← Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
Youth Inc. with Greg Olsen
BONUS: What Alec Ingold & JJ Jansen Wish Every Youth Coach & Parent Knew
00:16:53
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to another episode of you Think. Today we have a couple new guests, a couple new faces. One that's a youth baseball coach in the Charlotte area that isn't Greg olson. We got J.J. jansen alongside myself, Alec Ingold. We are stepping in today for Greg Olson just to acknowledge kind of his situation and to put it in perspective. As we talk youth sports, we talk about life lessons. Greg is dealing with a tough family situation right now and we're all aware that sports are important and one of the best life teachers. But as he is, you know, taking care of his family, what matters to him most, you need some teammates to step in every once in a while and help continue to pave the way. So with that being said, jj, welcome to you think, my man.
- [00:43]
B
I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Alec. I want to say the same thing, like we love Greg to death. Has been a good friend of mine for, shoot, almost 15 years. Know the family and what is, what has happened over the last year and obviously in the last week or so is just awful. So our thoughts and prayers are with them and their family. Happy to help out, step in for him. You know, I don't know Greg to not work just relentlessly. So I feel honored that we get a chance to let him have a little bit of break because he works so hard for everybody else and tireless. So I'm happy that we can help.
- [01:39]
A
Yeah, man. I mean he's such a trailblazer in the space, even the youth Inc. Platform, the way he's shining a spotlight in youth sports, in coaching his kids, baseball teams, football teams, like we all get to see it on such a big platform and such a big stage. The way that he works and does everything he does allows for us to kind of have a North Star, find our purpose and try and transition after our playing days are over, to be great parents and great teachers, great mentors. And he's doing it as good as anybody. I'm wondering, J.J. what's, what's one of the lessons that you've learned from Greg being around him the last 15 years? That, that kind of puts that life thing into perspective.
- [02:17]
B
You know, one of the first things he ever kind of said in front of me as, as coaches, we were, we were coaching our kids nine year old baseball team. It was fall, it was maybe the first or second tournament that we'd ever coached together. Certainly had been teammates for a decade. And so we talked plenty of football. We had never talked teams and building and, and those sorts of things. And I remember him just very clearly kind of describing as a coach and as a. And I think this applies to parenting. Finding a role that all of our 12 kids at the time could succeed in. Some of them were really big roles, right. Instantly, you're the star pitcher, you're the shortstop, some of you are the three hole hitter. But maybe that kid at the bottom of the roster, maybe that kid who still needed a lot of development, trying to find a role for him every game, every weekend that they could succeed in, whether that was a pinch running role or a defensive position, where when they walked into that game, whether they were a substitute or started the game, they, if they excelled at that, they would feel like, wow, I, I accomplished something for my team today. And then we always talked about growing roles from there. So maybe you hit 10th in a batting order and you played left field, but once you were able to sort of accomplish that and succeed there, well, now maybe there's another spot for you to expand into because you always have the confidence. Well, I know I'm good at this other stuff that I've already kind of started at. And I just learned his dad, obviously hall of Fame coach in New Jersey. 40 years of coaching high school football and developing programs. I just thought, man, what great perspective. As I'm just kind of starting my coaching journey. This was five years ago just to understand the value of building kids and adults up in ways where they have some success first and then as you want to grow, building from there. I just thought that was so, so important. It was the first thing that he really taught me. He was probably just mumbling to himself about finding a role for a kid. And I thought, this is perfect. This is dead on. Great way to look at things.
- [04:25]
A
Yeah. I mean, and we talk about being in the dichotomy of currently finding our roles. Right. And they're kind of pretty defined. We're specialists in the football field. Fullback is a very defined role. Long snapper, very defined role. Both we can excel in it. Right. So I'm wondering, as a piece of advice for coaches looking to articulate expectations or roles to their team, what are some advice that you could give some coaches listening in that might be able to help them articulate to parents and athletes roles how to grow in them and how to kind of embody this philosophy?
- [04:58]
B
Yeah, I think the idea of playing time and roles and place on the team is really complicated. Where Greg and I were together, it's pretty high level travel, baseball, and at times it's really intense and winning is really important. Even at a young age. And then you're like, well, the kids are still 13 years old, so there's so much development. But the parents care deeply about it. And, you know, I had. I had heard when we had first kind of got into coaching, hey, there were teams that, like, the kids talk to the play or talk to the coaches, only I know I don't talk to parents. And I was like, that's so crazy. I've had an agent for 18 years. Like, the parents are the best agent, right? So, you know, when we're working together, the parents are involved in every single conversation that we have. At the end of practice, they're within listening distance. Certainly if they've got a question, they should bring it up with us or even in the team breakdown. Now, that happens rarely. They usually have a tremendous amount of respect for what we're doing, and so they. They keep their distance and maybe a phone call later. But I think with that also comes levels of communication. A. As coaches, I think our responsibility is to be the leaders in the communication space. So whether that's communicating with a kid, usually almost always with a parent as well, especially in tough situations, but even in. But even in positive ones where maybe, maybe a kid was the mvp, still communicating with the parents, with their family, just in terms of where we see things going. And the hard conversations are hard, as always. But I always think being able to be honest about where your kid stands in terms of strengths, weaknesses, role on the team and position, I think you start there, but I've always found. And Alec, I'm sure you have felt this way about coaches you've had in the past. Some of my most important sports moments were when coaches were able to cast vision for me that I didn't have for myself. They could see beyond the next week or year and could maybe see what my future was. And so we do our very best to cast vision. This is where I see your son going. I know Greg coaches a lot with. With his girl, with his daughter, Talbot's basketball team. This is where your daughter is going. This is what I. I think is in front of them. So trying to do our best to always be communicating current role and also future possibilities, future expectations. And so you kind of know, look, everyone wants to be on a path, right? Everyone wants to know that what they're doing today is leading to something tomorrow. And so trying to do your very best to be able to cast that vision for young people, I think is a really important part of the job.
- [07:33]
A
One of my favorite videos I've seen on social media recently is mothers as an intro to the women's basketball team and they're like doing their handshakes with their daughters and the caption being like, if you don't find a role for your parents, like they're going to find one for themselves. Right. And it's like including that communication and continuing it whether it's easy or hard. And casting vision is such a great tip. I want to flip this coin though, as a parent, because you're wearing all the different hats, right? As an athlete, a coach and a youth parent. What roles do you like to see yourself do as a parent and which ones are you staying away from?
- [08:06]
B
Well, I don't know if I've stayed away from any of the roles. I think I've thrown myself into our family. Maybe I'm not the team mom. My wife certainly is a team mom for some of our sports. You're trying to help out coaching in places where you're not necessarily the coach. How, how can I help? You know, the biggest thing that I've seen as a parent is I want to be involved in all of my kids teams as much as possible because it's also the opportunity to positively impact their teammates. Whether it's my sons or my daughters. I want to get to know who they are working with, whether it's sports. Maybe it's in a musical or something at school. I want my kids to be around great human beings and kids that are aspirational and are confident and are positive and are great again, great teammates and friends. And so I'm constantly trying to involve myself maybe a little bit more than I should, but I want to be around my kids friends and be a part of that. So sometimes that involves picking up a ball, picking up a bat. Other times it's trying to see if we can't have the whole team over for pizza and you know, a team party. We want to be positively around the kids and their parents. Right. You're trying to. Who are the crazy parents? Who do we got to sniff out here a little bit and just be part of the community, part of the team in any way. I love all of it. You know, sometimes you got to be your own kid's agent and you've got to get in there and say, hey, something's gone on wrong with my kid and you need to step in as a parent. But 95% of the time, if something's going on with one of my kids, it's a lot of coaching that child to go be their own best advocate. So, you know, I have. I have a son as young as 7 years old. He's certainly not advocating for himself anytime soon, but my 11 and 13 year old are more capable of it. And so trying to just keep building them up as they're dealing with the highs and lows of competitive athletics and competitive, you know, musicals and plays at school, all those things, I think run in the same orbit.
- [10:12]
A
Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine the ability to be cool dad, like, current active NFL player like, you want. Y' all want to come to the game? We got two extra tickets. Or come over for a pizza party. Like, you get to play that card every now and then. But then as dad, too, like, you get to live out the lessons that you're trying to provide to your teams, to your kids. What are some of those lessons more recently that you love providing that you've kind of had to learn yourself, that. That you get to pay forward in real time?
- [10:38]
B
You know, I think there's nothing new under the sun. And so the lessons that I've learned as a player is really what I'm sort of impressing upon my children. The. The tough times that I've had. You know, five years ago, I was, I thought, coming off of one of my very best seasons in my career, and in the same off season, I got offered about as bad of a contract as you possibly could, and they drafted a kid at my replacement and threw it all over social media, which felt like an additional gut punch. And that was a really hard time in my career. And I actually remember thinking to myself, how cool will all of this be if I'm sort of able to survive it? You know, early in my career, I worked with a sports psychologist that always used to say, survive to thrive. And I felt like I was fully in that environment, and I did. I was able to come out the other side. But even if I hadn't, there were so many great learning lessons in those tough, really 18 months that we use all the time with our kids. And, you know, my son, again, is playing baseball. It's really competitive, and there's a lot of kids showing up at his position, at other positions he wants to play. And I'm continuing to encourage him to keep competing as hard as he can. Be an unbelievable teammate. Own your role, right? His role has changed. It's hard on when. When we first started at nine years old, he hit second in the order. He was. He was playing every inning in the field. Like, he was kind of in the middle of all the action. And as our team has Gotten better, which everyone wants. Those opportunities are a little bit less. Not because he's gotten any worse, but because the kids around us have gotten really, really good and they're his friends and he wants them to succeed, but also was like, man, I want to play a ton, ton more. So, you know, impressing upon him for thrive in your role, keep getting better. I think that's the toughest part, is the thing that survived or allowed me to survive a really tough time in my career is thankfully I'd already made the decision. I was going to see how good I could get at my craft and didn't, you know, thank God I had already made that decision. And then all this bad stuff career wise happened. I didn't have to react to, okay, now there's someone at my position. Now I'm going to like, try harder. Thankfully, I had already kind of made one more big step in my career. So whether it's my son, whether it's my daughter, my daughter's gone out. She's not as big of an athlete. She goes out for every play, every musical and she's really, really good at it and she's really talented, but she doesn't get the top role that she wants. And that's hard. And I'm so thankful she's. Kids don't always listen to everything you say, but my kids, I thankfully have listened to this particular piece of advice and she had a role two weeks ago where she was just outstanding and, and then came home and told me how great she thought everybody else did. And I was like, man, for one day out of the year, I feel like I nailed parenting. That, that's, that's the way it goes. But just trying to impart my wisdom from my career, from my wife's playing career. She was a high level athlete and just kind of keep building into their experiences.
- [13:47]
A
I love that I'm as we're wrapping up, going to get a little deep here. Hope you can, you can stick with me on this one. We talk about the lessons that you've been able to instill into your kids. I want to understand what's one lesson you've learned from your kids that you get to apply that's fulfilling for you as a coach, as a parent, as an athlete. Like, what's, what's one lesson that you've learned from your kids going through this process?
- [14:14]
B
Man, that's a great question. Because I'm always in the role of teacher that I'm probably not as good as I should be in the, in the role of learner. I think I probably understood this better when I was a kid and less as an athlete. Like, one of the things that I'm never like, a huge fan of in pro sports is, like, when you get into a huddle and you're like, hey, we're going to break it down on family, right? Because you and I both know it's not really a family. Like, we're brothers today, but you might be against me next week. Like, that's kind of. And so you get a little numb to the beauty of what a team is. And then as I've talked to teammates like Greg, like Gluk Keakley, like some of my very best friends out that have retired and moved on, they all say, like, I miss the family. I miss the group of guys, shared experiences, blood, sweat and tears. And when I talk to my kids, they all look back at the seasons that they've just played and they remember all the things you should remember about sports, which is the pizza parties, the trips to the game. My son hasn't once ever wanted to drive from one location to the other in my car. He wants to jump in with somebody else's car and talk to their kids or vice versa. It's like, hey, I don't want to just ride to the game with you, dad. Let's bring four teammates and let's all get like, the rides to the game, right? And so I think sometimes when you're in it, you forget that that's really the beauty of sports. We want to win. It's super competitive. Let's see how good we can get. But it is the shared experiences and it's the hard work and all of those things because those are where the memories are made. And I'm often reminded when you know what was your favorite part about this season? And it's nothing to do with the sport that was played or any competition in any way. It's just, it's the time with friends.
- [16:04]
A
I love it. Appreciate the time. Jj, I'm glad we could step in for our guy, Greg. We have our thoughts and prayers out to him and there any last parting words that you want to give the listeners or anything you want to say?
- [16:14]
B
Alec, it has been such a good time. I am so thankful that we got to do this. Our boys, our boy is going through a lot and I'm glad we were able to step in. It kills me to say so many nice words about him. Like, he's taught me so much. I, I, I'm a little uncomfortable being so kind, but thoughts of prayers with him and Alec, you nailed it. It was. It was great. So much fun.
- [16:40]
A
Awesome. Appreciate you. Appreciate the time. And until next.