deodorant, about putting your chain in your shirt, about hey, shave your face or be respectful of women, or any of these life lessons as your role as a coach. I mean, to be honest with you, I think if you are on a team and your son is 12, 13, and 14, and you're playing on a travel team and you're paying for a coach, if your coach does not address those type of things, I would tell you to take them somewhere else. Because I feel like it's my duty to not only be a coach for these kids on the field as a baseball player, but also as a person that is, you know, they're represent they're a representation of me. So if they're rude to their parents, if they don't do well in school, I already had a discussion this year with one of my players who got in school suspension, and I set up a call with him and one of my friends who's one of the biggest educators in Washington, DC, to sit there and have a 45-minute discussion with this young player just so he stays on the right path. I I I take that. I know not everybody's like that, but I think it's so important. Like these are such formative years for boys and girls. And you know, as you're telling the story about the dancers, you know, we put these kids in a position to succeed, right? And it's almost like these things that they do that are supposed to be hobbies, it almost becomes a job, right? And that's it is a little terrifying as the person that's kind of in control of that entire thing. The one thing that I I don't like about this whole thing, and I see this as a coach myself, is like I really I try to preserve the youth and the innocence in these young players for as long as humanly possible. Because the more baseball you play, the more dancer settles you go to, like you do get jaded, like you do get told terrible things, like things happen, and it is great, it's a great lesson to over you know, lessons to learn and obstacles that you have to overcome because that's like real life, that's adult stuff, right? You're not your kids aren't little anymore. And my team that I coached, I remember the first I told the parents in the first meeting, this is gonna be very difficult. This is gonna be really tough. And I don't know if the parents really understood at that time how difficult it was going to be. And it's not just because of the players and how far behind we were compared to kind of the average ball player, but it's it's at times you just chalk it up to they're 13 years old. Like parents always want, you know, I know a lot of people in life, they always want to quantify things with numbers. Why does this happen? What is you know, we got to remember we're all unique and individual, right? In our own way. Nobody, even twins are different, right? So we have to treat that as such. And the majority of the coaching that I do, to be completely honest with you, is really nothing to do with baseball. It's motivating, it's you know, being a leader and just doing all these different things and like treat people the way you want to be treated. Don't do anything to anybody else you wouldn't want done to yourself. Like a lot of the lessons that my dad was harping at me for so many years, like that's the kind of stuff that I try to impart on the kids because there's a really great chance that they're not going to be pro baseball players. That kid Danny, I mentioned a while ago, our assistant coach, he was more mature than me than nine years old. He was he's one of the best people I've ever met in my entire life. And I am way more proud of the human being and the husband that he has become rather than the baseball player. And this is a guy that was a national championship at UT. So I take a lot more gratification on how they are as human beings rather than how they are as baseball players. And I'm I I said this, I know I just said in the group chat yesterday. One of the things I told the players this weekend was, great things happen to good people. That was the last thing I said before the pitch came to this young man who has been struggling. I don't want to even say struggling, like every ball he hit in the first three games was right at somebody, and everything was dead silent. And I said, Great things happen to good people. Now is your time. And then not even 30 seconds later, that kid ropes a ball down the line, two people scored, and it was as loud as I got all weekend. And I fist pumped and I was so happy because I feel I'm a big karmic guy. You send good vibes out into the universe, good things are gonna happen to you. And I think it's like that in so many different aspects in life, you sports, and beyond. So I try to engage in that with the kids like be good teammates, be coachable, right? Those are the two big things. Be coachable and be good teammates, treat people well, and those are the things that really make that success to me. It's not winning tournaments, it's not how many kids I can get to high school. It's like, are those better kids after they are coached by me? Forget about the athlete. Are they better kids? Because I think a lot of that works hand in hand. Because if they are better kids when my time with them is done, chances are they're probably much better on the baseball field as well. Yeah, I don't know what you're doing, but it's working because the first season, you're right, it was a learning curve, and now we are it we win a lot of tournaments, but even the ones we don't win were we're we're strong competitors. So, whatever it's working doing is working. I don't think keep yelling at my kid. Speaking of that's the other thing, too, is like I wanted to ask Danielle if you guys don't mind. Like, I I read a book years ago from Tony LaRussa, who's a famous baseball manager, St. Louis Cardinals. And we know who Tony LaRussa is. They're a Hall of Fame baseball manager. And he said, and there's a book called Three Nights in August, and and one of the things he said is like, you really can't get on a player if they don't know that you love them, right? And the one thing that I do is I'm very hard on the kids, and I'm hard on them more of their attitudes and their focus and their energy, because those are things you can control. Physical mistakes are part of the game, but mental mistakes and the lack of effort and focus and intensity, those are things you can control. But I think every single child knows that I care about them. I'll joke about them, I'll ask about their school, I'll ask about like what'd you do last night, what'd you have for dinner? Like when you build that type of relationship, you're able to get on them and you're able to kind of push that envelope a little bit and really, you know, just be a little bit more vocal. But if they just think you're just somebody yelling at them all the time, I don't know if that's really going to resonate with them. And I think that's the biggest thing with our group is that we we were so poor in the beginning and we were 0-7 to start the first season. We've, you know, won two tournaments, we've been in a final in another one. Like that doesn't happen in less than the calendar year, but it has, but it's because the buy-in from the parents, the buy-in from the players, and just pushing them to see, hey, you're here, but you can be here, you just gotta believe, but it's not gonna be easy. You see that in dance too, Danielle, where it's like the best dance teachers are the ones that like really care and do push those athletes to the peak. For sure. I mean, I know, you know, my daughter. I we had so we had a dance, so the studio owner has been the studio owner the whole time, and that is Olivia's, you know, ride or die. Like they are they she loves her like family. She we are like family. Olivia knows that she can tell her anything. She is a good venting person. Like Olivia will just go to private sometimes and vent about her teammates, and she knows that she's not gonna tell anyone, you know, and we had another teacher like that, and then she unexpected she left. And that was really hard for Olivia because she had built, I had built a bond with that teacher. We used to go spin together in the mornings, and Olivia was like, I there's just I I'm never gonna be able to find another person like that. And it does, it takes it takes the caring part first. It's just like in school. If the kids don't think you care, they're not gonna work for you. It's plain and simple. I mean, they can they're they they're not gonna care. Um, you have to build a relationship. And, you know, even in baseball, like Owen had been on a team with the same coach since he was eight years old, you know, and he loved him and he still does love him. He still goes to batting lessons with him, he still loves him, you know. And I'm not gonna lie, at the beginning it was, it was hard. It was a hard transition. He, you know, he was like, I don't know, you know, because he had already built that relationship. He didn't have the relationship with Jay. But now it's like a whole new one, like, you know, because of the relationship they've built and because of the leadership aspects that he's given Owen off the baseball field. And, you know, like those kind of things I think coaches don't realize how much that that means to a child who maybe isn't the best. Owen knows he's not the best. Owen knows he is, you know, working very hard. Have you been in the same games with Owen that I have? You know, we're Brings up a great point. Like I've I've coached for many years, right? I coached for 10 years. I got into Radio Freight, and then I've been back coaching in a year. I've never named a captain for our my teams ever. And we've won the World Series back in 2011, and I've had a lot of different age groups. And I named Owen the captain of our team this year. You know, it it's and it's not something that I thought of. It was just something that happened right on the spot. And it's because Owen's not the biggest guy, you know, and he he's not the best player on our team, but that means absolutely nothing to me. Again, are you going to the same games that I have? I mean, he's always fairly popular. He almost always gets the team rolling. He's the hardest worker. But that's the point, though. From the outside looking in, you may not know that. But when you're in that group, you know how important he is. And Owen gets more leashed than most of the guys on my team because Owen shows up to practice every time. Owen's always on time. Owen works hard. When Owen gets out, it's not just about Owen. He supports every single person on the team. And here's the thing I came up with that out of nowhere, right? I said it. He was a captain of the team. And Anthony, who was playing with us that weekend, the biggest guy on the team, put his arm around Owen and he was like, that was the right call. That was a good call. And here's the thing: you can't tell kids something that they don't already know, like in an aspect of that within the team, right? It's easy to name the best guy, the best guy on your team, the captain. But who's the heartbeat of the team? Who is the guy that is the most reliable? Who's the guy that would literally do anything for you? If I need Owen to bunt four times in the game, Owen will bunt four times in the game because that's what Coach Jay wanted. Owen pitched in the championship game yesterday, and before that, he only he pitched Saturday. And before that, he didn't pitch in six months. But Owen did it because it's the best for the team. There's nobody on our team that would say Owen would nobody's a better teammate than Owen. So nobody on our team went, why is Owen the captain? He's not the best player on the team. Everybody looked and said, yup. Yep, that was the right call. And what does that tell you? It tells you a couple of things. One, we've got a good group of kids. Two, we've established a baseline where everybody knows what the importance is of focus and energy and effort, being coachable and being a good teammate. And three, it just you know that by doing, and the reason why I did something like that is Owen is a guy where he he needs to be told, you can do this, you got this, you done. Because I don't need to get on Owen like I need to get on other people because it's not about effort. I just said it's about energy, effort, and focus. It's not necessarily like that with Owen and one of our other players, Jack. It's it I told him right from the jump, it's gonna be a little bit more execution-based. You guys are gonna be coached a little bit different because I don't have to challenge your effort. You're gonna give me everything you got. And when you have somebody like that, it's almost like an extension of a coaching staff on the team. And when I name Owen a captain, it's more than just baseball because I know by calling him a captain, he's gonna go to his car and he's gonna smile and he's gonna know that he belongs here. When I was like Owen, I wasn't the biggest guy on the team. I wondered sometimes, like, I feel like I'm a leader, and and but I don't think anybody recognizes it. In 11th grade, Coach Pyle said, You may not be the best player on the team, but you're the leader of this team. It changed my entire life. Coach Pyle to this day, him saying that, I was like, bro, I gotta like my opinion does matter. I thought I was just somebody that kind of slipped under the radar. I was a good player, I was an all-star, but I wasn't that. But somebody believed in me. And from then on, at 16, 25 years later, I still live my life the way Coach Pyle saw me through his eyes. And if I could do that to somebody like Owen, where in 20 years he's gonna look back and say, Coach Jay believed in me, like that that is worth more than anything when it comes to baseball. No, no doubt about it. Well, we're almost out of time. I want to spend the last couple minutes just talking about the fun side, telling some funny stories. Nicole, I wanted to ask you because I literally don't know this. At any point in dance or Danielle, too, are any are the moms also the teachers? Yeah, that's a good question. I want to know that one. Because we have daddy ball. Is that a thing in dance too? Where like your daughter's on the team and you're putting her on the competition team and she's getting the solos. There are moms. I mean, think they're teachers. Yes. Yes. That's great. I mean, I've coached Olivia in Accro and for many years, and she's at the point where like she's not getting any more tricks. The layout step outs about she's not gonna throw a fool, like there's no reason to. So, but you know, I I used to dance before I cheered, and so I'll, you know, run her solos with her, and I run other people's solos when we go to competitions. Like some of the kids are like, We run my solo, we run my solo if the teach if the main teachers aren't at a a convention or a competition that we go to. But like Nicole said, we have a lot of parents who think they are teachers. Yeah, it's so much I like I know enough because I dance, right? Like, I know technique, I know that I will fly under the radar all day long. So no one knows that at all. And I will only do my daughter and like just and and even just a minuscule amount with her, because I want her to still, I don't want her to look at me in that in that way. Like I want her to love her coaches, as all you guys are saying, and only look at me as the mom who's the cheerleader in the background. Like, I don't want to be both to her. Yeah, I finally had to say to Grace, and like look, uh I did not play baseball, but when I like to do a lot of research, so I learned everything I could about baseball. But I mean, I had to say to Grace it probably a couple years ago, like, I can't help you anymore because you know more than me. You'll you are a better baseball player than I could ever dream of knowing about on the internet. Like, I just I'm out, so I'm just here to support you. I love you. But there's I mean, in baseball, there's a a lot, a lot of years where it's just a dad volunteer who's the coach, and he's essentially reliving his peak years, right? Like if he peaked in high school, he is reliving that, or if he failed, he's gonna make sure his kid doesn't, and his kids can start yesterday at about 230. We saw that about 2:33 o'clock yesterday. There was a play, and the guy goes, The Rays are gonna call me up for advice. And I was like, You guys are losing 9-1. What are they calling you for? So okay, what I have rapid fire questions. Okay, have you ever, both of you, all of you, really, have you ever either cut a kid from the team or not put them on the competition team or the performance team or not allow them to be selected because of the behavior of their parents? Yes, 100%. I'll take a less talented kid with a better family seven days a week and twice on Sunday. I kind of meant it the other way, but okay, we'll go with that. No, I think it's important. I mean, when you spend as much time as dance families and baseball families spend, like if you have somebody that's just walking around saying, Well, that kid sucks. And this coach, I'm not it's it's I think it's reckless, and I think it's unnecessary if you bring somebody like that into your environment, into your ecosystem. If you do that and then the team disintegrates from the inside, that's on you. And that's one of the responsibilities that you have as a head coach. Like, you have to vet the people that are gonna be around, you know, you all the good work that you could do get unraveled by one parent, not even one set of parent, but one parent. Yeah, I just had to sign a contract. Yeah, so I'm we're we're auditioning for new studios for our move, and that we had to get on a parent meeting. And Chloe, my youngest, listened in, and it they said specifically on there, like, we'll kick your kid off the team for being you know a jerk, but we will equally kick your kid off the team if your parents are jerks. And she looked at me and she's like, Oh wow. I said, Why are you looking at me like that? I'm a nice parent, and uh, but she's like, But so and so, like, she started naming off people aware. She's like, Oh, I bet they would have gotten kicked off. Yeah, we do have one parent, we do have one parent that's a little iffy on our team. She uh she's a little loud, she wears flower shorts and she has like shells, pictures of shells in the background of her Zoom calls and everything. She's she's a little soft. I think those are just paint splits, but I'm not the one who almost got into a fist fight a couple weeks ago, and nor am I the one that got kicked out of a game and almost kicked out of a second game. No who you're talking about. I should have got kicked out of the game yesterday instead of the game. Yeah, that's what I was talking about. That was that was debatable. That coach, I know him. He's meh, he's kind of a loudmouth, not not our coach, the other other couch is definitely a loudmouth. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't get you talk about stretching and running all that stuff. I don't run my feet, I run my mouth, and I get paid handsomely to do it. I'm not yeah, I have to do that. But that one was deserved. That was deserved yesterday. Yeah, I mean, it is what it is. That was a like that was that was trash. I think when Jake gets kicked out of the game, it's probably always deserved, right? Yeah, for me. That one was pretty much like an almost fist fight between the ladies, like we're pulling. Recently, this was this year, actually. We were at a competition and I was sitting and I could just see two ladies like barking. The music's loud, right? So you can't hear what they're saying, but you could tell by their body language that they are just going at it with each other. And one stands up and the other one kind of shrinks down a little bit. I was like, Oh my gosh, we're gonna be. I got my phone ready. I was like, we are gonna see a real fist fight at a dance competition. I can say I have not ever seen that. Like, this is the first time I've seen it get so so heated, but wow, that was an excellent ultimate during during COVID. So back in COVID, you when they started allowing you to go to dance conventions again, they would tape these squares onto the floor with tape. So you had to dance in this square. So every kid got a square. That so Olivia was in, I guess she was still in the mini room at that time. She went no, actually, she was in the junior room at that time, which is like 11 and 12 year olds. No, actually, she was a mini, nine. So it was the eight to 10-year-old room. Okay, so it was like a race to the square. Like, who's gonna get the front and center square to dance in? Parents were saving the squares for children. It was a whole thing. Two parents got in a two men, two dads, not even two dads, got in a fist fight over a square on the ground. I mean, it was oh my god. The two dads showed up that in front of the if you have not danced with people from Miami, you have not met. Oh, yeah. The extreme Miami dancing. They were from Miami. That's that's the the Mecca of dance down there, and they they take it very seriously. And they were the cut the security had to be called, all these little minis are watching it happen. All these eight, nine-year-olds are like, Oh, oh my god, they're gonna fight. Yeah, yeah. COVID brought out a lot of fun. So Miami. You so he's a nine or ten years old. And when they were they were on offense, so he was just sitting in the dugout waiting. But this squirmish happened on I take it back, they were in the field because the skirmish happened at third base, where the kid and the other team was trying to slide in. So I think they weren't even allowed to steal yet. So he's sliding into the base and he got tagged out and he had called out, and he starts fighting with the ump that called him out. He's a nine to 10-year-old little boy getting mouthy with this ump. But so then the mom comes down from the stand and tries to like step in and be like, you know, you know, Bobby, like, don't talk like that. You're out here, you're and he goes, Stop being such a bitch, mom. Ten years old. And the mom was just like, Oh, don't say that, you know, and the dad was there too. I'm telling you, the my son's life would have flashed before his very nice. I probably would have arrested. What's the word you just used to start that story? Squeamish, squirmish, you said squirmish. I think you combined squeamish and skirmish together, and for you created a new word, squirmish. And I was like, wait, I think she said they said it again. I was like, I think she meant skirmish, not squeamish. You may have felt squeamish after the skirmish, but I don't know if squirmish is a word. But I love it though. I love I like I like new words, I'm a big fan of that. Squirmish, welcome to the skirmish. All right, well, we could probably keep going for a whole other episode. We cannot thank you two enough. Thank you for taking the time out of your day. Thank you for teaching all of our listeners about kids and sports, and we hope to see you guys back again. And if anybody, always remember to follow us on all of our social media. It is Double Booked Official Podcast, and you can listen to us wherever you find your podcast Apple, Spotify, YouTube. We are all over the place bringing you all kinds of fun topics like kid sports.