The Quarterback DadCast
I’m Casey Jacox, the host of the Quarterback Dadcast. As fathers, we want to help prepare our kids—not only to enter the professional world but to thrive in each stage of their lives. Guests of this show include teachers, coaches, professional athletes, consultants, business owners, authors—and stay-at-home dads. Just like you! They share openly about failure, success, laughter, and even sadness so that we can all learn from each other—as we strive to become the best leaders of our homes! You will learn each week, and I am confident you will leave each episode with actionable tasks that you can apply to your life to become that ultimate Quarterback and leader of your household. Together, we will learn from the successes and failures of dads who are doing their best every day. So, sit back, relax and subscribe now to receive each episode weekly on The Quarterback Dadcast.
The Quarterback DadCast
Cultivating Character: A Father's Guide to Humility and Growth - Craig Waibel, GM - Seattle Sounders
What happens when a professional sports executive takes off the GM hat and steps into his most important role as a father? Craig Waibel, General Manager of the Seattle Sounders FC, brings us behind the scenes of his parenting journey with refreshing honesty and hard-earned wisdom.
Waibel, a former MLS player with four championship titles, shares a powerful framework for raising children that focuses on authenticity over achievement. "When it stops being fun, we're done," he explains about his daughter's volleyball journey, highlighting his commitment to nurturing joy ahead of competitive success. This philosophy might surprise some, coming from someone who's thrived at the highest levels of professional sports.
The conversation reveals intimate moments of parental growth—from learning to step back when his teenage daughter needs space to process challenges, to allowing her to see his vulnerabilities. Waibel recounts transformative lessons from his own upbringing, including when his parents confronted his self-deprecating humor with the firm directive: "That's not how we treat ourselves." These formative experiences shaped his approach to both leadership and fatherhood.
Particularly moving is Waibel's emphasis on integrity and communication. The open dialogue he's cultivated with his 15-year-old daughter didn't happen by accident but through years of intentional parenting. He describes the gratitude he feels when she shares her experiences and emotions freely—a connection many parents struggle to maintain during the teenage years.
Whether you're raising future athletes, managing a team, or simply trying to become a better leader at home, Waibel's insights transcend sports. His perspective on removing fear to unlock potential applies equally to parenting and professional settings.
How might your relationships transform if you approached them with more humility, vulnerability, and genuine curiosity?
Please don't forget to leave us a review wherever you consume your podcasts! Please help us get more dads to listen weekly and become the ultimate leader of their homes!
Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show. Hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast. Welcome to season six, and I could not be more excited to have you join me for another year of fantastic episodes and conversations really unscripted and raw and authentic conversations with dads. If you're new to this podcast, really it's simple. It's a podcast where we interview dads, we learn about how they were raised, we learn about the life lessons that were important to them, we learn about the values that are important to them and really we learn about how we can work hard to become a better quarterback or leader of our home. So let's sit back, relax and listen to today's episode on the Quarterback Dadcast. Well, hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the Quarterback Dadcast. We are in season six and, as I keep saying, these guests continue to get better.
Speaker 1:And for you football fans aka soccer we got a beauty here. This gentleman everybody is the GM of your Seattle Sounders, that's, the Seattle Sounders of the MLS pro sports world. He's a Pacific Northwest native. He's a former captain of your University of Washington Huskies. He's a Lewis and Clark native. He spent time I think 12 years in the MLS with four titles, which is pretty impressive, with four titles, which is pretty impressive, be it the Real Salt Lake, I think, the Sounders, colorado Rapids, the Houston Dynamo, I think. Maybe I missed a couple. I think that might be it. But, more importantly, we are here to talk to Craig Weibel, about Craig the dad, and how he's working hard to become the ultimate quarterback or leader, maybe fullback, of his household. So, without further ado, mr Weibel, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, man, that's a heck of an intro. I'm glad you said it. I don't typically talk about those things.
Speaker 1:I know you requested a smoke machine with strobe lights, so I apologize if. I let you down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm more into presentation than the yeah, you know, than the content there in the intro.
Speaker 1:And for the record everybody, mr Weibel and I have actually known each other since college so but we've never. We've always had like enjoyed times with our buddies, good guys like Brandon Perdoe and and Greer Smith and and McCullough and Yoon and such and Donnie Link with that poll. But I'm going to get to know Craig, what was life like for him and all these things? But we always start out each episode with gratitude. So tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
Speaker 2:I think I'm most grateful for the. We've established an open dialogue with our daughter and she's 15 now and we worked really we worked a lot when she was younger on being able to articulate her feelings and her emotion and things like that. So, you know, last night and the day before we've had some. You know, as every family does, you live life together. You go through everything together. So there's been a lot of a lot of dialogue lately on on what's going on in her personal life and it's just uh, I wake up the last couple of days just so grateful that she's willing to share it.
Speaker 1:God amen, amen to that one, it's. That's, that's the uh. I I feel sorry for those folks that I mean every family's different and we go through ups and downs. I mean I went through a time where Riley, our daughter was, wasn't as talkative. I think that was maybe impacts that we think of COVID and just isolation, and but then now she's super talkative. But, uh, that's a good one, dude, I'm. What I'm grateful for is actually this past weekend we were um spent time in Sacramento area watching my daughter play basketball, basketball and just watch. I'm grateful we came out of it healthy. Um, that was about one of our best players actually went down with mcl maybe acl which is like sick to my stomach when I have it
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm so grateful. Or, um, and she uh had some, had some love from a few college coaches down there, which was actually kind of cool to us to experience and um, she's and she's, it's just fun to watch her like this maturity, like just it's not about, it's funny. Like you know, there's a word behind me. Everybody you can see on if you're on watch on YouTube is believe, and so I think it's doing that power of mindset, play Right and and maybe she will, maybe she won't, but it's love that she's like she believes in herself that much and there's that confidence. So I'm grateful for the time we had me here and Carrie and Ryder was obviously doing his own thing down in college, but he still checked in on us every day on Snapchat, which was fun.
Speaker 2:I have a quick one. Were you, were you able to step back and enjoy that kind of as a fan of your daughter, or was it all just kind of as dad like? Were you caught up in the admiration of the moment or it's just interesting, like to be able to separate Cause? I know you grew up in sports, obviously with success, and in football.
Speaker 1:So no, I think I did, I think I, I try. I really work hard, knowing that, like on two things one, the refs are always going to suck. Sorry, refs, I always tell myself that, just so I don't. And I and I know that they're never going to apologize to me and say you're right, casey, we, we blew that one. That was awful. I mean, there was a couple of games. We're playing football. It's like this is basketball, so I hate when games like it like that. So I did it, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think I think I just focus on reminding her about, like you know, I got no, I got no eligibility left. So just try to have fun and it's, that's a buy, it's a fine line of pushing, but making sure she's ready to be pushed, and so I always ask her questions, saying hey, are you open to you know, maybe not radically game, but the next day I'll say like hey, are you open to any thoughts I have or do you want me to? Just no, she goes. No, tell me, what do you, what do you see? And so it's like it's fun when she wants to hear it. Um, sometimes she goes, sometimes she'll say no, dad, I need a day.
Speaker 1:I'm like cool, how about it, um, but I don't know. I always, I always try to like, at least because she, you know these are their goals. I always tell people so and her so. If your have changed, let me know and I won't try to help you. But if you tell me you want to go play in college, I know what that feels like and I know what it took to get there for me and I had to squeeze every ounce of athletic ability out of me to get there Absolutely. But if you don't, that's cool too. I just want to like. I think we talked about this recently. It's like uses the biggest goals, finding what they want to do and then help ignite it. All right, well, bring me inside the Weibel huddle per se. We're going to have oranges at halftime, so tell me about, tell me about where you and your wife met and, uh, a little bit about your daughter.
Speaker 2:So we we met in San Francisco, oddly on a weekend where we were myself and a lot of those guys you mentioned in the intro were down celebrating. Todd McCullough made the rookie all-star game his first year in the NBA. He was in Oakland and so we all went down there for the weekend and we met out one night in San Francisco. She grew up here locally, went to Washington. We oddly lived across the street from each other in college but never really met, never officially spoke, no way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ran into each other out one night in San Francisco and just kind of it just clicked. Everything fell into place. I think we were both at that point you get somewhere in your 20s where I'm just happy being single and I'm fine with it and whatever it is isn't going to happen right now and we had both just kind of let go and I know you've talked a lot about just letting go and kind of trust in the path and we met right around that time. For both of us I still lived in Seattle, I was playing for the Sounders, and so we dated long distance for about a year, year and a half, and then made the call to kind of get going with this.
Speaker 1:Now does Jocelyn? Does she work or does she stay home?
Speaker 2:She works at volleyball. Jocelyn's our daughter. Sorry, Julie.
Speaker 1:Sorry, Julie.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, julie doesn't work. So she worked up until Jocelyn was born and it was really interesting. We both grew up one of four kids and so we both grew up with a lot of siblings and our mothers both were at home and so we had these wonderful and we both had good relationships with our parents. And so we had these ideas and I think when we first got married, the idea was we were going to have a bigger family. And then we realized, when I was playing pro soccer, that I was traveling every other weekend and pre-season for a couple of weeks here and I was gone so much that, you know, julie kind of looked at me one day and said I don't want to be a single mom until you're done playing. So we actually waited right up until we had kind of talked about when I was about to be done.
Speaker 2:So Jocelyn was born New Year's Eve, 2009. And I had nothing left in the tank. But my coach gave me one more season, which only lasted half a season, until I was invited to leave halfway through the next year. But but yeah, so we talked about it. We're trying to do all the you know all the things, julie. I got to go back to work. I, you know, I I'm not sure if I can just stay home. And I said, well, look, I'm about to retire, so I'll, like, I'm happy to stay home and and uh, and and raise our daughter. And sure enough, like you know, jocelyn was born.
Speaker 2:I was already mentally like this is great, I'm gonna retire from soccer. And you know just, parent full time, which is tough. And then mom held her daughter for the first time in the hospital and about 30, 35 seconds later looked up at me and said I can't go back to work. And so she, she's been at home with, with Joss all this time. And an ad add just a tough, tough job raising kids. And um, and now you know, jocelyn's hitting that 15, she's in driver's edge, she's, you know, starting to express a little more independence. And so I think Julie's starting to weigh in now about, you know, what am I going to do to stay busy? And she has so many wonderful hobbies and and things she likes to do. But she is contemplating, you know, these things we always do of value and self-worth, and is that represented by financial or is it, you know, fulfillment and all those things. So, uh, she's been home for a while, but we'll see what the next couple of years hold.
Speaker 1:Well, um, being a stay at home mom is gotta be one of the hardest jobs ever. Carrie, my wife, she stayed home for 10 years and then, during COVID, decided to come out of retirement I mean, I think it's and she found something part-time and it's perfect for her because she can work whenever she wants the hours and the company she works for shout out to you ClearEdge. They're super flexible and um. But I think it has to be the right fit for us, because sometimes there's like, like moms who stay home or dads who stay home, like that is a grind and mentally and you don't get a break. So it's like sometimes it's like, okay, still stay home, you've, you've earned it.
Speaker 2:Like, just get your, get your mind I like to joke with her that when Jocelyn gets her license, you know Julie should take a one-year sabbatical and, just like you know, be mom, be attached, you know, but just take a year to just enjoy whatever she wants to enjoy.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, so you talked a little bit about oh actually, well, jocelyn will talk. So what? What lights her fire? What does she like to do?
Speaker 2:she's. She's been around sports her whole life, uh, and so she's. She comes by the competitive gene fairly, fairly easily. But where she's really fallen in love over the last couple couple years is volleyball, and so she's, she's starting to hone in on it and she's. It's motivated her to start kind of working out on her own and making up the workouts and studying online and going on YouTube and doing all those things. We've been really fortunate as parents. We're pretty boring old people. So unfortunately for Jocelyn, looking back, when she was like 8, 9, 10, 11 and didn't really have a choice, she would just end up playing Scrabble with Julie and I at night. So she she loves to read, uh, which is fantastic. She actually really enjoys, uh, school in terms of the academic challenge and the social, the social piece. But, uh, but away from school and away from what we would call her job, which is to get grades, right now is volleyball and it brings her a lot of joy and her friends do too.
Speaker 1:So it's nice. Do you guys have to travel for volleyball?
Speaker 2:We do, yeah, we do travel. She plays locally but, yeah, there's some travel involved. She hasn't reached the level of of the teams that have to travel just to find the better competition, which is kind of nice for mom and dad because there's still plenty of competition, really good competition in seattle, um. So we haven't gotten there yet. And you know, going back to some of the things you were touching on earlier, you know that's that's kind of up to her. There's no pressure from mom or dad to achieve certain things. There's so many factors that go into athletic achievement in terms of timing ability, coach choice and opportunity and then exposure. You get to where your opponents are really the only way you're going to improve it at a point. So we don't, we don't really put that pressure on her. My big question to her is always did you have fun? Because when it stops being fun, we're done, we'll go find something else. There's too many things in the world to enjoy to not have fun.
Speaker 1:That is spot on dude and powerful. To not have fun, that is spot on dude and powerful. And I think you know, I hope everybody realized it's like our guest who played professionally, who had a D1 scholarship, who is now leading a professional sports organization, doesn't expect his daughter to do the same thing. I think sometimes there's people who I mean I, I have to. I've always had to like really really slow myself down and realize like yeah, that was this was my path. I'm at least stopped at the division two level but my kids might do something different and I think it's so important that we all, as parents, just can always check ourselves and realizing, like you said, are they having fun? Did you have? Like that should be the first question. We ask whether it's a band, concert, choir, robotics, sports, you know whatever, and we don't have to use qualifiers.
Speaker 2:You know different levels, different, different experiences. It's it's really all about growth in this journey, right? And so as we age and as we get a little bit older, uh, you know, we we reflect on oh man, was that really important? I used to think this. You know, man, was that really important? I used to think this thing. You know, this one thing was so important, and, and and we look back a lot of times at the lessons that taught us, or who it made us, or why we enjoy it, or why we enjoyed it we probably would verbalize differently today than than we would have five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago or or or. To the point, when you're calling plays, when you're under center, you're getting the ball snapped to you. Your level of enjoyment in your experience is different, and I think that's kind of what we always try and reiterate to Jocelyn is, and we remind ourselves as adults, we're not perfect at this. Just know that in five years, the way you interpret today is going to be way different, no matter when it is.
Speaker 1:What's funny. You say that, craig. We did a little team dinner on Sunday before we flew home yesterday and we were going around the highs and lows of the weekend. Everybody went around and when it was my turn to speak I told the girls girls, I was like my highs is just watching you guys smile and laugh and win or lose, or if you went, oh, for four, or if you made all your free throws or you made your three, it doesn't, it matters. But it doesn't matter. What matters is like you're gonna remember these team dinners. You're gonna remember, you know, the relationships you built, the laughs, um and uh. I think it was a good reflection, that of all of us. It was like you know, that's spot on. And the girls are probably I don't know if they're old enough to really understand that yet but I mean I remember. I don't. I can't tell you who I half the teams I played. I remember. But like what I did on third down and six.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. But you remember the people, you remember the moments, and there are what I call tangible moments where you either you know when you go into coaching and when you work with other people and we reflect on ourselves too is you know these, these moments that you can almost grab them, you can almost just reach out. Oh, I, I just learned something. Oh, my gosh, that, like that click, that finally clicked that thing.
Speaker 2:My dad said a thousand times that I never chose to make sense of this person, just said it with one different word, and now it makes sense and of course it's going to. It should frustrate my dad, but at the same time, we all learn at different times. We all learn at at different levels, and sometimes it does take a different voice, a different tone, a different emotion to to help us learn those moments. You know when I, when I was coaching because I coached a lot, when I played those moments where you help someone grow or when someone helps you grow, I I mean, those are the ones that I remember. You know I the good ones and the bad ones, because we've all had good teachers and we've all had bad teachers, and they all taught us something.
Speaker 1:Right, that's a good point. Well, you mentioned Pops, but I want to rewind the tape and go back to life in Lewis and Clark and growing up and talk about what mom and dad did, talk about your bros and talk about what mom and dad did. Talk about your bros and talk about what was life like growing up for you.
Speaker 2:So I was like I said I was one of four. I was. I was actually born in Portland, lived in Vancouver, Washington, but I don't remember much from there. All I remember was, you know, chaos. I just remember everyone was around. It was so much fun as a kid, that's all you know. You're just stimulation. What I really remember is when we moved to Lewiston, idaho, which is where my mom grew up. She's one of 11 kids, so we would go to, you know, for the holidays or in the summer. Her last, her maiden name was Wolf and we would have Wolf Days and the whole family would get together and you know, you could have anywhere at that time from 80 to 100 people and you know, over the years it grew to 120, 130 could show up for these things. And so you know it was. I mean, it was incredible to have that much family.
Speaker 2:It's a small town to begin with, lewiston, Idaho, and then add in the fact that mom's family knows everyone. It was pretty fun, but we spent about five years there. My dad and mom were teachers and so it's really really small world. But small. Tangent and I'll come back is my dad, when we lived in Portland, was a teacher. He called high school football games in what is now the Portland Timbers home stadium on the PA. So small, small world of experience. But he, he had four kids and they were both teachers. He couldn't make it work and so he stopped and he actually went and started working. He worked for an insurance company and he started when they were door to door, so you know, getting chased by dogs and all the, all the fun things that door to door salesmen have to deal with and he, he just put his head down and he grinded and you know, we moved to Lewiston and he just put his head down and he grinded. We moved to Lewiston, we were there four or five years. He got moved into a leadership role in Coeur d'Alene, idaho, and then got moved after another four years to Spokane and that's where I went to high school.
Speaker 2:I grew up an older brother, an older sister and a twin brother. By twin I mean very fraternal. So I look like and you look like the bad guy from every movie since 1987 stereotypical, like bald bad guy, right? Uh, my brother looks like tom selleck in the glory days of magnum pi. I mean a gorgeous head of hair, just. Oh, he can grow the. Just the best stash.
Speaker 1:I mean, what kind of chests are we talking?
Speaker 2:Whatever, whatever it's, it's magic. I mean the guy, like, whatever the day calls for, it just happens for him. You know, um, but he. But it's interesting growing up in a house where you know you get raised by the same people. They're teaching values and consistently and and how crazy and different we all end up. And you know my, my twin brother just this was back before they taught us what entrepreneur meant. In college they kind of taught us to like fit in and toe lines in and tow lines. But when we finished school I was doing this pro soccer thing which was crazy in his brain to even comprehend, and he played wide receiver at WSU for a bit. So he knew sports, but even just the pursuit of pro sports. He joined the real world, did it for a year and a half and then went his own direction. He now lives, as you do, in Split, croatia. He's married two girls and owns a couple businesses over there.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've got anything from what I've done to this adventurous twin brother. Then my older brother and sister are both really, really great parents stable, you know, stable jobs, and we've all been fortunate to become, you know, a version of productive people in society.
Speaker 1:Are mom and dad still with us?
Speaker 2:Mom and dad are still with us. They are living in what I call college without class. They live down in Arizona at a retirement community where they have every elective course from college except anything that involves actual academics. So pickleball, mountain biking, softball, line dancing, chorus, like all those things. They're so busy it's hard to get them on the phone. And it's it's hard to get them on the phone and it's wonderful. You know, I know I know you lost your father and I'm still very fortunate to have both my parents alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, where in Arizona, cause my mom used to live there.
Speaker 2:So there, man, they are in the middle of nowhere, Arizona about, about smack dab in between Tucson and Phoenix, and a little little place called Eloyy, which is across the freeway from casa grande okay yeah, so it's. It's basically right in the middle of the desert in between the two cities you'd know of my mom did.
Speaker 1:They lived in surprise um and they used to do. They were down there for like 20 years but we loved going down there. It was like me being a golfer. We'd be able, me and writer, play golf, and I was going to say, it's a dream, even remember. Uh well, mr Kelly, hanson, shout out to Hanson.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Hanson and I we would. We used to go down there for Seahawks Cardinals games and we do 30, we'd play, we'd fly down. Like Friday morning, we'd play 36. Uh, saturday we play 18 and then Sunday we go to the Hawks game and fly back Sunday. Yeah, just shenanigans, ultimate shenanigans.
Speaker 2:Hey, can I backtrack for one second to this thing that I kind of talk about these tangible moments. You know, I know you moment with one of your kids, or both your kids, where you kind of had that where it clicked and you could see it and you couldn't celebrate it because then they'd know you. You know, did you? Can you think of any of those moments like a?
Speaker 1:like a moment of like when they listen to me or they learn something. They learn the power of hard work. Yeah, I think it's less about.
Speaker 2:I think it's about. I know what you mean when you say listen to me. Uh, it's less the authority, but yeah, when it, when you saw something click like something you'd been working on perhaps years and years of a confidence moment or a skill moment or you know cause I know you like to rebound quite a bit with with your daughter and um and I know you like to golf a lot with your son Is there, are there any moments where you know, maybe that sport transitioned into a moment bigger than the sport, maybe back in the day?
Speaker 1:Well, the first one that comes to my mind is with Ryder, when he was like 10 and he was playing in a district golf tournament and golf, as we all know, it's really really hard and it's also, uh, you're, you are the judge, jury, um, you get a pick and it's.
Speaker 1:It's a gentleman's game, they say, and it's a game of honesty and integrity and some choose to follow those rules and some choose not to. Yep, um, so Ryder was playing in a district tournament and he was we're playing a course he didn't know, and obviously dad and mom are nervous watching him and he, he, he bombs one down the right side and pretty much at like nine or 10 years old, if you're making bogeys and pars, you're right in it and so, like, so he bombs down the right side, puts it on the green end too. I'm like sweet, good start, all right, here we go and he goes up to mark his ball. I see him mark it and he kind of looks up and looks around, he's like, and he kind of looks down at it again and I see like a, and I'm kind of like now you only could get like 25 yards, because they're like just like crazy, like rules people, sorry, rules people area out there, but yeah, and.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and but there's a little black mark as well. I'm like I don't remember a black mark. I'm like, oh my God, he hit the wrong ball. Now my mind was like, how did he do that? Because I saw where his drive went. It was right where he hit it, how it would have happened. So he's like shoot, what do I do? I had the cartoon that angel pops up. Do the right thing. Writer. Devil's like sure, I think it's your ball, dude, just keep going. Thankfully, the angel prevailed. So a writer sees it and he walks up to the rules official and says you know, sir, I don't know what to do. I hit the wrong ball.
Speaker 1:Now, like, when I saw him do it, I was like crushed for him, but I was also so proud and the rules official, wherever this gentleman is, he was just like oh, like so let down. And I'm just like no, bro, you should be celebrating that we have a fricking 10 year old who was honest. And so now, as playing partners, the two kids they're like kind of getting frustrated what the hell is going on. And so they like just leave them. They have to go to the next team, they have to just sit on the tee box and wait. So just leave them. They have to go to the next seat and they just sit on the tee box and wait.
Speaker 1:So now Ryder's talking to the rules official. They go, they finally figure out how to do it. They assess them, a two stroke penalty. They make them walk back 90 yards back to the middle of fairway by himself. Has to drop.
Speaker 1:Now I'm like, oh my God, this is like a fricking 12. This is going to be a disaster. And he grips, shot onto the green like 40 feet away. Now he's got this downhill breaking putt which is going to be brutal, and he puts it to like two inches tap in for seven. Now in my mind I'm like that was one of the best sevens I've ever seen. Yeah, and he would kind of rally and get to get his stuff together. But I mean, that's like to me, like I think, when you asked him, because that was the first story that came to my head, that was the first story that came to my head Like he's going to be honest and I think those moments we'd celebrate, because that's who. Golf's going to end, sports are going to end, basketball is going to end, but who? What character do you have, you know, and so I don't know if that answers your, your, your question.
Speaker 2:No, it does, especially especially because you didn't have to prompt it, you didn't have to yell from 25 yards away hey, hey, do the right thing. You know, I mean that's exactly. You know. That is one of those moments where you're like ah, have you had one yet with Jocelyn.
Speaker 2:I mean, I had a recent, like you know, almost a straightforward one, but I was at one of her tournaments lately she's 5'10" and I was kind of wondering, like why she doesn't, why she wasn't? She was getting her hands on a lot of blocks, but she wasn't like blocking them down. And I've been watching her for years and finally realized like maybe I should watch her feet, not her, not her hands. And what I what I realized was she was so, um, she was so concerned because she's a rule follower that once you go up for the block, once you land, you got to reset, you know. So when your team passes the ball, you're ready for a set, you can, you can now attack. And so what she was doing was she was almost jumping, but not really jumping. It was almost like going for a rebound standing on your feet, like I can't understand why, I don't get it.
Speaker 2:And so I I videoed her and I grabbed her, kind of like you said in between games. I said, hey, is it okay to show you something, because I don't want it to distract you. I don't like this is not about me, you know. So she said yeah, and I so I showed her. I said hey, why don't you just skip the part where you're so worried about resetting for an attack? Why don't you just just jump you, you know, just jump as hot. Jump feet, not inches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, van Halen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, man, just jump, and it was. It was awesome. The next, the next match started in about three, about three serves into the game and she, she, she just goes as high as she can and blocks the ball down with her forearm and you could see her land. She lands and she turns with the widest eyes just staring at her teammates, like I just figured it out, you know and it's not.
Speaker 2:It's not. It wasn't rewarding in the sense of, like I pointed this out because anyone could have pointed it out to her, but it was rewarding in the sense that, um you, that getting to see her come to recognition with something she just did. She did it, now she knows and she can move on with that type of knowledge. It's not like the ethics question that you had on the golf course, but just those little moments. They're so great for confidence at every age. We have them sometimes in business. We, you know, we can do the same thing as adults. They get further and further between as adults because we become a little more cynical with ourselves. But, um, yeah, yeah it's um really rewarding.
Speaker 1:You know when you, when you watch them grow I used to joke when I used to coach hoops. I would tell the girls I'm like so there's this really cool technology. It's called the calf muscle and what happens is when you actually trigger it, it you turn into an airplane, it makes you go up. It's. I mean, if you want to have fun, try it, see what it feels like, but just like, squeeze your toes and push and then activate the calf, you'll go up. What I mean? Seriously, you guys try it, just being so sarcastic, and all of a sudden I'm like ideal calf muscle, it works, you know, just to make it funny. But yeah, for some reason, like the tallest girls, even in hoops, they don't jump, they just stand there. But once they figure out, oh my god, I can jump and now I'm, freaking taller than everybody.
Speaker 2:This is actually awesome yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. You, you see it in a lot of gyms. You just sit back and you're able to remove yourself from what we all do as parents, which is really focused on this one kid on the court. You know, if you just watch the gym and almost every match there's, there's one of those moments where you can see one of these kids, eyes just pop with this excitement of I just learned something. I just learned something about myself, and I try and do that in my job as well. I'm a really I like to lead by letting people do their jobs. I like to lead by letting people make mistakes. I like to lead by letting people be successful, make decisions, and it's kind of the same thing. You know, you can see it in every gym, especially when you're around a gym full of teenagers, but it's fun. It's fun in my work life as well. Yeah, you got to remove fear in anything, oh, but it's, it's fun.
Speaker 1:It's fun in my, my work life as well. Yeah, you got to remove fear in anything. Fear is, and I always tell people and I tell my kids fear loves to hide. Um, and when you, when you, you don't inspect it. And then when things seem like Riley, she went through like her first ever, I would say, shooting slump per se and the thing that's met me.
Speaker 1:Back to the question you asked one of the things I was most proud about her when she went through a little shooting stuff in high school. She's like really good three-point shooter. She was just thinking and overthinking but she would still play great defense and scramble and dive on the floor and do all the things she has control over. But, like once we realized it's like, listen, if you keep thinking about your fear, fear of shooting you're going to keep missing and I don't care if you go over 12 with 12 air balls, keep, next shot could be the one you go, 10 for 10.
Speaker 1:So it's like you know, you know, I think when we as well, it's in business or life or anything, it's like just that's what. Which is why I have this belief sign behind me. For anybody who's seen on YouTube it's remind me I believe what I do matters. Remind me when I coach, like sales and executives, like, like instill belief in yourself and your team, and when you believe in yourself, which is required people to slow down and really like think about that word, like Ted Lasso taught us. It's like you know, you, you really, it really can impact a lot, but I don't think people slow down to give it the credit it deserves.
Speaker 3:Hi, I'm Leslie Vickery, the CEO and founder of ClearEdge, a company dedicated to transforming the business of talent. Through our three lines of business ClearEdge, marketing, recruiting and Rising that help organizations across the recruitment and HR tech sectors grow their brands and market share while building their teams with excellence and equity. I believe we were one of Casey's very first clients. He helped our sales and account teams really those people on the front lines of building and developing client relationships in so many ways. Here are a few. He helped us unlock the power of curiosity. For me it was a game changer. I was personally learning all about TED-based that's, tell, explain, describe, questioning, and that really resonated with me. We also learned about unlocking the power of humility and unlocking the power of vulnerability. Casey taught us to be a team player, to embrace change, to stay positive. He is one of the most positive people I know. He believes that optimism, resilience and a sense of humor can go a long way in helping people achieve their goals and overcome obstacles.
Speaker 3:And I agree Casey's book Win the Relationship, not the Deal. It is a must read. Listen. Whether you're looking for coaching and training or a powerful speaker or keynote, casey is one of the people I recommend when talking to companies. The end result for us, at least as one of Casey's clients our own clients would literally commend our approach over all other companies, from the way we were prepared in advance of a call to how we drove meetings, to how we follow up. It sounds really basic, I know, but let me tell you it is a standout approach that led to stronger relationships. I encourage you to learn more by going to CaseyJaycoxcom. You have nothing to lose by having a conversation and a lot to gain. Now let's get back to Casey's podcast, the quarterback dad cast.
Speaker 2:I was. I was really lucky when I was at university of Washington. We were at the very front end of what was then called sports psychology, and so one of the one of the people pursuing their, their masters in it came and worked with our team and they, he taught us a tool that just landed. So talk about these moments for other people, but for me, this was a tool that is so obvious but so hard to learn um, self-evaluation. You know, we, we typically know what's right and what's wrong. We typically know when we succeeded or when we failed. We, we, we do these things.
Speaker 2:But he had us do an exercise once where he and I use this today with people. He dared us to write down three lies about ourself. Uh, and he, he just dared us. He's like go ahead, let your hand lie to your brain while you do it. Just write down three lies about yourself. Don't try to lie. Just write down three things you know aren't true, but you're stating them as a fact. And it was such a powerful thing for me because I would write and I would go it's not true, Because I knew he was going to ask us the next day what we wrote down. I don't want to say these things in front of my teammates, you know. And so it was like I just went through this long drawn out process of getting to the point where I was like you know what? I'm not going to write three lies because I already wrote a hundred and I'm tired of my hand lying to my brain and my brain can't take this.
Speaker 2:So this, just a simple tool of self evaluating and what it means and how to apply it and and then bring it all back, you know, is is to eliminate fear. It's. It's an interesting dilemma and in my current world, you know what I always, I always tell people the two guarantees one is I got the job. The next is I'll be invited to leave my job, which is a really polite way to say sports are brutal.
Speaker 2:But at some point in this process I had to realize you have to have clear vision, attack it without fear because, truthfully, apprehension is the killer of entertainment. If you think about you know we, a lot of people have been to concerts and you can tell when the musicians having an off night and you paid your money and you want to be entertained the right way, and you leave and you're like that concert was terrible. My world's no different. You know we we perform a lot weekly. You know our guys do and, and we get judged every week on the two hours of entertainment that we provide over the six days of work. So, to your point, that fear is a pretty powerful thing.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so I want to go back to mom and dad Tell me what we're growing up. You mentioned everybody's kind of figured it out. Their own, we got. We got viable kids doing good things out in the world. Talk about a couple of the core values that mom and dad were like really instilled you in maybe a story or two of how you had to learn them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know my. My dad was a collegiate athlete. He played baseball. He was, as he says, he grew up in Detroit, so he was recruited to be a tackling dummy at Michigan State but chose to play baseball out in LCSC, down in Lewiston, idaho, in the NAIA Great program, played for Ed Sheff, and so he grew up a lot different than I did. I mean I, I was lucky. I grew up in a house full of love. I grew up in a house where my parents were um committed to being at our, at our events, whether they were, you know, singing or stage or or any of these things.
Speaker 2:And two things I love musical theater, singing on stage, but I love watching it. No talent to do it, but you know, growing up, a couple of the things you know we came by, very honestly, was you win the same way. You lose. You win with gratitude. You lose with gratitude. It does not change your behavior, because the preparation is what put you in that place to perform, whether it was getting an A on a test or getting an F on a test in school, which I don't know if everyone's gotten both of those grades, but I have. And how do you handle?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:And how do you move forward? How do you celebrate yourself without mocking or making someone else feel less? And when you lose, how do you not judge yourself to feel less or feel less than right? And so a lot of my experiences come from sport. Obviously I've been involved in in a long time. But you know when, when I got to college, there was a moment my mom and dad would come to every game. So my brother went to Willamette. He was playing football there for his freshman year and then he transferred to Wazoo. But they would drive from Spokane to Seattle on a Friday to come to our soccer game. They'd drive down to Willamette on the Saturday to watch the football. They'd drive back to Seattle for our Sunday soccer game and then they'd drive home. And they did this so often.
Speaker 2:And you know, at the time I'm not playing, I'm like, and you know there's this, there's all these things we go through and there's a level of embarrassment, level of accomplishment, level of love, and there is this underlying appreciation like, oh my gosh, they're here. And you know, one day I remember asking, I said why, like guys, stop stop coming. You know what are you doing. And they just looked at me and they said you're part of a team, we're not here for you today, we're here for them because this is, this is you're not less than them and they're not more than you. You're just part of this and you chose it and we support you. And that was a. That was a big moment for me, you know.
Speaker 2:And then it wasn't a couple of weeks later that, unfortunately, my, my mom and dad overheard me joking with one of my teammates and I was. You know, we've all done this, but it's never fun, to admit, I was first to kind of have a dig at myself, I was first to make fun of myself, and that was my icebreaker on that day. Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to say I'm not good enough to play before they do or whatever else. You know, kind of one of those experiences. And they went along with it and they, you know, okay, okay. And then they drove me. We all went to dinner, no problem. They drove me back to my dorm. It's about a four minute drive from u village to my dorm and, uh, we get in the car and the door shuts and my mom goes heard what you said earlier my dad goes. You say it again we're done with this, you're done with soccer. He goes that's not how we treat ourselves, that's not how we treat ourselves around other people.
Speaker 2:And that was, like you know, blew my mind. I didn't even know they heard it, I didn't even know they cared, and I didn't even realize what I was doing to myself, right, instilling this fear, instilling this acceptance of not even mediocrity, just this acceptance of being less than and it's not about being arrogant and saying all these other you know things. And so those are a couple moments where they were able to kind of shake the tree, if you will. And you know really, really memorable moments for me that I've been able to talk to them about in years, over the years, and it kind of explained because these are also moments that, with four kids, I'm sure they didn't even remember, they probably had to say it to all four of us multiple times. But you know, those are vivid, vivid memories where their, their teachings kind of hit home and really changed my behaviors and the way I acted.
Speaker 1:So you read my mind. I was going to ask you do your parents know the impact those stories had on you?
Speaker 2:Some, some, you know I've, I've, over the years I have gotten better and at verbalizing and over the years I've come to understand those moments a little bit more Because, again, I think in hindsight it's a lot easier to go back and go wow that like that moment when I was 18, where I had the world figured out, I didn't need help. Uh, you know that that really changed what I was doing. That changed the way I went about, how I enjoyed showing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm just and I think a lot of people are like I'm just much better when I enjoy showing up.
Speaker 1:You're not thinking about anything. You're something fun. You're in flow state.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's wonderful. Well, homework if you want to accept it. I'd love to see what happens when we call mom and dad and tell them you're on this crazy thing called a podcast and you had to ask and you told them that story. I bet it would make their day and they'd be bragging to their choir buddies and their pickleball buds. I said, man, we got the best son in the world. Here's what he did.
Speaker 2:There's a they've. They've got a big. It's weird. You know that their generation didn't grow up with soccer but they've got this weird kind of nerdy soccer culture in their community where everyone reports back to my dad so I'm, they tell them how I'm doing and what I'm doing and all that. So I'm, I'm sure, I'm sure they're going to know before before long.
Speaker 1:Um, when did your brother play football at Willamette? Do you remember what years?
Speaker 2:Uh, we graduated 94.
Speaker 1:So he must've played the 94, 95 season, Um you know we're the same age, then right, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I played against willamette in 96 in ellen's no down, no, 96 in willamette, 97 at home, 98 down there. But I wanted for our. But I was on the bench in 95. That might have been the year he.
Speaker 2:That might've been the year he played. That might've been the year he played. Yeah, Because he transferred after his freshman year to Wazoo and it was. It was more from a personal school, was too small reasoning than for the athletics, but obviously he was able to go out and get get crushed a couple of times by by some D one D one linebackers after that.
Speaker 1:So there we go Okay as you think about why God. Now, when you mentioned your dad played baseball LCS he meant there's stories. For days on I heard that coach was like it was like insane stories, like people would like fight for, like starting stuff and crazy stuff, mr.
Speaker 2:Mr Coach Chef was a local legend, not only, not only in the flesh, but a local legend of lore. I mean, he was one of those unique people in that community that there were stories that grew on stories that grew on stories when the guy was standing in front of you and you could have. Everyone could have asked him. But I think it was just. You know it was.
Speaker 2:He ran such a successful program in a much, much different era of coaching right that, um, yeah, but but, um, a lot of success and a lot of people came out of his program with determination and with characteristics that they were able to then go apply and really become successful members of society and I think that term's overused, but I really I think one of the things he taught a lot of those people is it's not about money. It's not about money. You know, there are a lot of places in life but money makes a lot of things easier, but it just kind of makes you more of what you are.
Speaker 1:Gold. So, based on the things that you learned, a couple of stories you shared experiences that Julie maybe had in her. She was raised as you guys were raising Jocelyn. What are tell me about like a couple of the core values that are the most important for you guys?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for us, integrity is this overarching word, but for us what it comes down to is learning to treat people consistently, learning to be honest, learning to stick up for yourself, because I think a lot of people forget that integrity is not just going outward, it's also coming inward. And so you know how to value yourself and what you present in your friendships and what you present in your friendships, and then you know trying to teach her that improvement is not limited to a book, it's not limited to a sport, it's not limited to anything. It's still happening. For me, I turned 50 this year and you know I make mistakes.
Speaker 2:I made multiple mistakes last week, and so one of the things I always say to Jocelyn, and one of the things Julie will remind Jocelyn, is hey, when you were fortunately or unfortunately, born into the last name of Weibel, you accepted three things, and one is you're going to learn how to tell people you love them.
Speaker 2:One is you're going to learn how to acknowledge when you made a mistake, and one is you're going to learn how to say I'm sorry, how to acknowledge when you made a mistake, and one is you're going to learn how to say I'm sorry. And those three things, as simple as they sound, are quite difficult at times in our lives when we know we're wrong, when we hit the wrong golf ball, when we said the wrong thing, even when we didn't mean it. And so those are the things we work really consistently with her on, and then just reminding her that the world is massive. It's massive, it is not limited to your environment that you're in. It is not something to run away from, it is something to go around and learn from and experience people. So those are some of the cores that we try to be consistent on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are some of the cores that we try to be consistent on. Yeah, those are good. When you're saying that, one of the things I did an episode in like first season on saying sorry and the power of saying sorry, because it's hard to do and one of the most impactful pieces of advice I got was from one of my very first bosses in corporate. He said he asked me a question. He goes what's more important, do you want to be right or do you want to get what you want? And I said, well, I want both. He goes you can't. You got to pick one.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, I was like uh, I want to get what I want. He's like good answer. He goes. If you'd have, what's it like to be on the other side of me, okay. And so it made you always think about like how do we continue to check our ego to be like? You know, maybe I'm acting like the dipshit, maybe maybe I'm the one and as much as my ego says no but you're right, you're right, you're right, you're right, it's like.
Speaker 1:Well, so we try to teach our kids like the power of like. You might be so right, you might be so passionate, but use, use curiosity as a secret superpower and like maybe ask a couple more questions before you present your case. See, read the room a little bit, read the defense, like it's like. I'm not going to call a rally for the point guard and the game hasn't even started yet. How do you know what play we're going to run? They might be in zone, they might be in man, we don't know yet. So bring them up to court and then make the decision. But yeah, that triggered that story in my mind.
Speaker 2:I think it's. Look, I think these are all like valuable moments where we can look back and put we probably put more value on them now than we did, but they changed us for better or for worse, and we have to go back and acknowledge sometimes like, oh, that behavior that I was convinced was right. You know it's been too long for me to go back and really acknowledge how wrong I was in the moment. But it's interesting to apply this from personal life to professional life. Right, and how those things manifest and expose themselves differently.
Speaker 2:And I'm in a world where, even when we win on a weekend game, even when the Sounders win, we've we've probably not played a perfect match. We've probably not approached it perfectly throughout the week. You know there are matches that appear perfect, but of course, when, when you're perfectionists in this, it's hard. You know when, when we sign a player that doesn't accomplish what they want, is that the player or is that the front office? Or is that the coaching staff, or is that the performance staff, or is that our environment? There's so many things that we're trying to balance and it's the same at home.
Speaker 2:There's all these mitigating factors from outside. We prep them. We don't know what they're going to play zone or man, we don't know. And then you go down't know what they're gonna play the zone or man, we don't know and you go and then you go down the floor and they're playing a. You know it's like a, a box and one which is you're like you know well, you're playing man, yeah, like, or it's a false man. So they start them and they show man and they drop in and you know all these things happen on a daily basis. So, um, just trying to be consistent with with that, with with our personal life and you know all these things happen on a daily basis. So, just trying to be consistent with that, with our personal life, and you know, trying to just give Jocelyn the best chance to have enough exposures, that and I know you've been just living a wonderful experience with your son going to college. But you know, you don't know, you don't know until they know.
Speaker 1:And so you know, there's a lot of these things. We're only going to know, you know, in 15 years when we cross the finish line. Well, I want to go back. I want to answer your question again because there's another story that came to mind and you triggered it with the story you told about your mom and dad. So we were lucky enough to watch Ryder play in a tournament and he had to play 36 straight holes. I can't remember if I tried this, or lunch, he had to play 36 straight holes. That's day one. And for the golfers at home, when we say 36, usually in our mind it's like 18, have lunch, maybe a couple of beers. For sure it's a break. Yeah, there's 36. He started on four and you keep going to. You get 36 holes in.
Speaker 1:I was on the golf course watching him for 11 hours that's how long the rounds were just long and he went 72, 71, shot one under, tied for seventh after day one. And I'm like it was like dude, from a I'm a skill perspective, which was one of the moments, proudest moments I've ever had, like watching what you did in tough kind of weather conditions and fricking high pressure. Absolutely it was unbelievable. We go to dinner next night next day they only play 18 and he putter, went cold the next day what weather was a little bit wonky, but it was like that for everybody Finally made his first birdie on like the. He had, like he had finally made this last birdie in like the 17th. His hole he had a hole where he hit the cart path, goes OB, bad break, hits his provisional ball cart path OB. He's hitting five from the tee, ends up taking eight. He shot 82 with an eight after going 72, 71.
Speaker 1:And he walks up and I mean we were just like so happy to be there and he's like, was I bummed for him? Sure, but I was like I didn't, you still did awesome, like you're a freshman, you took 20 something out of 60 kids. It's pretty incredible to celebrate, right, and he walks up to us. He's like I'm sure that was not fun for you guys at all and I said stop, I pulled what your mom and dad did.
Speaker 1:I said listen, dude, um, the one thing that you want to see dad loses shit is when I see bad body language and it's easy to pout, it's easy to fricking, but instead I'm just happy to see you, because the two things I can guarantee you the sun's going to come up tomorrow and I'm going to love you more tomorrow than I love you today, and you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever say that again. Dude, and and buddy, if you want to see me lose my shit, watch, do it again. And because we all have a switch, that was my switch and I it almost happened this weekend a little bit with my daughter, like she, the. She had a shooting day. She wasn't shooting the three well, but she went eight free from the free throw line nice and we won and we ended up winning by seven.
Speaker 1:so it's like and she had to make a lot of one-on-ones, like Riley, again, even though you didn't shoot well at three, you still made your free throws and you brought the ball up and you broke the press because you're fast and you played great defense and you had six steals Like those are important too. So it's like for me. I'm kind of long with an answer, telling the story, but my gap as a dad right now is, when my kids lose make me lose my shit on body language, so I'm learning to channel it in a way that's constructive. But I also want to hold firm like this is no, it's important because if, if you're, if you always let your teammate, your teammates or your competitors see how you're reacting, I want you to show emotion, but when it's negative and it's impacting you, the competition's winning and you're losing bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess, with that, craig, what's an area of your dad game that you're working hard to maybe sharpen up or be better at?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean because you just said that it triggers like that is a big piece, and I expand that maybe through my own personal experiences that body language is also. It's an out. You know, if you're not showing up a teammate, which is also poor body language, or if you're not showing up an opponent, which is, in my opinion, unacceptable body language, you're showing yourself up and these are intimate moments that I think parents share with their kids, because I don't. I can't tell you the normal body language of every one of my daughter's teammates. I can tell you my daughter's body language and I'm the.
Speaker 2:I'm the type of person anyone who saw me play. I'm a heart on my sleeve guy. I was a very physical. I liked playing the game physical and rough and I wore it on my face and so I'm working on a lot, and this isn't just around a gym or a volleyball game, this is at home.
Speaker 2:And letting her grow up and not jumping in too soon is something I've really been focusing on and trying to work on, because it is very hard to let her go down some of these paths and then go back and have that conversation where what I've found with my daughter she has such a greater chance to learn from the moment if she was able to go through that process, and so I have to work really hard to not cheat her out of those moments. And my wife is, julie is wonderful at kind of nudging me when, when sometimes I'm maybe a little too direct. Um, but yeah, I'm, I'm working very, very hard because you know, I'm a, I'm a boy. One of the blessings of being a boy growing up is kind of accepted I say this jokingly, but like it's, it's kind of acceptable to just be a dumb kid. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:No, and and girls, you know, they grow up a lot quicker and they're just so much more cerebral, they're so much smarter.
Speaker 2:They have so much more EQ at young ages and they apply that in these really wonderful ways but also in these really destructive ways socially. You know, I always joke with my daughter. I'm like, look, when I was a kid, if I had a problem with another guy, like one of us would punch the other one. It was usually one punch, it's done. It's not knockout punch, it's just a punch to send a message. And then the next day you knew you were still friends.
Speaker 2:If you showed up and both of you were like, hey, man, are we playing video games today? Like that was it. That was that was. We're good, like move on with life, you know, and so I'm learning. It's so wonderful to to be raising a daughter and get to have all these other experiences, even when she was younger tea parties, singing, you know, one of the things that it's so hard to remind myself, to just slow down and let her learn and let her see me cry, you know. Let let her, let her digest, seeing her parents have emotions, because we're not indestructible either. These are all things that that, um, I keep trying to work on and I keep trying to remind myself it's, it's not easy.
Speaker 2:No, I just don't want her to have any pain. I don't want her to have any. You know, we all want it to be perfect and sometimes I have to remind myself like it's, it's not going to be perfect and I know, you know, and that because that's where the growth comes.
Speaker 1:It's like, yep, we, the, the, the grit, the resilience, the mindset you have is because of the tough things you went through, and same thing for me. It's like, um, like I think I think I've told this story about like watching. I mean I didn't play football my senior high school because I got hurt and which is why I ended up playing central, and which was a blessing I would have never, I would have. I mean, I loved playing there, so fun. But to have, as an adult, watching if my like, seeing my daughter's son get hurt, hurt and watching them work their ass off and all the thing, and then watching it get taken away, I'd be like, oh, and that happened to my mom and my dad, they had to watch me.
Speaker 1:I'm literally playing football by myself in the backyard with a tire I built with Greer's dad. We built a tire swing and I would literally throw hundreds of footballs a day and to have all that work and I'm ready for this huge senior year and then, boom, it's gone. Yeah, like that was a pain, that was the lowest level I've ever been in my life, but I still think about it all the time Like that shaped who I am, and they didn't come try to rescue me, no, they're just supporting me and said hey, dude, we're here and try to get me to talk, and I don't know what a gift, what?
Speaker 2:a gift that in that moment they were able to, to step back and and and go through that process as parents. That way for you, as opposed to like some of the things we're working on and I'm working on right now, you know.
Speaker 1:I think that I think I think it helped them is they weren't like athletes. I think that's. My fear is me, is, you know, playing in college and having success in college and knowing the grind that it took to do those things, I have to be very careful of not putting that on my kids. Yeah, that's the thing I've really tried to work on and, um man, I'm glad that both my kids have found sports that I was not good at as well Like I was. I'm a better golfer now but like Ryder's he's plus one, he's way better than I've ever been. Riley's she never gets tired. I don't know how.
Speaker 2:Riley can play basketball, so she's better than you were.
Speaker 1:I have a sick sky hook from half court. I mean, that's my patent, was like Mokola, he learned the hard way. I mean I posted them up and that's the ball set.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes you got to teach a lesson. No, it is, it's true, though. I mean, you know, look, I was. I was really fortunate, a lot of the things you said in terms of success through soccer, but humility is I. I've I got my fill, you know. It's it's my parents, my family. One little anecdote here is humility was not hard to come by in my house. It wasn't about pulling each other down, it was just reminding each other we're human. And so I've had a lot of really, really fun, incredible accomplishments when they're written down on paper UW Hall of Fame, and the four MLS Cups, and the US Open Cup and a CONCACAF Champions Cup, and the four MLS cups and a U S open cup and a CONCACAF champions cup. And I mean I, I, I got to present, uh, one of our presidents with a gift because I kicked a ball, and we got to go to the white house, like because I kicked a ball. You know those types of things, the, the humility, um, of those moments, you know, one more moment that it really taught me is it was around the holidays 2005. I woke up one morning I'm out of contract. Well, sorry, I was out of contract in six days, so my contract ran to December 3-1. And so I'm going out of contract.
Speaker 2:Stressful moments Julie and I married. We're up here visiting our families. My mom and dad were still in the area at that time and everyone was home. I woke up in the morning and I went upstairs and I was eating oatmeal but it was only coming off one half of the spoon and I kind of noticed it and I'm like, well, that's weird. I've never not been able to eat oatmeal. Um, and you know, my face is tingly and I can't really figure it out and I kind of leaned over to Julia and said, hey, uh, I think we need to go to the hospital, like right now. Like, am I? Like I'm something's wrong.
Speaker 2:We go to the hospital and, you know, spend hours, hours there and fortunately I get a doctor who walks in because I think I'm having a stroke or something. And she walks in, she goes well. The good news is you've got something my husband had. It's called Bell's palsy. I go, what? What is that? She goes, well, she goes. It's a swelling of the seventh cranial nerve. It goes through all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Half your face is going to be paralyzed, we don't know how much by the within an hour I am paralyzed from literally top of my forehead to my neck, on the left side of my face, everything. I can't blink because it takes muscles to blink. I can't. You know, it's two face. You got a smile and the right half works and the left doesn't. And so we're at the hospital.
Speaker 2:I'm calling my parents. Hey, we're coming for dinner, don't worry. Just a little thing, no big deal. I just get to check out. You know, hey, we're going to be a little late. We're going to be a little late. There's no big deal. I'll tell you when I get there. Finally, when I realized like what the doctor tells me, I call and I say hey, okay, we're going to be there in about an hour, hour and a half. I just want you to know.
Speaker 2:Like half my face is paralyzed. I'm probably going to be wearing an eye patch. Blah, blah, um, drive up there. My father-in-law, bless his heart, it's called my, my, my dad and mom, and he's like and my dad and mom knew and mom knew. But my father-in-law called and says hey, you know, it's been really rough, like craig, this is what's going on. Be nice to him. You know, man, I walk in and it is pirate joke after pirate joke after, because I walk in with an eye patch and my family is just unloading on me. So you know, it's just another moment where, yeah, but it's just another moment where this, yeah, but it's just another moment where this humility, it's like you know, yeah, you've won MLS cups. Are you a good person?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, you play pro soccer, it doesn't matter. There's a lot of pros in the world. You know, as I tell my daughter all the time, there are so many people in the world that work hard, and I am fortunate to work hard in something that rewards me not only personally but in a financial way, that we get to live a certain way. I don't work harder than the police officer driving around our community. I don't work harder than the guy at the grocery store. I might work harder because I don't know all of them, but there are so many people that work hard and there is good fortune that comes, but humility has to be a part of it because, um, we are not better than we are just part of, and that's that's really where I like to live as a husband, as a, as a father is um, be part of, you know, and and I forget that I don't practice it every day Um, but, man, this humility is just ingrained in me forever.
Speaker 1:Humility is a superpower. I think I always the three values that really drive me, um, that have really really become really clear in my mid I'd say forties, but even now it was almost 50 is creating environments for my family, for myself, for my clients I work with is like creating, instilling or instilling or igniting humility, vulnerability and curiosity. Um, I just think when you're, when you're humble enough to realize that there's a, it's more about the team than me, when you're vulnerable enough not to ask for help and you're curious and you want to learn more about others and you want to be interested versus interesting, uh, it's amazing. What can, what can happen when you Were you curious?
Speaker 2:I'm interested. When you came out of college so now you're not going to the NFL and that might've been your decision. That might've been your decision. That might've been 32 other teams. No.
Speaker 1:I turned down 32 teams. I wanted to get into barcode sales.
Speaker 2:I didn't listen. I don't want to brag on your behalf, but for the listeners, like it could have been your decision.
Speaker 1:It might've been 32 other teams.
Speaker 2:I was going to play for the Sounders too, and I said I haven't played soccer since sixth grade but I'm going to pass. Give Weibel a shot, let Weibel get a shot. Call it the pirate. When did that? Looking back, do you think you always had the curiosity and really apply yourself and succeed in a place and to a level that I know even your company didn't really think was possible at that time?
Speaker 2:And some of your listeners might not know, but your success when you were younger was really, really astronomical. It was a steep curve climb. It was a steep curve climb and this is not I'm not trying to blow smoke, but you were almost Midas in the sense of what you applied and the way you applied it. You were such a fast learner to, as people say, fire fast, fire slow. You were so quick to fire all of your bad traits, of which was a really small list, so don't let me build it. But when did that curiosity set in for you? Was it when you stepped away, or was it during that moment? Or have you always just had this kind of driving?
Speaker 1:I think I was naive and I wasn't afraid to ask the dumb question and it of driving. I think I always I was naive and I wasn't afraid to ask the dumb question. And it was a dumb question that I didn't know. It was so dumb. So my naivety was a, was a was a gift, like I remember in eighth grade asking my basketball coach what um asphalt was. Oh, I was like. I was like why don't you call it concrete? Uh, I remember, like I met buddies and they're like oh, I love venison. I go, what the hell is venison? It's deer.
Speaker 1:I go then why don't you just call it deer? You know it's like I remember one of the most embarrassing stories. I'll tell this real quick and then we'll get into some fun and wrap up our episode here. But I remember eighth grade. You remember what a natural helper was? Yeah, oh yeah. So I was a natural helper. You know, which is people don't know what natural helpers are. You got voted by your peers to like be someone that can count on for support. They got to talk through stuff and I actually wrote about this in my book and my wife's like you're not going to put that in there. I'm like, yes, I am, because if I'm going to, I need to.
Speaker 1:Embarrassing, and yeah, it's inappropriate a little bit, but it's kind of funny, and so I'll tell the story now in case anybody hasn't heard it. So we heard this natural helper retreat and this is where I really learned like curiosity was maybe, maybe a superpower of mine and it just. And then it got ignited at age 41 by a mentor, by a guy named John Kaplan. But, um, they were talking about teen like T E A. I mean T E, e N, teen, teen sex, and the-A I mean T-E-E-N teen, yep, teen sex and the challenges with teen sex and you know the risks.
Speaker 1:And we're like hearing these things and in my mind I'm around you know 150, 200 natural helpers in this auditorium cafeteria and I'm starting to kind of giggle. I'm like why aren't everybody else laughing? This is funny. I mean, they're talking about teen sex. I heard an M, not an N. So I'm just like God, why are we talking about team sex? This seems so inappropriate, what?
Speaker 1:And finally, I'm like, hey, Mr Armstrong, I gota question. Is team sex kind of like an orgy? And the place erupts and I'm like so embarrassed, like why is everybody laughing at me? And he's like what, casey, what'd you say? I go, mr Armstrong, you keep talking about team sex. I don't understand why we're talking about team sex. It seems like kind of where he goes oh my god, casey, teen with an n teen. I'm like, oh god, I'm so embarrassed. So if that shows my a, my, maybe a, screw loose upstairs. But not afraid to ask the simple question. So I always I've shared that story with my son, which he laughed hysterically. Now that he's a college dude, but um, Well, I'm glad you learned to harness it.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you had a mentor that helped you harness it and really make it a power, as opposed to just a wandering through the woods thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so all right. So let's sum, let's wrap up this episode, and how would you summarize what we talked about?
Speaker 2:The dads could take one or two or three actionable themes to apply in their own life to be a better quarterback or leader or striker, other household Tell me what comes to mind humility and just the being able to enjoy being a part of the experiences with my daughter and with my wife and, um, you know, not always applying my 49, turning 50 year old brain and experience to it and reminding myself that you know, life is is really about these these lessons that we take, that we give value to later in life and how we've applied them.
Speaker 1:Gold. Good, I'm taking it too. It's like I'm going to talk to Rye later. I can't wait to talk to her when she gets home from school just about some of the stuff. This journey of finding the right college it's stressful, it's hard, it's like what do you? And you know, just trying to like. I told her last night where she's put. She always puts her own highlights together and then she like sends them to coaches.
Speaker 1:It's like I have no eligibility left, but I want to help you. Like right now you're competing it Like you, you have to compete on the court and this next month and a half you're gonna have to compete your ass off this. What you want to do, not only do you compete on the court, but now you have to compete on how you follow up, compete on how you ask questions, compete on how you who you follow on social media. I didn't have social media back then. We had fax machines, honey. I mean, I didn't have any.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and so it's times of change. So like I just want to help you, don't overwhelm you, but like help you think, and so like it's it's it's a nice balance, but I want to like I'm gonna go into the humility, pace and and and just kind of like, inspect it. Is there anything else dad can do to be a better dad? Is there anything I can do? Just kind of do you like how I'm pushing you? Do you not like how I'm pushing you? And make sure that she has green light to call me out if I'm ever being a dad. That she's like dad, I don't like this is not fun. Like I would break my heart if I ever got to that point yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 2:I I don't want to be part of that, I don't want to be part of the reason. If that experience gets to that point, I want to be part of the solution moving forward all right.
Speaker 1:so if people don't know what soccer is, um, they were probably not fair, yeah, but let's just say they don't know what soccer is. They were probably not familiar yeah, but let's just say they don't. So like what would, if you're to summarize in a few minutes, like what is the day in the life of the GM of the Seattle Sounders, and how can people learn more about the great sport that has blessed you in life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, look, a typical day is a little bit of I call it firefighting, right? So my job now is I oversee our first team, our second team, our youth academies and everything in between. So you're scouting your analytics, video and data analytics, your performance staff, medical staff, coaching staff. I'm working with all of them to try and streamline and just keep this thing moving forward, cranking out better and better kids, better and better people, better and better players, and so that's the daily has come in and figure out what needs help, where can we get better, and identifying it. And then on the back end of that is all the fun business side stuff, where I get to do all the budgeting, but also the contract negotiating and part of the player identification. All the romantic parts of sports are definitely part of my job. It's awesome. It's awesome to be able to show up. Every day is different. That's what makes it exciting. We'll come in. One guy woke up with a sore back and now he's out. You've got to make adjustments along the way and I get to help with some of those, although I let our coaches coach. That's my thing.
Speaker 2:Look, I think sports are wonderful. I think it's like for people that read for people in books, for people that, whatever you're into music, I think the conversation of convincing someone to like something you like is probably not the conversation you need to be connecting on them with. I always say if you like chess, you win one zero in chess. Oftentimes in soccer you're going to win one zero Once you know the tactics, once you know how to move the chess pieces. I dare you to walk by a board and not look at it, not study it. Anyone who plays chess will know what I'm talking about, because once you learn it, it's impossible to let it go. And the more you watch and the more you study it, the more fun it gets. And that's. That's kind of what soccer is. It's. It's a lot like anything um, that if you put your time into it and you enjoy it, you just keep going with it.
Speaker 2:But I am, I'm very lucky to have a job that's challenging. Every single day. It takes me across spectrums of hiring, firing all of the wonderful highs that come with things, but also in leadership, some real difficult days when you're changing lives. So, but the Sounders are great man, we we have a remarkable history. We're incredibly successful. We have nothing more desirable right now than to lift a trophy. We haven't lifted a trophy in a while. We threatened. We were in two quarterfinals and a semifinal last year of these multiple competitions we play in, but it's been a while since we've lifted one, and so that is ultimately. We make no mistake. Our fans and our ownership hold us to one thing that we are accountable for, for all these other things that go into it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, winning is addicting, and when you don't win it gets painful. So I loved it, loved that, and if people want to follow you or they want to follow the Sounders, what's the best way they can do both?
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously it's on our website, but soundersfccom and also I'm not a big social media guy, as in, I don't have it, and the reason for that is I learned as a player there's a lot of false adoration and there's also a lot of false criticism, and so in order for me to operate I learned this about myself because I did have it but in order to operate without that fear, with a clear vision, that's where I'm at. But we've got all the socials, the Sounders. We're on Instagram, we're on Twitter, we're on all the social things, and you can go to the website or just type in Seattle centers in any search box and it'll come up with a gazillion different things.
Speaker 1:Now, there we go. All right, we are now timed to wrap up. I warned you this lightning round's coming. This is where where Craig, I show you the negative hits have taken too many hits in college not bong hits, but football hits. Fair enough, your job is to answer these questions as quickly as you can. I've not thought of these at all. They're going to come off the top of my head.
Speaker 2:My job is to try to get a giggle out of you. Oh, I'm going to have to try not to.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, are you ready? You? Got it Okay, we're both laughing, but we're not laughing Okay.
Speaker 2:True or false. You wear shin guards to work False, that's not a bad idea. True or false, you wear a cup to work, sometimes on the tough days.
Speaker 1:Okay, we both laugh.
Speaker 2:When we have fans come watch training. I should probably wear one.
Speaker 1:Okay, True or false? In your office you have posters of Precky and Jungle.
Speaker 2:I do not have posters of Precky and Jungle, but I do have a self-portrait Of who Of me I drew it. It's one of. Pratik in the jungle. But I do have a self portrait, and of who I can of me, I drew it. It's one of the only things on the wall.
Speaker 1:Wow, that does look like you, that doesn't look like you. Very skin muscle. I see the big biceps.
Speaker 2:everybody that was that's YouTube can see that it was a little too much hair.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've both giggles here, giggles here, we're, we're. So we'll call it a tie. If you, if I, went into your phone right now, what would be one?
Speaker 2:uh, genre of music that would surprise everybody inside the sounders organization oh, I, I mean, I am deep into olivia rodrigo's albums, man, that's like. I took my daughter to the, to the concert, last year and I've I've like never had a better excuse to go see someone I wanted to see than having a teenage daughter.
Speaker 1:And yeah, can't get enough you know, embarrassing to say who I'm actually kind of have a little bit of a man crush on. Who, benson boone? Hey, there's nothing wrong with that dude, he's good, he's like he um for a little bit of Freddie Mercury like from from. I mean.
Speaker 2:I like. Music is just this. It's man. It's like picking up a book that you have no idea about. You listen to it. You read a book and you go that was awesome. And then all of a sudden you go oh, I actually like this.
Speaker 1:Do you still play jazz flute?
Speaker 2:Always. Yeah, I mean well, only at dinner. I mean, that's how I welcome Julian Jocelyn to the dinner table. That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1:Mr Ron Burgundy and jazz flute. Well, I'm a self-taught guitar player, and so most people that don't know guitar are like, oh, you're pretty good. A guitar player would be like, oh my God, you're horrendous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then there's joy, there's no, there's no. There's like I've got certain things, like certain things that you know bring pinball brings me a ton of joy. I love playing pinball, it's just an escape for me. And a lot of people go what are you talking about? That's like I've never. I haven't played pinball in 50 years. Yeah, I get it. I totally get it.
Speaker 1:True or false? You have carpal tunnel from pinball.
Speaker 2:I have had sore wrists many times from leaning on a pinball machine, but never a carpal tunnel never diagnosed.
Speaker 1:All right, favorite comedy movie ever is.
Speaker 2:Favorite comedy movie ever. Wow, I'll go with mystery men, okay ben stiller is a great one. Obviously you need to go watch it. Um hank azaria, janine garofalo. Great movie, eddie izzard oh it's like.
Speaker 1:The cast is, for now, phenomenal uh, I love actually just got my my daughter's boyfriend to watch spies like us recently. Brilliant, that's what I told him. It's like you guys so many good parts.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:Actually, I just got my daughter's boyfriend to watch Spies Like Us recently. Brilliant, that's what I told him. It's like you guys, there's so many good parts to that movie. Yeah, doctor, doctor and doctor. Okay, if you were to go on vacation right now. Sorry, jocelyn, you're staying home, but it's you and Julie. Where are we going?
Speaker 2:We're probably going to Hawaii, hawaii.
Speaker 1:Probably going to Hawaii, hawaii, okay, yeah. And if there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title.
Speaker 2:Lie to Yourself, I Dare you.
Speaker 1:Okay Now, Craig, believe it or not, you said it that fast and now Amazon's already sold out Barnes Noble's pissed. They can't get enough copies out the airports they are sold out. Um, so now Hollywood's going to make a movie out of this brand new amazing book written about your life, and I need to know who is going to star you in this critically acclaimed, hit new movie on Netflix.
Speaker 2:I've a qualifier it's Jason Statham, plus 25 to 35 pounds.
Speaker 1:Well played, well played, all right. And then most, the last question and the most one. Tell me two words that would describe Julie.
Speaker 2:Patient and wonderful.
Speaker 1:Here we go, landing around is complete. We both giggled. I think I laugh more on my own jokes, which I tend to do as a dad. Which is all it needs is one laugh, one joke, and if I'm the only one giving the joke, I'm going to keep telling the same joke.
Speaker 2:One laugh. One laugh qualifies a joke there we go, keep it going.
Speaker 1:There we go, brother, it's been an honor spending time with you. I know we've we knew each other in college and then we've reconnected, obviously, and it's been fun just following you, and I appreciate you, as a guy in the, in the public figure, to kind of give us some time and share a little bit more about what life likes looks for you and what's important to you. And I know I've I've learned a ton and I have some action items out of this uh, out of our time together today, but it's been a blast. And if this episode everybody's touched you or impacted you or you think so much, listen to it. Please share it.
Speaker 1:Um, and if there's uh, if you've not taken time to leave us review on, on whether it's Spotify or Apple or wherever you consume your podcast, please do. And the more people that engage with us on social or take time to leave these reviews is how we can grow and let the algorithm do its work, because the goal is really just trying to help create better leaders at at at home and create better fathers and and realize that whether you're the sound GM of the Sounders or did what I did, or you're a bus driver or you're a principal, it doesn't matter. What matters is we're dads and we're working hard to become that ultimate quarterback of the year of our home. So, brother, man, I appreciate you and thanks so much for spending time with me today.
Speaker 2:No, I appreciate you having me and thank you for what you're doing. It's making a difference and I love it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, buddy.