Transcript
A (0:00)
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode here on you think. Really good episode. Really excited for this conversation today. 11 year NBA basketball player, national champ at the University of Kentucky, played under Rick Pitino. Just an unbelievable playing career, but a lot of what we're going to focus in on today is his work after his playing career. Derek Anderson, Youth sports in America are at a crossroads and I'm here to help lead the conversation. Forward. I'm Greg Olson. Each week we're sitting down with top athletes, coaches and more to talk about what's working, what's broken and what's next. Welcome to you think.
B (0:37)
Welcome back to you think. I'm Greg's producer, Mikey. Let's get into it. Last week, UCLA women's basketball won the national championship with every single point scored by seniors. One of them was Gabriela Jacques, who just got drafted in last night's WNBA draft at Chicago Sky. She's Jaime Haquez's younger sister. Our lacrosse ambassador, Jenny Levy, head coach of UNC women's lacrosse, talks about how she mostly recruits younger siblings. As a younger brother yourself, Greg, do you think the younger siblings have an advantage or not?
A (1:05)
I think she's, she's spot on. I, I, I think coaches have been under, have understood the value of the little sibling, whether it's younger brother, younger sister. For a really long time now there, there's something about being the low man on the totem pole, the low woman on the totem pole within your own household that really brings out this competitive spirit, right? You're fighting for everything from not being picked last in the driveway basketball game or in the flag football game, or you're the one that, you know, has to be sent up to get a bag of chips when everyone's in the basement. You know, you're fighting for the last dinner roll. Like there's just the element of being, trying to keep up with the older kids, keep up with the older crowd. That brings out a toughness, it brings out a resiliency and a grit. And we see that all across the sports landscape. We see it with, you know, younger sisters, we see it with younger brothers of brothers, younger brothers of older sisters. I mean, really, every part of the formula works and it's, it's amazing just what that environment can bring out in the right kid. And yeah, if I was, if, I mean, I do it now coaching these youth teams. You know, we have, we have a couple kids, we've been doing it long enough now at school, there's a couple kids that will coach this year that will be rising. Seventh graders and their older brothers are now, you know, 10th graders or ninth graders that I coached two, three years ago. I'm like, oh, you're, you know, you're Johnny's little brother. You're good. I want you on my team like so that we, we do it at the younger ages. So it makes total sense that colleges put a lot of value in that. Really excited for this conversation today. 11 year NBA basketball player, national champ at the university in Kentucky, played under Rick Pitino. Just an unbelievable playing career. But a lot of what we're going to focus in on today is his work after his playing career. Derek Anderson, a lot of work as a wellness counselor with the NBA Players Association. A lot of incredible work that he's done around mental health and just helping players post career, during their career get the support that they need. So Derek, really appreciate you jumping on and joining us to discuss all that and more here on Youthink.
