How To Fix Youth Sports with Greg Olsen

Summary

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Laugh Lines with Kim & Penn Holderness

Episode: How To Fix Youth Sports with Greg Olsen
Release Date: September 9, 2025
Special Guest: Greg Olsen

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Episode Overview

This lively episode of Laugh Lines dives deep into the current state—and many challenges—of youth sports in America. Hosts Kim and Penn Holderness welcome former NFL all-pro tight end and acclaimed broadcaster Greg Olsen, who draws on his unique experience both as an elite athlete and as a youth sports parent and coach. Together, they examine the increasing pressures, the trend toward hyper-specialization, and the ways that well-intentioned parents—and an entire sports economy—shape the trajectory of kids’ athletic experiences. From burnout and missed proms to building resilience and redefining “success,” the conversation is honest, relatable, and sprinkled with humor and hope for making youth sports more positive (and less stressful) for everyone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Evolution (and Escalation) of Youth Sports

[21:15 - 23:09] Greg Olsen’s Journey

• Greg reflects on growing up in a “stereotypical football household,” with both parents as teachers and his dad a longtime coach. Sports were all he knew, and he carried this forward into his NFL career and now as a parent and coach.
• The origins of his media platform, Youth Inc., come from feeling uncertain—despite his expertise—about making the right decisions for his own kids.
  • Greg Olsen: “If we don’t get it...someone who’s lived their entire life in this world...there must be so many other people out there right now struggling with what is the correct path, what is the correct practice.” (21:48)

Youth Sports Problems: Hyper-Specialization & Lost Childhoods

[23:27 - 26:48] Accelerating the Timeline

• The main issue: Youth sports have become “professionalized” at younger and younger ages. Kids are encouraged to specialize early, focus on single sports year-round, and face outcomes-focused environments.
  • Greg Olsen: “We’ve expedited the timeline...What used to not take place until you were probably a varsity athlete in high school...became year-round, very serious, you were training...pressure, wins and losses...Now the goal is to be really good at 10 and 11.” (24:22)
• The result: Kids miss out on trying multiple sports, learning resilience from failure, or even figuring out what they actually enjoy.
• Fundamental development and mental lessons are skipped for early skill-specific training.
  • “We’re skipping all the steps of actually finding out what kids are good at...Kids are better at 12 but they’re not better at 20 because they’ve missed all these early years of macro athletic development.” (29:17)

The Survival Game for Families

[26:48 - 28:12] Opting Out is Nearly Impossible

• Even parents who believe specialization is bad feel forced to comply so their kids aren’t left behind.
  • Kim Holderness: “If my kid doesn’t play year-round basketball, he wouldn’t have even made a middle school team.” (26:56)
• Greg affirms this is the paradox: “Nobody in their heart believes it’s in their kid’s best interest, but they’re just surviving.” (27:20)

The Real Issues: It’s Mostly Adults

[23:29–26:00, 36:44–38:40] Parents and Outcome-Driven Cultures

• "The adults are always the issue," Greg says. Most problems in youth sports aren’t caused by the kids, but by parents/coaches:
  • Too much emphasis on outcomes
  • Replacing players quickly, rather than developing them
  • Focusing on scholarships or pro potential, which is statistically nearly impossible

How Do You Know If It’s ‘Worth It’?

[33:39–36:37] Should Kids Specialize? How Hard Should You Push?

• Greg admits it’s hard not to get swept up in thinking your own kid is “special,” or wanting them to win.
• He strongly believes drive has to come from the child:
  • Greg Olsen: “It has to 100% be kid-driven...If I’m dragging you out of bed every single morning...it’s just not sustainable, it’s just not going to work.” (34:45)
• Many kids believe they want the intense path, but don’t realize the sacrifice until they’re deep in it.

Dealing with Disappointment and Setting Realistic Goals

[39:26 – 44:12] Failure, Rejection, and Real Success

• Penn shares how Greg’s own public loss—the Tom Brady broadcasting shake-up—became a meaningful lesson for his son.
• Greg talks about not framing life around strict “goals," but focusing more on process and continual work.
  • “If your goal was to make varsity and you don’t make it—just keep going...If you did everything in your power to do it and it just wasn’t meant to be, you’re not a failure.” (41:50)
• “Have your moment...and then we got to move on. Go get better. And if you don’t care that you lost—that’s also a sign. We should go for ice cream. Who cares?” (45:36)

What Greg Would Do if He Were the ‘Czar’ of Youth Sports

[46:12 – 51:19] Big Reforms

• Two main “edicts”:
  1. Mandatory Multi-Sport Participation in High School: Every athlete must play at least two sports if they participate at all. This encourages a break, new experiences, and well-rounded development.
     • “You have to experience a different program...Take a break from your current sport...I loved my non-major sport because it was a breath of fresh air, just go be with one of the guys.” (48:33)
  2. Enforce True Sports Seasons:
     • No tournaments or events outside each sport’s actual season; no year-round events for any sport below high school.
     • “Make the seasons, seasons. Your baseball kid can still train in the offseason if they want, but the pressure and FOMO would decrease.” (51:18)
• These changes would “solve so many problems,” but both hosts and Greg doubt they’ll happen—because of entrenched financial interests.

Why Real Change Is So Difficult

[62:50 – 63:01]

• All agree: The youth sports industry is a massive business, and financial incentives drive over-scheduling and constant events.
  • Kim Holderness: “They will never do it—money!” (62:49)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Widening the Definition of Success and Progress

• Greg Olsen: “The art of learning and the art of continued improvement never ends...You may never be winning the race. The race never ends. Just keep improving as a person, keep improving in your sports...Usually, the people that continue to improve the longest end up the furthest ahead.” (61:00)

On Parental Hopes and Realities

• Kim Holderness: “We are creating a million one-sport kids. I feel like this could be a three-part series.” (52:28)
• Penn Holderness (on parents’ code of conduct): “No yelling at refs, no yelling at kids, no withholding love when you’re watching your kid.” (64:38)

The Lighter Side ("Laugh Line" Moments)

• Kim jokes about her daughter calling her prom dress “vintage” and coming to terms with “classic rock” including Pearl Jam. (03:34–03:46)
• Penn’s idea of a “medium league” for youth sports—neither rec nor travel, but a celebration of “medium” pursuits and fun. (64:02–64:30)

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Additional Segments

Listener Voicemail

[08:37]

• A listener from Arizona thanks Kim & Penn for capturing the hilarity and stress of youth sports, especially in their viral “Six Stages of Youth Sports” video.

Penn’s Top 5 Ways to Fix Youth Sports

[63:23 – 66:22]

1. Heavier enforcement against players yelling at refs.
2. Formation of a “medium league.”
3. Parents sign, and are held accountable to, a code of conduct.
4. Keep “nontraditional” stats like assists, hustle, and sportsmanship.
5. Change starting lineups weekly to spread opportunity.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Greg Olsen’s Journey with Youth Inc.: 21:15–23:09
• Main Issue: Overly Early Specialization: 23:29–29:17
• Inescapable Pressures for Families: 26:48–28:12
• How Parents Shape the Problem: 36:44–38:40
• Process over Outcomes—Handling Disappointment: 39:26–44:12
• Greg’s Edicts to Save Youth Sports: 46:12–51:19
• Penn’s “Medium League” & Fun Stats: 64:02–66:22
• Greg’s Closing Wisdom: Lifelong Learning: 61:00–62:24

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Takeaways

• Almost everyone—parents, coaches, and athletes—agrees early specialization isn’t ideal, but feel trapped by the system.
• Outcome-driven cultures and adult anxieties are what corrupt the experience for most kids.
• Building resilient, happy, and successful humans means prioritizing kid-driven passion, a diversity of activities, and process over perfection.
• Practical structural changes (multi-sport participation, real seasons) could help, but financial incentives keep the current system grinding on.
• The best advice: keep learning, keep improving, and don’t measure worth by early outcomes. And—don't miss prom.

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For parents, coaches, and anyone navigating youth sports, this episode is a thoughtful, funny, and much-needed reality check. Greg Olsen, Kim, and Penn remind us it's okay—and preferable—to be “medium,” to learn from mistakes, and to keep the focus on fun, development, and lifelong learning—whether or not your kid ever makes varsity.

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Listen to Laugh Lines via Acast.
Contact: [e-mail] / Voicemail: 323-364-3929

Transcript

[Pen Holderness]

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[Greg Olsen]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Greg Olsen]

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[Kim Holderness]

This episode is sponsored by Gab.

[Pen Holderness]

As we know, the youth mental health crisis is all over the news and we know that social media is a huge driving factor.

[Kim Holderness]

Did you know the US Surgeon General warns that kids who spend more than three hours a day online are twice as likely to have depression and anxiety?

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah, we are huge advocates for prioritizing mental health and that includes monitoring the time that we and our kids spend in front of devices.

[Kim Holderness]

I personally keep my phone out of the bedroom at night so I don't spend hours mindlessly scrolling rather than getting a good night's sleep.

[Pen Holderness]

Here's the good news though. A company called Gab has solved that problem by doing something no one else is doing. Their approach is tech and steps.

[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

Plus, school is about to start. Can you believe it?

[Kim Holderness]

A perfect time to help your kids focus on learning by giving them a kid safe phone.

[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

A B b dot com. Holderness.

[Greg Olsen]

I'm not going to sit here for my high horse and be like, all you parents are crazy. Like I've been the crazy guy. Like I'm hand up.

[Pen Holderness]

We're all in this club.

[Greg Olsen]

We are creating a million one sport. Kids.

[Kim Holderness]

Honestly, I feel like this could be like a three part series.

[Pen Holderness]

Well, we're going to make him bizarre. PC was on a team where he wasn't scoring much and I was like, I don't know. You got a lot of pinpoints today. Yeah, we get older every day. Got more wrinkles.

[Kim Holderness]

That's okay.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah, we're laughing. When we age, life is like a comedy and that's why we got laugh lines.

[Kim Holderness]

Hey everybody, I'm Kim Holderness.

[Pen Holderness]

And I'm Pen Holderness. And I'm super pumped about laugh lines. Very, very pumped about laugh lines.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay, first off, if you ever had to like have a quarter just in case that collect call to your parents to say come pick me up by the Arby's didn't go through your home. We are your people. We remember that too.

[Pen Holderness]

Yes. And you know, it's anytime I see like the rem, there's no phone booths left, like, but like the remnant of a phone booth. It's just the booth and the machine.

[Kim Holderness]

It's an artifact.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah.

[Kim Holderness]

Do you think they'll be in museums one day?

[Pen Holderness]

Phone booths? Yeah, they should be.

[Kim Holderness]

I will say it is incredibly offensive to have an 18 year old daughter because she tried on my prom dress and she's like, ooh, look, it's vintage.

[Pen Holderness]

We're there now.

[Kim Holderness]

It is deeply offensive.

[Pen Holderness]

It's up there with like turning on classic rock stations and hearing Pearl Jam and you're like, girlfriend girl. Did I use that right? No.

[Kim Holderness]

I mean it's fine. Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

Anyway, getting things wrong.

[Kim Holderness]

As a reminder, I'm so excited our children's book all youl Can Be With ADHD is coming out so soon. You can pre order go to all you can be with ADHD.com to find out about that. And if we're coming to your town on our little book tour, we're going to be doing some school events too, which I think is going to be my favorite part.

[Pen Holderness]

This is all happening so quickly.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah.

[Pen Holderness]

I can't even tell you. I can't believe I'm even saying it happens quickly because in our world we make a video and it comes out two days later. But in, in publishing terms, we started working on this project early this year and it's coming out the very, very soon and that doesn't happen very often. So like props to our publishers for this. But we had a lot of parents saying we need a kid's version of ADHD is awesome. These kids need this book in their hands so they can understand that like life is going to be totally okay and in some cases extraordinary if you have adhd.

[Kim Holderness]

I will say though, I'm already, I've obviously I've pre ordered like 10.

[Pen Holderness]

Why?

[Kim Holderness]

I know, I know. I just feel like I should buy my own book. But I have them earmarked for girlfriends who are recently diagnosed. Like I'm going to give them for adults. For adults to like my 50 year old friends because they were just diagnosed after their kids were diagnosed and they're lost too. Like everybody talks about. Not everybody, but there's a lot of attention paid on accommodations for children and they as adults. It's really hard to kind of figure that out if you're new to it. So.

[Pen Holderness]

And the kids book will be a little easier for them to read than our, than the actual adult book. Is that what you're going with here?

[Kim Holderness]

It's a new entree. It's like a new, it's a pep talk. It is like a rhyming pep talk. And then you can get into the.

[Pen Holderness]

Okay, so you're thinking about like an oh, the places you'll go sort of thing.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah.

[Pen Holderness]

Like that was given to every person who ever graduated from high school. Did you get one of those when you graduated from high school?

[Kim Holderness]

Everybody did.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah, everybody. Okay. So today Penn is wearing his Panthers pride shirt. We are the most devoted Carolina Panthers fans.

[Pen Holderness]

We might be the only ones.

[Kim Holderness]

We may be the only ones. Our sweet son has a sub stack where he writes and we'll, we'll, we'll link that if you want to follow it. It's heavy on sports and reviews of rap music. But he is so devoted. He really thinks every year the Panthers have a shot for the super bowl and I love that about him. But today, guest, we have Greg Olsen on the podcast.

[Pen Holderness]

Greg Olson is. If you had to put the Mount Rushmore of Carolina Panthers up there, if you had to put four guys, I think most people are putting Greg Olsen on that Mount Rushmore. He was a spectacularly good tight end for Carolina and that's not even the most impressive part about him. He has, he has done a ton of charity work. He had a son with a heart issue and raised a ton of money for that. He left football, retired and started a broadcasting career where in my Opinion. He's the best football color guy. I want to talk to him about this, too. He actually. His main top job at Fox, it got taken away from him because Tom Brady came in.

[Greg Olsen]

Of course.

[Pen Holderness]

It's like Tom Brady. You get the main spot. Greg's better than Tom at this. They're friends.

[Kim Holderness]

But you think Tom's going to be mad if he sees our podcast and hears you say that?

[Pen Holderness]

I mean, Tom's great, too. If Tom sees our podcast, we have a whole new situation. What is Tom Brady doing watching our.

[Kim Holderness]

Podcast, really what we're talking about today? I will say this because I love the Carolina Panthers. I'm not. I don't know all the sports words and names and. But I know that I knew his name. Absolutely knew. Greg Olson. Big fan of Greg Olson. Because as a mom of what he's doing for youth sports. So if you've got a kid that's thinking about youth sports, in youth sports, this is going to be an amazing conversation.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah. So it's interesting. I think he may be aware of some of the videos that we've made about youth sports. There's one of them we made called the Six Stages of Youth Sports. Maybe we should, I don't know, should we watch that one? Let's not alter our life to accommodate youth sports.

[Kim Holderness]

This will be fun.

[Pen Holderness]

It's always good to know what it's.

[Greg Olsen]

Like to be part of a team.

[Kim Holderness]

Just for fun.

[Pen Holderness]

Low pressure.

[Kim Holderness]

They are so cute.

[Pen Holderness]

Wait, is he good?

[Kim Holderness]

I mean, all parents must say this, but I think he may be good.

[Pen Holderness]

He's good, right?

[Kim Holderness]

I think so.

[Pen Holderness]

Is he special?

[Kim Holderness]

Our kid is obviously special. I mean, our kid and no one else.

[Pen Holderness]

He's the best one out there. My judgment isn't clouded at all by the fact that he's my son.

[Kim Holderness]

He's way too good for this rec league.

[Pen Holderness]

This video touched some nerves in our community, I think in a yeah, that's us way and also in a haha way. And we got a great voicemail on the laugh line about this. Hey, guys.

[Greg Olsen]

My wife, Stephanie and I love your stuff. We're from Peoria, Arizona, and you guys make us laugh all the time. One of our favorites is when your kid gets into competitive sports. And maybe our kid is special. We've lived it. And so you guys are great. Keep up the great work.

[Kim Holderness]

As you've seen in the clip, heard in the clip, in this voicemail, we did this six stages, right? And the first stage is beautiful ignorance.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah.

[Kim Holderness]

You just. You're like, oh, that'll be fun. Yeah, it'll be a fun way to spend a Saturday. Go kick a ball.

[Pen Holderness]

That'll be fun if they're picking clovers. Yeah, totally fine. That's a good job picking clovers, buddy.

[Kim Holderness]

Yes. And then, you know, stage two, it's just for fun. It'll be really good to be part of a team, learn some life lessons, but no consequences.

[Pen Holderness]

But then comes the question, is our kids special? Like one thing. All it takes is one thing.

[Kim Holderness]

They make one good play.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah, one good play.

[Kim Holderness]

And every single parent is at stage three, which is competitive. Curious that I remember PC, he was what, like eight and he had a game where he made eight three pointers or something.

[Pen Holderness]

Oh, yeah, that was a great game.

[Kim Holderness]

And so he, I think like he made like eight of them.

[Pen Holderness]

He made eight, three point. Now, to be fair, it was one of those eight foot goals and it.

[Kim Holderness]

Was, I think the hoop was like.

[Pen Holderness]

This big, same size hoop, but it was hung on top of another basketball goal. So it was very friendly. All it had to do is like touch the rim and it would just kind of go. It just sort of. But I mean, a lot of those were going through the middle of the net. Yeah, he was on fire.

[Kim Holderness]

So. But he was doing that, was he. He was 7 or 8.

[Pen Holderness]

He was young.

[Kim Holderness]

He was young. He was like 7 or 8. And we're like, oh, my God, is our kid. Our kid is special. But no, really, I think it was like those things. Like, it was like a drain. Like you just needed to get like close and it would go in.

[Pen Holderness]

Yes, yes. And he. Yes. And he played very well.

[Kim Holderness]

He played very well. But. But he didn't. He was fine just hanging out on Saturdays. But then immediately, stage four, you drop everything, you lean way too far in.

[Pen Holderness]

You join a travel team, you join.

[Kim Holderness]

A travel team, you get, you go to clinics. There's, there's special gear and there's, there's coaching. Like we, for both of our kids, we went, I will admit we went way too far to be fair.

[Pen Holderness]

We did the exact same thing with Lola around tennis. Like, she had one good tournament and we were like, oh, she's special.

[Kim Holderness]

But no, I will say the difference is Lola drove that fair. She, she was obsessed. I regret not seeing how it maybe got to be too. Like it was too much. And we as parents should have said, no, you can't go to a tournament every weekend.

[Pen Holderness]

You mean for Lola?

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah. Whereas PC. Yeah.

[Pen Holderness]

See, I, you and I are like, we're aligned on 99.9% of this. I think that Lola Definitely got burnt out from youth sports, but the rest of the byproducts were so positive that I don't regret it. Like, it taught her resilience, it taught her character. I think it was a big reason she got into college even though she's not going to college to play tennis, because it forced her into a schedule. Did she have fun?

[Kim Holderness]

Not the end.

[Pen Holderness]

It didn't seem like it, but. But the fact, I will say the fact that she seemed so driven and she wanted to do it and the fact that it was self driven, I think that was the first time she. She became a self advocate and became a self starter. And it's one of the reasons she got to go to a great school.

[Kim Holderness]

There's a stage five, which is schedule shock.

[Pen Holderness]

Yep. Oh, yes.

[Kim Holderness]

Which is. I mean, when you really lean in, I mean, it's. It's a lot. And we've only ever done that. But I'm like, what are free weekends? What does that mean? And then stage six, you just totally forget about your kids and they don't want to do it at all. And you're like, no, we have coaches scheduled. Whatever. I think we've recovered. I don't think we ever got like that. Totally. That we were. We were doing stuff without our kids in mind. But I think, I wonder if Lola could have learned these very valuable life skills, because I do agree she's a leader. She's a badass. There's no she. She's been through so many tennis tie breaks with state championships on the line. Like, it doesn't even phase her to go stand up in front of a class or, you know, whatever. So. But I'm wondering if she could have learned those life lessons on a softer path.

[Greg Olsen]

Maybe.

[Pen Holderness]

Maybe. I think, like, no one has a perfect journey through this. I don't think when we talked to Greg about this, I mean, he had Malcolm Gladwell on the podcast, on his podcast, on his podcast, saying that, like.02% of people who want this as their goal do not. Like, that's how many accomplish their goal. So 99.98% do not get to the goal that they make for themselves as an athlete. So imagine like that. And so the problem for me is that the economy of youth sports is essentially giving people the belief that it's a much higher percentage. The number of people who are on travel teams that are essentially built or originally built only for people who are expected to get college scholarships is now for anyone and seems to have the same messaging. So it feels a little greedy to Me. And it feels a little misleading to me.

[Kim Holderness]

I agree.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah.

[Kim Holderness]

I, I, when you, I heard about investment firms and venture capital, I don't even know how to say the words, but when I heard about investment firms investing in basically factories where they have specialized training for kids and youth sports, I immediately thought, I'm like, oh, this is, this is too much. This is, I mean, we're, I, but I do think the kid that's going, we go to these tournaments. My, my son's great. He's a great, he's a great basketball player. He, he's wonderful. But then you see the kids that are. I was like, oh God. I, what's his name? I'm gonna have to like, remember that kid. Like I'm saying, I got to see him play when he was 13. They're so good.

[Pen Holderness]

But then you also see like eight of those kids in one day. Like, they're all over the place. So look, I want to ask Greg about this because he is on both sides, right? He is, he was part of that 0.02%. He's a Hall of Famer or he's going to be an NFL hall of Famer, but he's also raising kids who are going through the youth sports world right now. So he's got both perspectives. Also after the interview, top five ways I would fix youth sports.

[Kim Holderness]

Oh, I can't wait for this.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah.

[Kim Holderness]

More on this after these words.

[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

Okay, very excited. Greg Olson is here. And Greg Olson is a former NFL all pro, tight end, award winning broadcaster and the founder of Youth Inc. A media platform and podcast dedicated to reimagining youth sports in America. After 14 seasons in the NFL and a standout career with the Chicago Bears, Carolina Panthers and Seattle Seahawks, Greg transitioned to the broadcast booth where he quickly earned a of clip claim as one of the best new voices in football.

[Pen Holderness]

He's been a color commentator and analyst for NFL on Fox. He was the best one Netflix and the NFL Network including Super Bowl Livy. That's going to be 57 can Super bowl can you just put the number up?

[Kim Holderness]

We're getting put the number just getting.

[Pen Holderness]

High enough that it's tough for me to figure this out. Off the field, he's a passionate advocate for kids, parents and coaches, navigating the highs and lows of youth athletics, drawing from both his professional experience and his role as a father of three.

[Kim Holderness]

Welcome to the show, Greg Olson.

[Greg Olsen]

How are we doing guys? It's good to be here.

[Kim Holderness]

We are very excited. I want you to know that my 15 year old son desperately wanted to skip school today to come talk to you.

[Greg Olsen]

So why is he in school? We don't need school.

[Pen Holderness]

That's a good start for our talk about youth sport.

[Greg Olsen]

Oh, we're recording. Well, unfortunately I'm sorry he wasn't here but please tell him I said hi.

[Kim Holderness]

I will.

[Pen Holderness]

We will. And I've got a question, question and a comment from him later on because he wanted to say some stuff.

[Greg Olsen]

So.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Greg Olsen]

Love it.

[Kim Holderness]

Obviously famous as a football player, famous as a commentator and and your work post football. I will say as a mom, I really love the work you're doing with Youth Inc. So can you talk to us how you kind of redirected your attention to this and why it was so important?

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah. So I kind of joke that it's been like a, like a life's project for me. So I grew up in New Jersey. My father, both my parents were school teachers. Father was our high school football coach. He coached for 40 years. It's all we ever knew. It's all he ever did. So we grew up in the stereotypical football household. All boys. And I had two brothers. We all played for my dad at the local public high School. And so I grew up from the time I was a little boy. I was in locker rooms, going to summer camp, sleeping on the floor in dorms. Like, it's all. That was our summer vacation. It's all I ever knew. And then obviously, I was able to make a career and, and, and, and play and do all that. And then on the back side of retirement, my kids were getting older. I have three kids, two boys and a daughter. And, you know, I found myself coaching their T ball teams and coaching their interfaith basketball leagues and all the different things. But then as they got older, it got. It got less about, like, rec and introduction fun, and it got more serious and it got more competitive and it got more where there's a lot of decisions to make. And my wife and I would be laying in bed at night and we'd be like, if. If we don't get it. Someone who's lived their entire life in this world, it's. The only thing that I know is the world of sports. There must be so many other people out there right now struggling with what is the correct path, what is the correct practice. And I'm gonna go out and find those conversations. And that was really the inspiration behind you think, and the journey that we're on to uncover the good, the bad, the in between all aspects of youth sports as it is in its current. It's kind of current positioning. And we've had a blast doing it. I've learned probably more than our listeners. Listeners. And I've tried to impact when I go coach a kid's team and I go, you know, as a parent, as a dad, these. Some of the things that I've learned, I've really tried to implement into sometimes better than others. But there's just things that I've tried to implement with. With my. My sons and daughter and their respective teams.

[Pen Holderness]

What concerns you the most about the general landscape of youth sports? Kim and I have been in it now for 15 years or so since our kids started playing. We've noticed some pretty interesting things that we didn't expect to find. A lot of times it's based on, like, not the behavior of the kids, but the behavior of the parents. I'm wondering, like, how, like.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah. What.

[Pen Holderness]

What concerns you?

[Greg Olsen]

Well, the adults are always the issue, right? I mean, let's be honest. There's three components to the youth sports experience. There's the parents, the coach, and the athlete. Traditionally, the athlete is not the issue. Typically, the athlete's not causing problems. Their kids, they want to play they want to compete. And I want to be clear, like it's so easy to point out all the warts and all the things that we wish were better. There's also so much incred lessons and so many incredible experiences and so many incredible aspects of the youth sports landscape. But to answer your question, I think what I think the. Again, there's many. But I think the biggest thing that I see is we have just expedited the timeline of development. And there's multiple areas of development, right? There's the skill of the sport, like learning how to throw, catch, run, tackle, swing a baseball bat, hit a hockey stick, kick, whatever, whatever sport you're playing. There is an expedited development in the actual skill of the sport, good and bad. There is the expedited maturity that we're asking of these kids to be able to, you know, have the mental health, the mental strength, the, the ability to like handle super pressure moments at younger and younger ages. Right? So what I mean by expediting is what used to not take place until you were probably a varsity athlete in high school. And then beyond that, if you were lucky enough to go play in college was. It became professionalized, right? It became year round, it became very serious. You were training, you were doing off season workouts, you were doing individual skill development. There was pressure, there was cause and effect, wins and losses. And come high school, like that's standard. Like high school sports should be competitive and it should be, you know, it should be a big deal. Like that's healthy for these kids at that age to, to understand investment and, and failure and all those things. But what we've done is because we've professionalized it so young, we have skipped all the steps of actually finding out what kids are good at. We've skipped the steps of testing a lot of different sports and being seasonal athletes. Because in order to keep up now in the current environment at a high level, you can't go from the basketball gym to the baseball field to summer at the beach and then show up for football practice in August and do that year round like I did as a kid. Those days are over. You're not going to be good enough to keep up with the kid who's been doing 12 months a year of basketball training or 12 months a year of batting lessons. It's just, it's very, very hard. So we're asking these kids to pick sports earlier. We're not giving kids the Runway to actually learn what they like and how to be good at it, how to deal with failure how to deal with ups and downs because the goal was always to be really good at 17. Now the goal is to be really good at 10 and 11. Because if you haven't picked your sport by 11, oh man, you're not going to make it. So we've just moved the timeline so much earlier and earlier with every given season that we don't give kids a chance to grow, we don't give kids a chance to develop, we don't give kids a chance to fail, we don't give kids a chance to even learn what the heck they want to do. And we're. I just feel so strongly that it's just, it's the complete opposite of what we should be, the environment in which we should be creating. But I just don't know how we kind of put unraveling pace back in the tube.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah, yeah. So that, that's my question. I 100 believe and support that kids should play, they should differentiate, they should find out what they like, they should try different things. But if my kid doesn't play year round basketball, he won't, he wouldn't have even made a middle school team. That's how. Yeah. So how do you, if your kid wants to have a sports experience, how do you, how, how, like, how do you, how do you opt out of it? How do you just, do you just.

[Greg Olsen]

Oh, it's a great, yeah, it's a great question. And again, I don't know if anyone pretends to have the answers. What's amazing is every you talk to, whether it's your friend at dinner or on podcasts or professionals and people that study this for a living and sociologists and psychologists, everyone across the spectrum says the exact same thing. Everybody wants the same thing. Everyone wants their kids to do multiple sports. Everyone wants their kids to be well rounded and have that wide berth. And then as they approach the end of high school, especially for kids that are a little bit better or more gifted, there's a little bit more of a specialization that's just natural as they anticipate going to the next step of college. But what you just said is the crux of the entire argument. It people are doing things that they don't really want to do. They don't, they don't in their heart believe it's in their kids best interest, but they're just surviving.

[Pen Holderness]

They have to.

[Greg Olsen]

Right? It's just survival. Do you want your kid to make the middle school basketball team or not? And for the really high level athletes, the super, super gifted kids, if they don't play basketball year round and maybe their skill is not up to par of the other kids. They'll still be able to walk into the gym after football season or whatever fall sport they play and they'll be able to just run around the gym and be a great athlet athlete and they'll make the team. But what we're, what people don't consider is kids are better now. Younger, right? The, the access to skill development, the access to trainers, the way these kids lift weights, speed coaches develop. What kids are doing now in middle school used to not happen until mostly varsity sports at some high schools. It wasn't, it wasn't even a part of that. You weren't getting it until college. These kids are now doing it in fifth and sixth grade. They have year round personal trainers, skill development, the way they eat, the way they train. It isn't a different world. We're creating earlier more talented athletes. But what the studies are showing is the athletes are not as good down the road. We're losing all the foundational baseline, macro athletic development stages to go super micro, super skill oriented. Do it a thousand times and you're going to be a good hitter, you're going to be a good baseball player, you're going to be able to field and throw or whatever skill is. But what they're finding is the kids are better at 12 but they're not better at 20 because they've missed all of these early years of gross macro bit high level athletic fundamental development. Different skill sets, different again the skill set mentally to play football, play after play after play, very fast paced compared to basketball which is an ebbs and flows. You go from offense to defense in seconds to baseball. Those take three very different brain positionings. Right. They take very different patients ability to. They're just completely different sports. The kids who play them are completely wired, completely different. Those are great experiences for young kids as they're wiring and their brains and their, their neuro systems are developing as young, just adolescents, boys and girls like we're skipping all of that. And then of course there's the physical elements that each sport require that when you combine them they develop very well rounded physical athletes that serve you well post puberty. So I mean I could go on and on about all this but it's just everything comes back to we've sped the timeline up instead of this being a race to 18 and then we'll let college sort itself out from there. We've moved the finish line to 12 years old and it's just like, these kids haven't even hit puberty yet. They never had a boyfriend or a girlfriend. They've never been to a high school party. Like, they don't even know what the real world looks like. And we need them to make real life decisions for the next 20 years of their life.

[Kim Holderness]

I do have. We do have friends that had never went to prom because they had tournaments. Yeah, yeah, come on, Go to prom.

[Greg Olsen]

I want. Listen, you are not going to find a more competitive. What I. About how we approach, like, sports. And my whole life has been sports. And you. You are never gonna find a more competitive guy in even high school sports. And below. If my kid ever for a minute thought he was gonna miss high school, prom, homecoming, whatever, graduation for a baseball tournament, a basketball tournament, a showcase, I. There is zero chance. You never. I get. I even. I don't even love kids now that go to college early and they enroll as in January of their senior year in high school. Like, I look back from January to June of my senior year in high school was like the best four years of your entire high school journey. You're 18, you got your license, you got your buddies, you're at prom, you're excited to go to college.

[Kim Holderness]

All that hard stuff so far.

[Greg Olsen]

I don't know. But again, what are we doing? We're ex. We're moving everything up. Everything has to happen earlier. Instead of high school being at the. Instead of college being at the end of high school, it's at the end of three and a half years of high school. Soon it'll be three years and kids will go at 16 and. Yeah, it's just exhausting.

[Pen Holderness]

I want to go back to something that you said earlier about, like, is our kid enjoying themselves?

[Kim Holderness]

Right.

[Pen Holderness]

It's an important question. So I'm like, I'm listening to your pod with Malcolm Gladwell yesterday while I'm watching my son. Like, he just joined an ultimate Frisbee team.

[Kim Holderness]

So cool.

[Pen Holderness]

And he'd never tried it before. Yeah, he's having so much fun. He looks. I mean, I find myself being like, oh, he looks pretty good. I'm like, shut up, Pen. Like, don't. Like, don't.

[Kim Holderness]

That's not about him being good.

[Pen Holderness]

Let's make sure he's just having fun. And I'm not gonna, like, over.

[Kim Holderness]

Over. He was sending me videos from the car.

[Pen Holderness]

She's really good.

[Kim Holderness]

I'm like, babe, stop it. It doesn't need to be good.

[Greg Olsen]

But he's all guilty of that.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah, he was having fun. Fun. But then I. Malcolm was Talking about kind of how he likes to look carefully at a kid and find a moment and for him it's like distance running. Like if you, you have to enjoy this certain type of euphoria and there's a certain type of person who loves that and they're going to become a runner. Right. As a parent, have you been, even though you are one of the greatest tight ends of all time, are you able to compartmentalize like the skill level with like whether or not your kids are having fun and how do you look out for that when it comes to sports?

[Greg Olsen]

It's hard. Yeah. And I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I haven't gotten caught up in that very exact thing you're describing. You know, my daughter went out for track. She was a six, she's a seventh grader now. So last year as a sixth grader in the winter, the track coach encouraged her to come out for the winter track team. Yeah, she couldn't compete in any of the events or anything, but it was just for the training and it was a couple days a week after school and they got a really good track program at our kids school. So she went out and she did it. And I found myself after like two or three practices. I'm like, well, how do we get ready to run a hurdles event? Like what's a really good hurdles time? How far do we have to jump to be one of the better sixth graders in the air?

[Kim Holderness]

Like sixth grader.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah, it's right. Like I, I've been there. So like I'm not gonna sit here for my high horse and be like, all you parents are crazy. Like I've been the crazy guy. Like I'm hand up. Honestly, we're all, we're all in this club.

[Kim Holderness]

Do you say like if your kids are going to play something and they say they want to be good at it, then you, then you're like, yes, let's be good at it. So is the parent driving this or is the, does the kid have to drive all this?

[Greg Olsen]

Well, the kid has to drive. If you're, if you're, if you're, if you're getting into a fight every time you're trying to tell your kid, hey, you got to make sure you put your work in. Hey, make sure you guys, it's just not going to work. They're not going to have success. There's going to be frustration. You're going to be giving a ton of time and energy to something that's not being met by them. It has to 100% be kid driven. So for example, my seventh grade son has never played a down of football. Never growing up, didn't play Pop Warner. Never played a down of football. No problem. He was hell bent on playing on the middle school football team that we coach at our local high school. And he has an older brother who's an eighth grader who's been playing. He's played, this is his fourth year, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth. He's played since he was young, but TJ never did. And he was like hell bent. He's like, I'm gonna play, I'm gonna play, I'm gonna play. And I'm like, okay. Like, we have summer workouts. We're gonna leave the house at 7:30. You gotta be up, you gotta be dressed, you gotta be ready. If you show me that you're willing to do all the things, you don't just show up on game day in front of your friends and be on the football team. Like if you're willing to do all of this work all summer, I love you to play football. And we'll teach you and we'll coach you. I don't care how good you are. You've never even put a helmet on. Has he missed the perk? Hasn't missed a workout. He's up on time. It's not a star player. It's not our star running back. He'll play as a young kid and nicks himself in there every now and then. But like, that's not the point. Like, he showed the initiative that he wanted to play. He's done all the things leading up to it that are deserving to be on the team. And whether he's good or bad at it or not is irrelevant. That is kid living kid, kid driven. If I'm like, tj, you're playing football come hell or high water and I'm dragging you out of bed every single morning for summer workouts. It's just not sustainable. It's just not going to work.

[Kim Holderness]

From the position where you sit as a parent and as a coach, do you see a lot of that? A lot of parents dragging their kids out and forcing them into it?

[Greg Olsen]

Yes and no. I think, I think sometimes parents think their kids want it more than they do. I think what I see more often is kids think they want it more than they do. And again, I think that's part of just being young. Right? Like I'm looking at it through like a 40 year old who's lived his whole life in like super high Competitive environments where, like, there's a cause and effect to everything you do. There's out now, again, separate aside here. But like, outcome based sports should be like end of varsity, end of varsity sports, college for sure, and, you know, professional levels for sure. It's ends justify the means. It's all outcome driven. If you're not good enough, you're going to be replaced. That's it. That's youth sports nowadays, which is the exact opposite of what it should be like. That's the part I probably argue against the most, is instead of getting the shortstop better, we're just gonna replace him with a new kid next week and move on. Yeah, that's the environment that we're living in now. It's, it is all outcome based instead of being developmentally based and let the outcome stuff come later. But to finish to your point, what I see now is these kids, they, they see social media, they see kids getting young scholarship offers. They see the kid down the street going to play at North Carolina. They see the Little League World Series on tv. They, they see all of this young athletic success and they all want it. That's just human nature. Oh, my God, I'm 12. I should do that. They have no idea the kids they're seeing have all that success. They have no idea what goes in behind the scenes for that kid to be in that position. So they think they want it. And then when you show them like, okay, this is really what's going on underneath the water, they're like, ooh, that's a lot.

[Kim Holderness]

That seems like a lot.

[Greg Olsen]

That's a lot.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah, that's what it is.

[Kim Holderness]

That's what it is.

[Pen Holderness]

That's just.

[Greg Olsen]

It is what it is. There's no other way to do it.

[Pen Holderness]

So sometimes people do all that work and they still don't accomplish what their, their goal is. Right. Like Malcolm said, 0.02% of people actually accomplish, like, their professional goals of playing, you know, sports professionally. I want, like, Greg, I want to tell you a story about me and my son. And then I'm going to lay out for you to tell us your personal take on this, because I think that you are one of the best examples of dealing with failure, which is crazy because you're one of the best ever. First of all, I think you're the best color commentator I've ever seen on television. I thought you were amazing in the Super Bowl. I still think you're great. Anytime you're calling a game, I turn the volume up. And when it's some other People, I turn the volume down or I go to the red zone, like, I just move on.

[Greg Olsen]

I appreciate it, but thank you.

[Pen Holderness]

But there was a moment where, where Fox paid Tom Brady. Friend of yours. I think I'd like a quarter of a billion dollars to come on Fox. Yeah, it was a ton of money. And so they had to put him in the, in the top a slot of whatever it was for Fox, which means Greg, Greg starts calling different games. And I heard you talk about this on, I think it was in the Dan LeBatard Show. And PC was in the car with me. That's my son. When you talked about, like how that was tough on you and then what your theory was on getting back to work and building your team back up, and that still sticks with him because my son, he has ADHD just like me. He has trouble with self talk, he has trouble with rejection. And hearing the way that you dealt with that meant a lot to him.

[Greg Olsen]

Well, I appreciate that and that warms my heart to hear that. Well, I think there's a lot to unpack there. First and foremost, I'll just say what we talk about at home. Like now, I'm just as a dad, I'm not a coach. I'm not with my middle school team. I'm just parenting three children. That's my ultimate responsibility. Right. We talk a lot about goal setting can be very tricky. I'm not necessarily a huge believer in goal setting for a couple reasons. Number one, the issue of goal setting is once you reached a goal, the human instinct is, I made it. I reached my. Whether the goal was to make this team, to make varsity sports, to get a new contract, to get drafted, to get a scholarship to whatever the goal is. I always say to my kids, okay, so you reach the goal, then what if the goal was the outcome, if the goal was the end all and you reach it, does it. It doesn't stop. Like, we never, we don't. Like, it's not over. You make the varsity baseball team as a sophomore. That was your goal. Well, do you stop doing all your batting lessons? Do you stop doing all your extra T work? Do you start like, does it stop or do you just keep going? Well, yeah, you keep. Everyone would say, oh, you keep going. I say, what was the purpose of the goal? You're going to work. You're going to. Whether you made the team or not, the work never stops. Whether you get the college scholarship or not, the work should never stop. So goal setting to me becomes a little tricky. Like we talk about processes, what can you do on a daily, weekly, and then larger macro dosing of habit forming as often and as able as humanly possible. Right. Like every day, every action or thought is a positive habit being formed or a negative habit being formed. The negative ones have to eventually be broken and re established, which just adds another complex layer to it. But just work on the work. If your goal is to make the varsity baseball team as a sophomore and you don't make it, just keep going, just keep going. And maybe you never make it. And I say to my kids all the time, you never reach the goal, are you a failure? And they would all go, yeah, I failed. And I'd say, only if you didn't do all the work that required to achieve it. If you did everything in your power to do it and it just wasn't meant to be, you're not a failure because the outcome is. We put too much emphasis on the outcome. So that is the exact same approach that I took to the example you just gave. Like, my goal was to call Super Bowls. My goal was to be an A broadcaster. And for two years I did that. And my weekly prep, what I did Monday through Friday, the way I studied film, the way I formulated my notes, the time I put into laying out storylines and learning, you know, just different ways to weave in and out of the game, some interesting thoughts and whatnot, I had that taken away. I no longer was going to call postseason games in Super Bowls out of my hands. Unique situation. What were my options if my goal was to call a games only instead of. My goal is to be really good at the job.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah.

[Greg Olsen]

And if I'm calling a game at 1 o', clock, 4 o', clock, 8 o', clock, or a no o', clock, if my goal was to just be as good as I could be, the environment in which I operated in is irrelevant. It means nothing. I'm not going to work harder for the super bowl than I will for week one. And that. Like, that example is, that's my life. Like, that's just the only way that I know. So I prepare now to call games on the, on the B crew, no different than I did the weeks leading up to it. Never changes. The teams I call, the time, the audience size, this, the perception of significance of the game, it doesn't matter. The second you start worrying about all of that, I stop studying, I stop preparing, I start looking at everybody else around the industry. And then when you tune into my game, you go, olson's not as good as he used to be. He's not the same. It's not as interesting.

[Kim Holderness]

Well, you're a favorite in our house. I will say that. And I, as somebody who's a casual athlete, I don't know the difference between 18 beat. I don't know the difference of it. I just know that my guys will turn the volume up when you're talking, and other than that, he turns it down.

[Greg Olsen]

Well, I appreciate that. Thank you.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah. But no, I think that in our house, so I, I was a dancer, so I don't really have. So I never played a sport. But when Penn is still like, he plays tennis and pickleball and he's on a volleyball league, I've made it. So if he has a bad match or there's a bad. A not desirable outcome, I'm like, you have to come and tell the kids. You have to say, like, oh, I'm. I worked really hard. I'm. I'm disappointed. That sucks that it happened. Okay, what's for dinner? Like, you have to show them getting over that. And I think you showed a really good example to your kids and to mine of you just. You gotta keep working and you gotta get over it.

[Pen Holderness]

I mean, I'm still pissed as. As a viewer.

[Greg Olsen]

Please. It takes me like two days to get over, trust me, from a com.

[Kim Holderness]

In.

[Greg Olsen]

In the world of, like, sport, like teams that I coach or like a tennis, you know, like.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah.

[Greg Olsen]

You know, it's 24 hours. I'm like mad and it ruins my day. So the key is it has to be in. That has to be in short time.

[Kim Holderness]

Yes.

[Greg Olsen]

It can't last three weeks.

[Kim Holderness]

Right, Right.

[Greg Olsen]

Have your moment, your frustration, get it out. And then we got to move on and we got to get back to the next practice, back to the next game, back to the ball machine, you know, whatever it is. And like I always say, my kids, if you're mad you got. If you're mad you lost and you're mad you got beat, Go get better.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah. Yeah. And if you don't care, and if you don't care that you lost, that's also a sign that if you're not.

[Greg Olsen]

Gonna go and if you're not gonna go get better, then you really don't care that much, then we shouldn't be mad. We should go for ice cream.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah.

[Greg Olsen]

Who cares?

[Kim Holderness]

I love some ice cream.

[Greg Olsen]

Yeah.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah. If you.

[Greg Olsen]

Especially after you win.

[Kim Holderness]

Oh, yeah. That's the best.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah. So, Greg, if there was an organization called the Youth Sports Organization of the World, which actually could be like Sports Inc. Kind of. We use Sports Inc. Or whatever. There was a. And you were the commissioner and you could give one edict to all of those who are putting on coaching and presenting youth sports. Like let's say between the ages of 0 and 14. Right. Like before you get to high school. Like you were in charge of that league. Yeah. Are there a couple of laws, edicts that you would put out, like instantly that would. You think that would make it a more wholesome, healthy and long term, more successful venture?

[Greg Olsen]

Oh, man. Oh, I'm like the youth sports czar. You should pitch that.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah.

[Greg Olsen]

So I'll start at the. I'll start. I consider youth sports like high school and down. Yep. Everything above that is professional sports in my mind. So high school. I would start in high school. Mandatory. If you are not every kid doesn't know what. You don't have to be an athlete. But if you are an athlete, you have to be rostered on two sports. Now you, you, you're. You dance outside of the school, you do gymnastics and your school doesn't offer it. Like, I know there are some kids that are athletes. I consider dancing a sport. The girls that I know that are friends with my daughter, I'll say this about dancing. I'm a big on a side guy. The My daughter's girlfriends that are dancers. The time, energy, commitment and work ethic compared to the boys who are playing like traditional stick and ball sports, like American sports, like we altered it. Their effort and work ethic and commitment to gymnastics makes what the boys do look like tiddlywinks.

[Kim Holderness]

Yes, true. You're absolutely true.

[Greg Olsen]

So anyone who thinks their boys are being overworked because their coach called an extra practice one day, sign your kid up for gymnastics or dance or one of those sports and go see what those girls do every day in the gym. And you'll never complain about how hard practice was ever again or how hard the coach was or how many hours we spent. But that's a separate conversation I would make. All high school athletes have to play two sports.

[Kim Holderness]

Love it.

[Greg Olsen]

And you don't have to be the best player. You have to experience a different program experience. Take a break from your current sport so that you can dive into something else. All four years of high school, I played a sport every single season. So even after I committed to go play college football at Notre Dame, I was on the high school basketball team. What I loved about high school basketball in the winter. And then, like, even as a senior, I ran track and field all four years. But as a senior in track and field, when I walked onto the basketball court. It was a very different world for me than what football was. Football was everything. It was what I trained for. It's what I was being recruited for. It was every conversation, every news article, everything. When I was a basketball player, like I didn't touch that basketball until the day football ended. So like there was a different level of experience. There was no pressure to go score 40 points. Like I was one of the guys. Yeah, I was no better a basketball player than anybody else on my team. That wasn't the case for me in football. Like the expectation of football is like you have to be the man in everything you do. And there's like a pressure to that. At 17 years old, I loved my non major sport because it was a break, it was a breath of fresh air. It was just go be with one of the guys. Every win and loss is not the end of the world. We were going to lose basketball games in high school, it didn't really matter. Don't get me wrong, we competed hard and we wanted to win. But like we lost the football game, the world was coming to an end. It was just different. So that would be my first rule, is if you're going to play one, you got to play two.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay, love that.

[Greg Olsen]

At the younger levels before we get into school sports, it's a little bit harder to control. Right. So again we're saying I have all the powers of the universe here.

[Pen Holderness]

You all, you're the czar.

[Kim Holderness]

Your czar.

[Greg Olsen]

I would make it that no kid, no sports season can run like no sanctioned sports season can run events outside of their traditional calendar season. I can't run basketball tournaments outside of the months of I'll call it October to March. So it's a longer season. It goes a little bit into spring, a little bit into early late fall. That's only time in the entire calendar year you can run sanctioned event driven. Now you want to do basketball, you want to practice, you want to do your own skills training. Great. Baseball, it runs on a calendar from. I know in the south we have a different baseball season than up north, but let's say the baseball season runs from March to July. Okay, that's it. You cannot hold tournaments from August to through February.

[Kim Holderness]

I love this.

[Greg Olsen]

And just make the seasons seasons.

[Kim Holderness]

Yes. I think this would solve so many problems because your baseball playing kid can still go out and hit and train and do whatever they want to do. If they're truly are, of course. Yeah. But then there wouldn't and then honestly I might. Our baseball friends I'm so glad my kids. We never even introduced it as an option quite honestly because they don't have a summer. They, they're traveling all those families.

[Greg Olsen]

We don't have a summer.

[Kim Holderness]

We don't have. We didn't have a summer because of basketball that we I think as a team decided to end that mid July. So we had like a month of a summer. But other than that, like you were tied to a tournament.

[Greg Olsen]

To your point though, it's so true because so many at our school we have a really good baseball program and some of the best athletes in our school are baseball players. But their baseball goes all summer into the fall. Fall training, fall ball, fall this showcases. So they don't come out for the football team because in football, football is a summer sport. All the work leading up to the fall is done in the summer. So there's a huge conflict and we are creating a million one sport. Kids.

[Kim Holderness]

Honestly, I feel like this could be like a three part series.

[Pen Holderness]

Well, we're gonna make them bizarre that.

[Kim Holderness]

You are the, you are the youth sports bizarre. Anything else? I mean what tell us about you think. What do you have coming up? How can we support you? What do you want people to know? More on this after these words. You know friends, I'm on a protein journey here in Perimenopause and I finally found the best protein powder out there. Clean Simple Eats.

[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

Huge fan of David Sedaris and in his Masterclass I learned so much about storytelling and connecting with audiences. It's been something I've carried with me into my my work.

[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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[Greg Olsen]

Yeah, I think it's multifaceted. I think obviously we're excited about a lot of the content that we're given, right. So people are familiar with the last couple episodes. So our first episode we relaunched last week was with Tom Brady. Obviously everyone knows who that is. You referenced them early. He's become a good friend of mine. He was kind enough to be kind of our big kickoff and his story is super fascinating. Like of course everyone knows the Super Bowls and all that. But like here's a kid that was in 0 and 7. He was on an 07 freshman team and was the backup quarterback as a freshman. Yep. In today's day and age, that kid quipped. Yeah, in that day and age of kids, coaches saying, hey, you're not a football player. Come play only basketball with me. Or baseball or whatever. He was at Michigan and was the backup quarterback. In today's day and age, he transfers. There's no light at the end of the tunnel. He eventually becomes the starter, sixth round pick and obviously we know the rest is history. So really cool perspective. His journey, his story. Now him as a father of girls, boys, he was great. You Mentioned Malcolm Gladwell, he was our second guest. You know, world renowned thought leader in so many of these different areas. Got Ryan Day coming off the national championship Ohio State football team, you know, talking about, you know, what is recruiting look like nowadays? Obviously the nil has changed the picture. How do you put the coaching staff together? How do you lead following success? I thought that was one of the interesting things we talked about. It's easy to get back to work when you fail. We have a saying with our teams. The greatest preventer of future success is current success. Right? Like you have a bad game, everybody and their mother can come back to practice the next day and like really put their head down and get to work. What happens after you have a great game? Do you practice the same intensity again? We're not outcome oriented. Our practice is the same no matter if I played well or I played poorly. Same thing in, you know, and again we can go on and on about all that. So that was a huge conversation with them. Now how they're going to follow up a national title. C.J. stroud, Missy Franklin. Aside from my interviews though, we have an entire platform of other really interesting content. Lauren Chamberlain, who's one of the most accomplished women's softball players in history from Oklahoma. She's our girl softball ambassador. Coach Rack, who's like super famous now from the Savannah Bananas. He's our baseball ambassador. He's the one doing all like the backflips. Good looking dude, hit a walk off, walk off. I think grand slam in like Fenway a couple weeks ago in the Bananas games. So John Isner. John is there in the tennis world. He's our tennis ambassador. So it's, it's, it's less of a singular podcast hosted by me as much as it is like a youth sports all encompassing podcast. We have a commerce angle where high schools and travel teams can use us as like their official team shop fanware, customize all their clothes with their high school logos and whatnot. So it's a, a all encompassing platform to just try to improve the experience by everybody that they're having in the youth sports world. So we're, we're excited about it. We live it every day and as you can tell, we love talking about it.

[Kim Holderness]

Yeah. Oh, I love this.

[Pen Holderness]

The podcast is great. I've loved the ones that I've listened to. As, as you can see here, we're called laugh lines. So we, we can't get you out of here without talking a little bit about getting older. I heard you say tiddlywinks. Earlier, I'm like, okay, he's one of us. He said tiddlywinks. Now that you know you're 40 now, what's, how's your body? How's your brain? Any signs that you're turning 40 yet? You look pretty good.

[Greg Olsen]

But I, well, thank you. Zoom, they say takes off 10 pounds. You know, I, I feel good physically. Like, you know, my, my body itself, considering how much football and how much sports I played, I feel good. You know, I'm, I'm very active. I'm coaching my team's name. I don't train in like a traditional format. Like I, I don't go to the gy, lift weights. I don't go to the gym and run on the treadmill. My activity comes at 3 o' clock when the kids get out of school, like in the fall. I'm on the field setting up bags, demonstrating drills, doing conditioning at the end of practice and I walk out and I'm drenched. No different than the kids. Just actively coaching and engaged and energetic and you know, yelling across the field like, just, that's the only way I know. So I get all of my activity really through like osmosis of just being outside active with the kids in their respective teams.

[Kim Holderness]

That counts. Well, we have enjoyed our time with you. You are a legend across the country obviously, but in this house for sure. So thank you. I can't wait for our son to listen.

[Pen Holderness]

I know, I know. And do you want to give us like a little bit on the Panthers this year? Like, is there any hope? Yeah, like PC's got some hope.

[Greg Olsen]

There's always hope. Yeah, that's the nice thing about football, NFL football, 32 teams now.

[Pen Holderness]

There's false hope, right?

[Greg Olsen]

There is, there's, I think we're out of the false hope category, fortunately. Do I think we're going to win the Super Bowl?

[Kim Holderness]

No. So I think that we're ready. Says there's a path and he'll list it out for you.

[Greg Olsen]

If you ask my 14 year old kid, maybe these kids are more optimistic than us.

[Pen Holderness]

They are.

[Greg Olsen]

Maybe that's, that's something we can dive into. On the next episode.

[Pen Holderness]

Optimism. Greg, thank you so much for your time and your perspective and really for like what you've done for the sports world and for like moms and dads who need guidance when it comes to this.

[Greg Olsen]

Well, we all need guidance. I, I, I, most of what I've learned, I've stolen from other people or I've learned because I've done it the wrong way. Or because I've come home and not been proud of the way I handled the bad loss or the way I handled a parenting moment. So I'm the first to admit a lot of my lessons, a lot of the things that I now try to preach to other people are like, hey, I didn't do it right the first time. Through a lot of ways, like, I'm still improving what this looks like as a dad slash coach, slash youth advocate. By no means do I have it all figured out either. But I think it's something worthwhile. I think it's something that we all can improve on. And the, the, we have one rule in our house, and this is like, my last closing little tidbit is like, the art of learning and the art of continued improvement never ends. And if you just have that approach at any moment in time, you may never be winning the race. Right? If we took a bunch of snapshots at 12, 15, 18, 25, I tell my kids, we don't have an end goal of when we need to win the race. The race never ends. Like, just keep improving as a person. Keep improving in your sports. Keep improving at everything you do. And usually the people that continue to improve the longest end up the furthest ahead. I just don't know what age that'll be. I don't know what stage of your life, but frankly, it doesn't matter. Just get to where you can go, and that's just that art that never stops. And I think we have to remind ourselves of that a lot because we all get caught up in where we are in any moment in time.

[Kim Holderness]

That's so hard. This was a blast. Thank you so much, and thank you so much for coming. Yeah.

[Greg Olsen]

Thank you, guys. It was awesome.

[Pen Holderness]

So real quick reactions. I feel like, like you were definitely learning some stuff there.

[Kim Holderness]

I loved, loved, loved. Can we make this happen?

[Pen Holderness]

You know why make them bizarre?

[Kim Holderness]

A, make them bizarre. The, the two roster thing. And then only doing seasonal tournaments. You know why that won't ever happen?

[Pen Holderness]

Go ahead.

[Kim Holderness]

Money.

[Greg Olsen]

Yep.

[Kim Holderness]

Money. These basketball tournaments we go to. Love my.

[Pen Holderness]

You mean the national championships? Every weekend they have a national champion 12 different cities. There's a national, there's a world championship and a national championship in 100 cities.

[Kim Holderness]

In 100 cities every week they charge, like, $50 for parking. I mean, it. They, they will never do it, so. But if we can as. I don't know, but I love that idea. I, I, he's great. I'm glad, I'm glad there's somebody like him. You know, taking charge.

[Pen Holderness]

Agreed. So I had a list of top five things I would change about youth sports, but they're not as good as Greg's, so I think we could skip them.

[Kim Holderness]

Let's hear it. Let's hear it.

[Pen Holderness]

All right. Pen's top five before. And one of them you actually mentioned without even realizing it. So number five, heavier enforcement on players yelling at the ref or grandstanding.

[Kim Holderness]

Oh, I hate that. Sir, you're 12. Do not yell at the grown man who's volunteering.

[Pen Holderness]

This is the fault of NBA players and college players behaving the way they do and refs not teching them up. Like it's just. It's more and more for.

[Greg Olsen]

For youth.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

Number four, formation of a medium league. And I'm going to become the czar of the medium league.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay. Here's the deal in what I know about basketball, specifically, the rec league at a certain age becomes like, you can get hurt.

[Pen Holderness]

Right.

[Kim Holderness]

Because there's a lot of kids who want to play for fun. Great. But they don't know the rules. And the last few rec games we've done, there's been serious injuries because they don't. They're like. Yeah.

[Pen Holderness]

And that's. So a rec league is kind of like a developmental league.

[Kim Holderness]

Right. So but a medium league.

[Pen Holderness]

And then, and then the travel league is there.

[Kim Holderness]

You do that.

[Pen Holderness]

The medium league. Medium. And so if you win the medium championship, you're medium.

[Kim Holderness]

You're medium.

[Pen Holderness]

Still medium. But we've had celebrate. But we celebrate medium.

[Kim Holderness]

And you're trying and having fun, but you're not like waking up at 7am to do practice.

[Pen Holderness]

Yes. I think it has to be called the medium. The medium league.

[Kim Holderness]

Got it.

[Pen Holderness]

Number three, require every parent to sign a code of conduct contract that is enforceable by like your kid losing the ability to play. No yelling at refs. No yelling at kids.

[Kim Holderness]

Love it.

[Pen Holderness]

No withholding of love when you're, when you're watching your kid.

[Kim Holderness]

Pen was coaching a game one time and a parent stormed the court and Penn had to like drag the coach off and stand in between. Ms. Brick of the fight.

[Pen Holderness]

I was, I was an assistant, so I had to like, I had to keep him from head coach. Yep.

[Kim Holderness]

14 year olds.

[Pen Holderness]

Anyway, number two and I did this with my son. Keep stats that have nothing to do with what regular stats are. I call them pinpoints.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

With piece. So PC was on a team where he wasn't scoring much and I was like, I don't know. You got a lot of pinpoints points today. Oh, and he Was like, what are you talking about? Well, so I had. And here's what they were. I gave two points for an assist, and it includes when you throw a really. This is basketball. When you throw a really nice pass and the guy doesn't score.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

You still get an assist for that. One point for a hockey assist, which is a pass that leads to a pass.

[Kim Holderness]

Oh, God.

[Pen Holderness]

That leads to a basket.

[Kim Holderness]

This is like, everybody gets a trophy level.

[Pen Holderness]

No, these. These are points, okay? These are points for hustle.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay?

[Pen Holderness]

Two points if you dive on the floor and get a loose ball.

[Kim Holderness]

Oh, I love that.

[Pen Holderness]

One point if you pick a guy up off the floor.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

Like when he's fallen down. Two points if you calm down an upset player.

[Kim Holderness]

Our son would be the highest score.

[Pen Holderness]

I'm. This is why you think I made this up. A one point for a rebound and then one point for a good box out, even if you don't get the rebound.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

Two points for a steal. Or if you cause a turnover, five points if you're the loudest guy in the bench.

[Kim Holderness]

Yes.

[Pen Holderness]

If you ever complain to the ref or taunt another player, you lose all your points.

[Kim Holderness]

I love it.

[Pen Holderness]

That's my. That's my pinpoint.

[Kim Holderness]

Okay.

[Pen Holderness]

And I did, like, I looked it back up, and that's what it was. And then finally, number one, you change the starting lineup every week, even though.

[Kim Holderness]

Sometimes our kid, you know, has started on teams. Yeah.

[Pen Holderness]

You know, but I'm just saying you change. They don't have to play the whole game. You change the starting lineup if you're a football, baseball. But whatever it is, you mix it up every week.

[Kim Holderness]

I cannot wait for the comments on this podcast. And I would. I want to know what you all would do as, you know, the leaders of the sports universe, how we can fix this.

[Pen Holderness]

Yeah, I want this to. I want the conversation to continue, and I think so does Greg, so.

[Kim Holderness]

Laugh Lines is written and produced by Kim Holderness, Pen Holderness, and Ann Marie Tapke, with original music by Pen Holderness. It's filmed, edited, and live. Produced normally by Sam Allen, but today, Anne Marie's in the live production scene.

[Pen Holderness]

Let's go. Say what's up, Anne Marie?

[Kim Holderness]

Hello. Hello.

[Pen Holderness]

There she is. How'd you like, Greg?

[Kim Holderness]

Oh, I really liked it. And my kids are like, they're not quite at the level, the crazy level. But it felt encouraging to me that they play multiple sports and sometimes those sports help influence each other. Exactly. I'm doing all the right things. Check the box for me. Check the box. Go, mom. Our podcast is hosted by acast. As always, we love to hear from you. Please write to us at podcastheholdernessfamily.com or leave a voicemail at 323-364-3929 and we will talk to you soon on the Laughline.

[Greg Olsen]

Bye.

[Kim Holderness]

If this back to school season talking to your teenager sounds like this.

[Pen Holderness]

With.

[Kim Holderness]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Greg Olsen]

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[Pen Holderness]

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[Kim Holderness]

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